We have been getting many questions lately about what the differences are between our company and other companies that do what we do. Here are some of the main differences that we are very proud of.
1. Choose your delivery date
Because we house our livestock items ourselves, we can be very flexible with delivery dates. When you place an order, you are asked to choose a delivery date that can be up to 2 weeks from the time your order is placed. The only exception is with Collector's Choice items which have to be shipped within 2 days of order placement because of space restrictions for CC items. We are usually flexible with this for most people and can give them an extra couple of days.
2. Animals are never drop-shipped
As far as we can tell, we are one of the last companies in the US that does not drop-ship any livestock item from wholesalers. This has become a very common practice with companies over the last few years. It does save money but you loose total control over quality and animal selection. We are able to take customer requests like "please send largest available" or "please send the brightest colored" because we handle and pack every single item that leaves our facility. This provides customers with better quality and an assurance that they will get exactly what they ordered.
3. Health Check system
We use to call this our QT process but the reality is, in order to QT every animal, we would need 10,000 individual holding tanks each with their own filtration. So we felt that calling it a QT system was misleading. The animals all go through a Health Check system, which ensures they are all eating, free of pathogens and in overall good health BEFORE they are even offered for sale. We get asked quite a bit how long animals are here before they are shipped. The answer depends on the species but in general animals can be here for as much as a month or more before they are actually sold and shipped.
4. Food
We feed all of our animals up to 6 times per day. The smaller the fish, the more they need to eat. We can afford this because the primary food that we feed is our own Blue Zoo Mix. We sell this same food through our site and the profits from it go toward offsetting the cost to feed. That way we can feed our fish as much as they can eat and never worry about breaking the bank. We also hatch Live Brine that is enriched with phytoplankton. This is a great way to get finicky eaters to eat in captivity. Both of these food items can be purchased directly from us so once you receive your shipment, you can feed your new animals what they are already used to eating.
There are many, many more differences that we feel set us apart but these core differences mentioned above are ones we are very proud of and would never change even though doing business this way costs a lot more than doing it like everyone else.
Thank you all again for your support and enthusiasm for this great hobby of ours. We pray that the next 10 years are just as fun and exhilarating as the last.
