Looking to purchase a fish from this site

[fuax]

Looking to purchase a fish from this site, I have never ordered a fish through the internet out of fear of poor quality and loosing my money, I have always purchased them from a lfs. Can anyone please give me some honest positive and or negative feedback about the livestock purchased from this site.
Thank you in advance for your help

 

[ophiura]

I've never done fish 'cause overall I don't really want anymore...maybe in the future. But the inverts I've received from here have a FAR higher survival rate than those I've bought from the local LFS. And the shipping and packing was outstanding.

 

[speg]

Here is my full opinion on this site - I've order from three online locations so far.. I ordered from here
1) Yellow tang
2) Skunk cleaner shrimp
3) Anemone crab
4) Florescent mushroom coral
5) Orange Ricordea Florida mushroom coral
6) Green ricordea florida mushroom coral
The package arrived and each thing was packaged by itself very tightly... which I didnt really approve of... but I spose they do that to reduce the weight of the package to reduce their shipping costs.
The only DOA (dead on arrival) I had was the cleaner shrimp.. which looked like it didnt make it 2 minutes into the shipping process... everything else was looking great. The ricordea I got was SO amazing... you have no idea. The green one sold as one polyp and they gave me TWO polyps on the same rock, each was big and I was able to cut them almost right away. The orange ric was way better than I imagined and the pic on this site doesnt do them ANY justice whatsoever. It was huge and had 3 mouths, it got fragged pretty quickly too =c)
The florescent mushroom coral said it would ship with 4+ polyps.. so I figured i'd get exactly 4 polyps.... it came with 12 mushrooms on it! :happy:
The anemone crab ended up dying a couple weeks down the line.. I cannot really blame SWF for that.. but the death is unexplained to me.
The yellow tang was in tip top condition, it took it about a week to eat.. but now I cant stop it from eating. The only problem I have with the fish is I would like to have ordered a small sized one.. but that option is not available.. you're stuck with whatever size they want to give you.
I contacted SWF about the DOA cleaner shrimp.. did all the correct things to let them know it died.. and it took them about 3 weeks before I got a return email... this I REALLY didnt like... there should have been a way for me to contact them better/faster than email and mail.
So in the end... it was more of a good shopping experience than a bad one. I was happy with most of my purchases and I do plan on making another just as soon as they get some stuff in!

 

[bret61081]

Originally Posted by Fuax
Looking to purchase a fish from this site, I have never ordered a fish through the internet out of fear of poor quality and loosing my money, I have always purchased them from a lfs. Can anyone please give me some honest positive and or negative feedback about the livestock purchased from this site.
Thank you in advance for your help

Where is SOFL...there are a lot of good LFS's here where you can see what you are buying. Whatever you want most can order for you if they don't have it in stock. If you liveAround the Ft Laud area I can give you a few places that arereally good IMO. if you are looking for better LSF in your area...ask here on the boards...this is the best place for it! Good luck...

 

[fuax]

Bret I have lived in So Fla for about 25 years and know almost every fish store in Broward County. I recently asked a lfs to order me 3 fish to replace some fish I had lost several months ago because of a heater/ac/mother watching my kids problem that had occured.
It is a great store but it seemed that the fish I order doubled in price just becuase I ordered them. The 3 fish are a sohol tang, a purple tang and a blonde Naso. the fish did cost $60, $50 and $80 now they cost $129, $79 and $149. I am tired of getting raped by So Fla fish stores and wanted to try something different.
But shoot me an e-mail and tell me about the stores you go to ( gunman1@bellsouth.net ) maybe I missed one

 

[bret61081]

I've had the best of luck from Exotic Aquatic on Oakland. I had them special order me some stuff and the prices have been pretty good. I only like to buy when the owner Rob is there. He always takes care of me. Whatever I ask him for, even if its just to see, he willspecial order it, whether I but it or not. They are really good about that kinda sutff. I know a guy wanted a Morish Idol once and he gave it to the guy for like 25$ b/c they ahve such a low survival rate...so as long as you are a regular there, he will take care of you. I have bought a few things at All Sealife in Pembroke Park....thats how I got Ich once! watch what you get from tehre...umm...As for Big Als, great selection, but the turn over is so high...that scares me. I only bought one firefish from there and it didnt last but a week. Thats really the only place I have bought Livestock from so far. Let me know where else you go.

 

[bluephi115]

Last Friday I ordered:
Anemone Crab
Decorator Crab
Hermit Crabs - Assorted - Group of 14
Coral Banded Shrimp
Peppermint Shrimp
Sally Lightfoot Crab
Emerald Crab
from this site and everything was here at 10 am Wed morning...that was when I requested delivery. Everything came perfect and is looking great! I ordered 10 hermits but they sent 14.
I WILL be ordering from this site again. i had sent an email question and they responded within hours.

