Review on my initial Saltwaterfish.com and reefs2go.com orders

[kailuahoosier]

First off I want to preface by saying I am a liveaquaria and bluezooaquatics guy and before that I loved flyingfishexpress. I decided with my next few orders I would be trying out multiple other online shops to see which one could compete/possibly beat liveaquaria or bluezoo. I figured that the doa rate with liveaquaria based on my past 10 orders was roughly <10% and bluezoo was very close to that figure as well. The mortality rate within the first 2 weeks for these 2 shops was probably around the 10% mark as well. I will throw some quite specific details of my order at saltwaterfish, doa rate, mortality rate, customer service, etc. I also have an order from reef2go.com coming tomorrow as well which I will also update with the same level of details. (BTW The parameters are all great before arrival, I have no bias towards any vendor, I just thought it would be helpful for those of you deciding on where to buy livestock.)

Saltwaterfish.com

Order placed on December 15th
Shipped on December 18th (I asked for a delay to my shipment due to schedule conflict)
Arrived on December 19th at the FedEx facility (they would not allow a delivery to my house due to the winter weather +1)

The order:

Item	# Bought	Arrived Alive	Lived for >7 days	Rating
Red Leg Hermit Crab- Mexico	20	16	16 ?	C
There was a large number of empty shells, not just with this item but with the cerith too
Bubble Tip Anemone	1	1	1	A
This guy looked great from the get go and still looks great, he opened up right away and hosted the clowns within an hour
Pistol Shrimp - Randalli	1	1	1	A
This guy arrived great, still is doing great
Shrimpgoby - Yellow Watchman	1	1	1	A
Likewise, he is in great shape, a good size for a ywg
Mandarin Dragonet - Green -	1	1	0	D-
This little guy didn’t look that great from the get go. He was skinny and didn’t eat any of my live pods at all. He died after a week, I assume he starved as I never saw him eat.
Nassarius Snail - Group of 10	20	22	22?	A+
Great shipment of Nassarius
Turbo/Astrea Snail - Group of 10 -	20	20	20?	A
Great shipment of Turbos
Cerith Snail - Group of 10	20	12	12?	D
This shipment was lacking a number of live snails, they had a number of empty shells.
Peppermint Shrimp -	2	2	1	B
These guys looked great from the get go. 1 was very large for a peppermint and the other was very small. The very small guy died within 24 hours.
Flame Angel	1	1	0	F
This guy arrived weak, stressed out and had an abcess of some sort on his gill. He died within 12 hours.
ORA False Percula Clownfish - Aquacultured	2	2	2	A+
These guys are possibly the best clowns I’ve ever owned in regards to quality. They ate right away, hosted the anemone right away and look great.
Scooter Blenny	1	1	1	A+
This one sort of shocked me. He arrived perfect, he ate right away with frozen foods, I’ve seen him eat pods as well. Best scooter ive owned so far.
Sand Sifting Starfish	1	1	1	A
Arrived well, large size, still in great shape and moves quite a bit.
All in all I thought the experience was adequate. I felt the customer service started off great, the prices are definitely competitive and the quality was hit or miss. I would give them a B overall and would suggest getting hardier fish from saltwaterfish.com for now. I am awaiting a credit for the doa and 14 day window deaths, I will update when that comes through as well.

Now for my order from reefs2go.com which is on its way and will arrive tomorrow, I will update this as it arrives and in a weeks time too.

Item	# Bought	Arrived Alive	Lived for >7 days	Rating
Green Coral Goby Fish	1
Black Ray Shrimp Goby	1
Green Pistol Shrimp	2
Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp	1
Starter Refugium Pack	1
Orange Sun Coral	1
False Perculas	2
Scopas Tang	1
Feather Duster	1
Copepods	250
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[Dave A]

Well?