Buying plants online

So I have a 120 gallon (2'x4'x2'; LxWxH) that I will be re-scaping basically from scratch. The tank currently has some small gravel with an assortment of very small (under 3") green wendtii crypts.

The substrate will be replaced with Red Flint sand, medium grit. I will be moving my eels, two BN plecos, and a royal pleco from the 125 to this tank as well as moving the royal farlowella, two whiptail and one red lizard catfish back as they were originally from the 120 that i an redoing (see my post on slimmed down fish room to know what happened to the 120).

My plecos eat swords so I would like to get an assortment of crypts for this tank. I would love some bulb plants but I had a BN that ate bulbs in the past (RIP Ghost) so I will just stick with an assortment of crypts.

Due to the burrowing nature for my eels (8"-18" in size, 3 species) I will not be adding root tabs, which is OK as crypts can feed from the water as well as roots.

I have not purchased plants online in a long time. I used to love plantedaquariuncentral.com, but they don't exist anymore. I have purchased off buceplants.com but my last purchase was entirely wrong and they sent it in February with no heat pack so everything froze. Also they have a hard time keeping anything in stock.

Anyone know of a good, or some good online sellers for crypts? Was looking for some balansae, usteriana, wendtii red, pontederiifolia and retrospirallis.

Also anyone used AquariumPlants.com? When I bought plants years ago-prior to 2019, they were a bad seller often never sending out plants you paid for but there reviews for the last couple years seem better.

Thanks for any help and suggestions.

​

I don't often order plants (or fish). However, my experience with Aquariumplants.com has been excellent (3 times in the past several years). I have ordered from a couple of other sites but prefer the former.

FranciscoB said:

I don't often order plants (or fish). However, my experience with Aquariumplants.com has been excellent (3 times in the past several years). I have ordered from a couple of other sites but prefer the former.

Click to expand...

Thank you, that is good to know as they have a lot of the crypts I am looking for in stock.

I'm also curious about what might be good sites to order from online, as my local pet store doesn't have a very large selection. I'm also kind of wondering about ordering plants in the cold months? I was advised not to do it on a few sites I was looking at. Boundava, I'd be curious to hear how your ordering experience goes. I probably won't be ordering anything for another month or 2.

I would urge you to give Buceplant another chance. I've ordered from them ten times or so, and they have never been anything but excellent. I've also had remarkably good luck with Ebay sellers. And there's this guy named @connorlindeman that I hear pretty good things about. Whomever you order from, make sure they're aware of the temperature issue. Most sellers don't want you getting bad stuff, so they'll either take precautions or tell you to wait. I appreciate both.

TheFishWhisperer said:

I'm also curious about what might be good sites to order from online, as my local pet store doesn't have a very large selection. I'm also kind of wondering about ordering plants in the cold months? I was advised not to do it on a few sites I was looking at. Boundava, I'd be curious to hear how your ordering experience goes. I probably won't be ordering anything for another month or 2.

Click to expand...

They have an option to add a heat pack when shipping, will be using that if/when I purchase from them. Looking at some ebay sellers too...but the prices and selection at aquariumplants.com are the best so far.

So I placed my (large) order. I will wait and see if they will respond to my delivery request. Having it shipped 2nd day to my Sister's work so its not sitting outside and asked if they could ship so its not delivered on a weekend as the office is open but with limited staff (Sis not included).
If interested I got the following crypts and the hornwort for my box turtle's enclosure that has a water side which I will also be revamping in the next week/month. She can eat it and the guppies/endlers and shrimp I am planning on adding to the enclosure can hide/eat in it too.

The ebay sites were more expensive and didn't offer 2nd day shipping at a reasonable rate.

Tom 90% of what I was looking for was sold out at BucePlants. It was a bit frustrating not being able to find what I wanted.
If you see the greenery in the tanks is a bunch on c. wendtii that have stayed squat due to either the high lighting of the lotus that went dormant. I don't believe it was the lotus as if you remember the 75 I had set up with multiple lotus and crypts (wendtii and others) they grew into beasts of plants. Yes I had CO2 set up but everything thrived prior to the CO2.

Here is the 120 I am talking about, it had a huge die off and I am going to try to make making lemon chiffon from the lemons I was given.

Boundava said:

So I have a 120 gallon (2'x4'x2'; LxWxH) that I will be re-scaping basically from scratch. The tank currently has some small gravel with an assortment of very small (under 3") green wendtii crypts.

