Buying Fish Online

[mopedman]

I was curious as to what the process of buying fish online is? What is a good site? How are the fish shipped? What happens if they arrive dead? All those type of questions. Thanks

 

[KraKen]

I've been wondering the same thing, it would be nice if someone could make a FAQ topic on this.

 

[Hero]

Also wondering the same thing here too.

 

[dthoffsett]

I was curious as to what the process of buying fish online is? What is a good site? How are the fish shipped? What happens if they arrive dead? All those type of questions. Thanks

It really depends on the site. Some sites ship FedEx or UPS, others will only ship through major airports where you have to meet the plane to pick up your shipment.

Most places will only guarantee live arrival if the fish are shipped overnight, and they all have different policies of how to report dead arrivals. Though the most common is to take a picture of the dead fish in the bag and then report it to the site within 2 hours of arrival.

Almost all of them won't guarantee live arrival if you aren't there to sign for the fish when they arrive. Some places will even give you credit if the fish dies in 24-48 hours, but only if you follow their acclimation procedure (although how they prove you didn't is beyond me).

As far as good sites, here in the US www.liveaquaria.com and www.petsolutions.com are both really good. Not sure about UK sites.

Also, don't be surprised at how high the shipping costs are, it's expensive to ship overnight, the nice thing is that the fish prices are generally cheaper than in the LFS to compensate.

Here's the policy for Pet Solutions - [URL="http/www.petsolutions.com/Article.aspx?id=7"]http/www.petsolutions.com/Article.aspx?id=7[/URL]
And, here's the one for Live Aquaria - [URL="http/www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=28&ref=3319&subref=AE"]http/www.liveaquaria.com/general/general...9&subref=AE[/URL]

Hope that answers some of your questions. -Dawn

 

[Meds081603]

here is a thread i made about my experience buying online

 

[darkwolf29a]

Buying from aquabid or ebay is a bit different, but not much.

Usually the seller has statement that you have an hour or so after arrival to shoot them an email with pictures of any DOAs.

Honestly, I have yet to receive any DOAs. I did have some guppies that only lived a couple of weeks though.

And of course, the process for buying from overseas differs a bit as well, since everything goes through a transhipper. The auqbid cost from the overseas guy is cheap, but the shipping cost can run you about $40.