Fish By Post - Who'd Have Thought

Perhaps everyone except me already knew about this but I only recently discovered you can order tropical fish on line. I was a little uncertain about how safe this process would be but I ordered three dwarf rainbow gouramis (and one assassin snail, just to find out what they're like). I had to designate a day for delivery so it took 9 working days but I could have had them a bit sooner if I'd been available.

They came via ANC Overnight in a huge box; practically the size of a small aquarium... the gouramis were in one plastic bag and the snail in another, with a third bag to fill up the space. These bags were big compared to what you come home from the fish shop with and had 2-3 litres of water in. There was plenty of packing around all this, interspersed with half a dozen disposable heat pads - which are still warm now, 4 hours after I opened the box.

After following the usual procedures I released the fish into my aquarium and they seem fine - certainly not injured or anything, and as active as you'd expect after what must have been a stressful 24 hours. So, no complaints so far - except that for my very small order, the delivery charge was more than the fish (but there were no stores near me that had dwarf rainbow gouramis for sale anyway).

Ordering fish online is pretty common! A fair amount of fishkeepers are skeptical of this, of course, but it's very safe and reliable when your supplier is reliable. This video by Girl Talks Fish walks you through how she packages orders.

PlasticGalaxy said:

Ordering fish online is pretty common!

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I'm finding out new stuff all the time as I get into this hobby. As for whether online ordering works for me, we'll have to see how my new gouramis are doing after a few days. They're being pretty timid at the moment, hiding at the back in the shadows as you'd expect...

justinhill said:

I'm finding out new stuff all the time as I get into this hobby. As for whether online ordering works for me, we'll have to see how my new gouramis are doing after a few days. They're being pretty timid at the moment, hiding at the back in the shadows as you'd expect...

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I wish you the best! Keep us updated if anything comes up!

haha ik, buying fish online, shipping is, like, aways $30 usd

Unicornblast5000 said:

haha ik, buying fish online, shipping is, like, aways $30 usd

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yeah, and when you get more than $100 worth of supplies the shipping is no more but that is far too many to take care of all at once....

I just ordered 2m/2f Apistogramma Cacatouides "Orange Flash" and the shipping was $20 USD. Easily worth it as these fish are hard to come buy and I intend to breed them for profit - so quality fish are worth paying for (and these ones are GORGEOUS).

I'm so glad your experience was a successful one!

kribensis12 said:

I'm so glad your experience was a successful one!

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Well like I said time will tell. Since I opened this thread, two of the new gouramis have brightened up and made themselves at home but the third is just sitting on the bottom crammed into a corner. Hopefully tomorrow it will have cheered up - I can't see any visible injury, swelling or anything untoward but it certainly isn't very happy.