The substrate will be replaced with Red Flint sand, medium grit. I will be moving my eels, two BN plecos, and a royal pleco from the 125 to this tank as well as moving the royal farlowella, two whiptail and one red lizard catfish back as they were originally from the 120 that i an redoing (see my post on slimmed down fish room to know what happened to the 120).

My plecos eat swords so I would like to get an assortment of crypts for this tank. I would love some bulb plants but I had a BN that ate bulbs in the past (RIP Ghost) so I will just stick with an assortment of crypts.

Due to the burrowing nature for my eels (8"-18" in size, 3 species) I will not be adding root tabs, which is OK as crypts can feed from the water as well as roots.

I have not purchased plants online in a long time. I used to love plantedaquariuncentral.com, but they don't exist anymore. I have purchased off buceplants.com but my last purchase was entirely wrong and they sent it in February with no heat pack so everything froze. Also they have a hard time keeping anything in stock.

Anyone know of a good, or some good online sellers for crypts? Was looking for some balansae, usteriana, wendtii red, pontederiifolia and retrospirallis.

Also anyone used AquariumPlants.com? When I bought plants years ago-prior to 2019, they were a bad seller often never sending out plants you paid for but there reviews for the last couple years seem better.

Thanks for any help and suggestions.

​

Click to expand...

I'm new back to the hobby as an adult, cycling my first tank on my own. I like the idea of supporting other hobbyist keepers so I turned to Etsy. GreatWaveAquatics sent me beautiful plants with amazing root systems. They kept in touch in the message center the whole time and let me know they would replace anything that didn't make it. They are in Ohio. I'm in Idaho and everything arrived fine two weeks ago. Literally 3 strands of duck weed decided to hitchhike in the marsilea, could pick them out but I don't mind them. Don't know if it's considered "risky" as they were not from a "big" shop but I have beautiful plants, didn't have to deal with melt, and I didn't have to drive an hour to shop for them. GWA even had his apistos breed for the first time... fingers crossed I'll be purchasing a few in the spring!

So I would not recommend aquariumplants.com. I paid for a second day shipping when I placed the order earlier in the week on the 8th hoping I would have it delivered by Friday.
Other than the initial order confirmation I have not received any tracking information or any plants.

I had sent an email asking for ETA with no response. I also called the number on the website and left a message for ETA and to confirm shipping to work address and got a curt callback stating he has the address but nothing on ETA. Due to the weather (snowmageton and single digits next week) I sent an email yesterday telling him to cancel my order and refund me as I don't feel not is the best time to ship as he hasn't sent them yet. Again no response...so this morning I called and left another message stating the same and again asking for a response. Will see what happens. Next recourse is to set up payment dispute.

Now with the arctic cold coming in, I will have to look locally for any plants or wait until the weather improves for shipping.

Super disappointed and would not recommend this site.

Boundava said:

So I have a 120 gallon (2'x4'x2'; LxWxH) that I will be re-scaping basically from scratch. The tank currently has some small gravel with an assortment of very small (under 3") green wendtii crypts.

The substrate will be replaced with Red Flint sand, medium grit. I will be moving my eels, two BN plecos, and a royal pleco from the 125 to this tank as well as moving the royal farlowella, two whiptail and one red lizard catfish back as they were originally from the 120 that i an redoing (see my post on slimmed down fish room to know what happened to the 120).

My plecos eat swords so I would like to get an assortment of crypts for this tank. I would love some bulb plants but I had a BN that ate bulbs in the past (RIP Ghost) so I will just stick with an assortment of crypts.

Due to the burrowing nature for my eels (8"-18" in size, 3 species) I will not be adding root tabs, which is OK as crypts can feed from the water as well as roots.

I have not purchased plants online in a long time. I used to love plantedaquariuncentral.com, but they don't exist anymore. I have purchased off buceplants.com but my last purchase was entirely wrong and they sent it in February with no heat pack so everything froze. Also they have a hard time keeping anything in stock.

Anyone know of a good, or some good online sellers for crypts? Was looking for some balansae, usteriana, wendtii red, pontederiifolia and retrospirallis.

Also anyone used AquariumPlants.com? When I bought plants years ago-prior to 2019, they were a bad seller often never sending out plants you paid for but there reviews for the last couple years seem better.

Thanks for any help and suggestions.

​

Click to expand...

First winter is always a bad time to mail order plants; so take it with a grain of salt if you order before spring. In the past year I've used aquariumplants.com for 3 large orders; and the plants were excellent the first two time 'cept they were contained duckweed in the vals (i HATE duckweed); the third order was less satisfactory but there wasn't a problem per sey just that the first two were so much better. These were all larger orders around $150-$200 (10x4,8x4,6x2,4x4 take a lot of plants; dimensions in feet).

