Suncoralsdirect order- My experience

[Coralsdaily]

A Shipping Disaster: Sun Coral Order Unboxing and Review

Hello Everyone, Steven here! Thanks for joining me again. In today’s chat I will be going over my recent experience ordering from Suncoralsdirect.com. If you’d prefer to skip the reading and get to see my unboxing and the coral, please feel free to click the video below:


Last week Suncoralsdirect.com ran a 35% discount promotion. I have been following this website for some time. I’ve always loved sun corals. They are both beautiful and expensive. So I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to get my hands on them. I’ve decided to order a “large” colony with 25+ heads on. Based on my previous retail experience I was expecting something around 3″ square size… I was wrong. But that’s not the worst part of it all.

Illustration of a “large” colony on Suncoralsdirect’s website

So I placed the order last Thursday. They would have not shipped it over the weekend which I completely understand. The coral was eventually shipped this Tuesday. And then I waited, and waited, and waited. The coral spend five days and four nights on the road. Arriving my house on Saturday!

When I received the box, I see that Suncoralsdirect had used USPS 2 day shipping (face palm). Really? Who uses USPS to ship livestock? Now I understand being non-photosynthetic Sun corals may be able to survive better in shipping bags longer than other photosynthetic corals. But five days on the road?

That’s not even the best part yet- When I opened the box, the coral bad was sitting in a pile of newspapers. No styrofoam box, no thermal insulation of any sort, and no heatpack. I want to remind everyone this is November now in Wisconsin and the night time temperature was below freezing while the box sits in the USPS distribution center.

Here is an email conversation I had with the Suncoralsdirect people:

Now I have nothing against Suncoralsdirect and the product. I don’t think the corals are bad (aside from being smaller than expected). But I definitely disagree with the use of USPS 2 day shipping (which turned into five day) to deliver livestock. I might be wrong here with my expectation. If you think this is a completely OK practice and nothing out of ordinary, please feel free to comment and share your thoughts/experiences.

Fortunately Suncoralsdirect does have 14 day arrive live and stay alive guarantee policy. It has been over 24 hours since the coral was acclimated into my tank. For the past 20 hours the coral appeared to be just a pink skeleton with no flesh or polyps showing. Finally this afternoon after 24+ hours the coral seemed to have “inflated” somewhat, but still no polyp extension. I am hoping a miracle happens that this coral stays alive.

For now though, I would say order from Suncoralsdirect as your own risk- the corals may be nice (I haven’t witnessed it yet), there is a 14 day guarantee policy (nice but still not fair to the creature), but a very ****** logistic situation for an ecommerce.

What do you think? Have you ordered from them and how was your experience? Please share and discuss!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Unfortunately, per rules, this is between you and the vendor. There is much I can say but will not. Hope you both work it out amicably

 

[Coralsdaily]

Unfortunately, per rules, this is between you and the vendor. There is much I can say but will not. Hope you both work it out amicably

Oh I completely understand. One of my objectives here is to hear everyone's perspective on 1) Is it acceptible to ship livestock on USPS 2 day shipping? 2) Shipping things without thermal layer and 3) Any education on whether the normal rules of overnight shipping is exempt when it comes to sun corals? it is the first time I've ordered sun corals online so I am really trying to gather knowledge on this topic.

 

[Thaxxx]

You can start a new thread in another section to get some responses about shipping sun corals. But the vendor section is between the OP and the vendor to post in.

 

[Coralsdaily]

You can start a new thread in another section to get some responses about shipping sun corals. But the vendor section is between the OP and the vendor to post in.

What if I wanted this to be a vendor review post to help bring awareness?

 

[celebrityovernight]

What if I wanted this to be a vendor review post to help bring awareness?

Can only be positive review.

 

[wonroc]

How did you attempt to feed a coral which was fully retracted?

 

[Thaxxx]

What if I wanted this to be a vendor review post to help bring awareness?

That's fine but....
You then go on to ask for " everyone's perspective "
Not allowed in this section.
This section is for you and the vendor if they choose to participate.

 

[Coralsdaily]

Can only be positive review.

I agree with you. I think there is something wrong with the moderation of this board- So far I've seen that if the 3rd party comments are positive/neutral that they are allowed, but if the 3rd party happens to chime in and express any negative sentiments against the vendor's practices or their own experiences with the vendor, it gets removed. This is double standard and should really be reconsidered. I will surface this to the admin of the website for further consideration on this policy.

 

[Coralsdaily]

How did you attempt to feed a coral which was fully retracted?

I placed the coral in it's own container and drowned each head with a pre-mixed solution of instant plankton. I am not 100% confident they actually ate any, but I am trying to condition them into knowing that is the signal for feeding. It is now day 4 for the corals in my tank and I am finally seeing some of the coral polyps reluctantly (not fully) extending. So the update to this thread is that the coral seemed to have made it and is alive for now. I still don't like the mental stress worrying for it when the shipment experienced the severe delay.

 

[Coralsdaily]

Oh, and since Suncoralsdirect has not jumped in to comment, or reached out to me, I don't see how this thread can be considered between the vendor and me....
Just to re-empahsize my point of view in this section:
1) Allowing members to share their ordering experiences to help educate other members of certain vendor's practices, and other members should be allowed to interact with the OP to inquire for further information/explanation.
2) Allowing other members to also chime in with their prior experience, let it be + or - to either illustrate any case is a unique case, or an on-going trend/issue with any particular vendor.

Silencing other members from participating in the discussion is not going to be helpful for the community to grow strong and help keep vendors in check with their quality of services.