 

[fuax]

I used to work at Fish's Paradise in Margate when I was in high school (sister store is in pembroke park/hollywood area). I have checked out marine life usa off of university but they seem to be alil expensive. Big Als i thought was going to be my new store but they are the ones that doubled the price on me and I thinks its just because I asked them to order the fish for me. Not sure where I am going to get my fish from now but I my try Barrier reef in boca have a few friends who still work up there we shall see.
Thanks to those who have posted I appreciate it

 

[ou_snr_fn]

bluephi115, hi i am new to the salt water world but i thought i would share my experience so far. I too ordered my clean up crew from here and was verry pleased with the service except 1 problem my crew didn't get along btw I ordered 20 scarlets 10 zebra and 10 blue legg hermit crabs along with a skunk cleaner and a coral banded shrimp and 2 emerald crabs all fairly docile i thought. well i got home after work (7p till 7a) and noticed a few scarlets had been eatin

so not really knowing what to do i kept a close eye on em to find the culprite. Day 2 came and everyone got along

then day 3 i came home from work to find somethin had killed my skunk shrimp and after lots of readin it sounds like my coral banded did it

that little punk ate my 20 dollar shrimp. all said and done the emeralds and tha coral banded went into my refugium till i could find a lfs to take em. Finally found one to take em and all are doin fine just a word of advice keep an ey on any thing with claws unless you don't mind feeding them expensive meals

 

[bluephi115]

thanks for the tip..i will watch them...so far everything is getting along fine and laying claim to the ir own area and rock.

 

[bret61081]

Originally Posted by Fuax
I used to work at Fish's Paradise in Margate when I was in high school (sister store is in pembroke park/hollywood area). I have checked out marine life usa off of university but they seem to be alil expensive. Big Als i thought was going to be my new store but they are the ones that doubled the price on me and I thinks its just because I asked them to order the fish for me. Not sure where I am going to get my fish from now but I my try Barrier reef in boca have a few friends who still work up there we shall see.
Thanks to those who have posted I appreciate it
if you get a chance...stop in to Exotic Aquatic. The Owners name is Rob. Great guy...talk to him see what he can do for you. The fish you want arent that cheap so if you get them all from him, I ams ure he will give you some kind of deal...I have jsut found very few people who know what they are talking about, but he Knows his Sh*t! they are open m, w-f 12-8 and sat and sun 12-6. dtop in and talk to them....see what they can do! great guys...and no I have no ties to the place...just trust them with my aqua babies lifes! hehe

 

[cherizle]

i've ordered a couple angels from this site and was very pleased. there color was nice & bright & they were actually very lively upon arrival. i just placed another order this morning for another fish & some corals. cheaper, comes right to ur front door-on time, & u don't have run around from store to store looking for what u want. i have decided i will probably continue purchasing this way, the few lfs around me are o.k. but often overpriced. :joy:

 

[flamehawk]

thry don't return e-mails, have no phone number to contact them in case of emergency, had DOA cleaner shrimp they claimed they never received and as a result no credit, requested on a sunday to cancel my order which was still in pending status and still delivered it on a tuesday. .....all of that said, their fish quality and pricing is not bad but their customer service is not close to adequate. good luck.

 

[beth]

I've gotten fish, LR, LS, corals, inverts from this site. All were more and better than I expected. Basically, 75% of my tank was from SWF.com. Unfortunately, I had to give the tank up when I moved, but it was thriving when I dismantled it, and still thriving when I reassembled it at the new owner's house.
Its true that SWF.com does not have a phone number. My understanding is that they pass savings on to YOU, SWF customers, by cutting out as much overhead as they can. And that includes paying someone for the sole purpose of answering the phone. Compare prices here to prices at the other top online retail stores that do have customer service phones. BTW: I have called other customer service online retailers with not the best results either. For instance. When I was trying to get LS for the move of my tank [SWF advised me that they could not accommodate me within the time I needed it] I contacted another very large well-known site. Well I ended up calling customer service 3 times and each time got a different answer that totally blew away the previous answer. I decided to get my sand by driving to a Miami LFS instead. The point being, having a customer service phone does not mean that you are getting top quality Customer Service. The site I am referring to has great livestock as well as dry goods, about 15% more cost to customer too. Why is it more expensive? They have a lot of overhead. Who pays for the overhead? You, the customer.
Anyway, I think Fuax has his questions answered.