I placed one order from buce plants recently and it was actually a lot better than the previous times i used them 'cept their buces were small (which is the norm). I also placed an order to aquariumplantsfactory last week - the two previous time i used them i swore i would never use them again (all their anubia had rot and rotted away to nothing in a week); this time things went a lot better and actually i was very ok with the order with no complaints. aquariumplantsfactory is my go to place right now but if i want something specific that another store has (as was the case with buce and auqairumplantsfacotry then i'll give it a stab). These days i'm looking for plants that are less common which means places like dustinfishtank (nothing wrong with them just small selection) and marcusfishtank see less purchases. to be honest marcus hasn't been outstanding since the pandemic but they might be better now as i havne't used them in a couple of years - i used to love them 'cept their selection is very limited. The last time i used them they had canned stuff not home grown stuff (i.e, plants came in rock wool and basically looked imported). Before the pandemic their stuff was home grown and very very nice but again the selection is small.

i stopped using aquariumco-op for the same reason (poor selection). The best plant i gotten from them was PSO but quite frankly i'm not sure they sell anything i want these days (but their support is very good if you do use them). There are a coupel of sellers out of ny on ebay that i like a lot - the ones in california i always have bad luck and i think a lot of them are related. The last time i order purple aflame from the califonria seller and they sent normal flame sword plants - of course several years ago i order purple aflame from a california store and they sent melon swords; like i need more melons.

I'm not really giving the store names for ebay for various reasons - just look at the highest rated sellers with lots of reviews and pick the one from ny
-
There are other stores i've used but these are the ones that pop into my mind recently. Oh and my first choices are always hobist which sell on various forums. Here are a few plants i've picked up over the years - all are over 3 years old - none you will find a 'store':

Boundava said:

So I would not recommend aquariumplants.com. I paid for a second day shipping when I placed the order earlier in the week on the 8th hoping I would have it delivered by Friday.
Other than the initial order confirmation I have not received any tracking information or any plants.

I had sent an email asking for ETA with no response. I also called the number on the website and left a message for ETA and to confirm shipping to work address and got a curt callback stating he has the address but nothing on ETA. Due to the weather (snowmageton and single digits next week) I sent an email yesterday telling him to cancel my order and refund me as I don't feel not is the best time to ship as he hasn't sent them yet. Again no response...so this morning I called and left another message stating the same and again asking for a response. Will see what happens. Next recourse is to set up payment dispute.

Now with the arctic cold coming in, I will have to look locally for any plants or wait until the weather improves for shipping.

Super disappointed and would not recommend this site.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I have exactly the same experience with them.

Well they haven't changed as my 2nd day shipping is also "whenever the feel like filling and shipping the order, it will be 2 days from then"

Bugs the heck out of they don't respond to emails or my voicemail.

So I made the mistake of buying some plants from this eBay seller. I purchased the plants on February 3rd. I got notification and a tracking number on the 7th, and then nothing. It was parked in Texas until the 18th when it miraculously arrived in Libertyville and then the postal service delivered it, or try to to a business address on Sunday. Of course this business was not open to get the delivery and so the package went back to the post office to sit for the next business day which was not Monday because that was President's Day. Package was delivered today and I got some plant soup. This was supposed to be 6 c. balansae...






That same day I also purchased plants from Glass Aqua; 4 c. retrospirallis, 3 c. usteriana and 3 c. hudoroi and they arrived on the 7th in perfect condition and potted too. Strongly recommend them and will probably be going there for c. balansae if I don't find some at the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association swap this Sunday.

I purchased some plants from Sunken Treasure Aquatics on ebay. Not impressed. They charged for three day shipping, but sent regular UPS ground, after waiting a week to ship (and missing a warm-weather window). Plants arrived two weeks later, frozen solid. They promised to replace, but a month later I'm still waiting...

So I will reiterate: Only order ebay plants from sellers with MANY positive reviews. This person only had about three. Lesson re-learned.

WhistlingBadger said:

I purchased some plants from Sunken Treasure Aquatics on ebay. Not impressed. They charged for three day shipping, but sent regular UPS ground, after waiting a week to ship (and missing a warm-weather window). Plants arrived two weeks later, frozen solid. They promised to replace, but a month later I'm still waiting...

So I will reiterate: Only order ebay plants from sellers with MANY positive reviews. This person only had about three. Lesson re-learned.

Click to expand...

Open a claim with eBay, you will be refunded.

The seller I bought from had a 96% feedback. Never again.