What's Your experience with LiveAquaria vs. Diver's Den?

Stevenliu9

Stevenliu9

New member
First of all, even though Diver's Den is part of LiveAquaria, they are not equals. Diver's Den is based in Wisconsin and I have toured its wonderful facility before, see my posts:
Corals Section
Invertebrates Section
Fish Section
I have order from Diver's Den many times before and they have always been a home run when it comes to packing, shipping, and the livestock satisfaction.
This is my first time ordering from LiveAquaria at the California facility, and I am a bit disappointed- see my experience on the LiveAquaria purchase on my blog here: http://bluemarineart.com/2015/10/live-aquaria-not-divers-den-order-experience/
Now I am interested to hear what does everyone has to say about their experiences between LiveAquaria's California shipment vs. the Wisconsin Diver's Den shipment. Please share!
Thanks!
 
Interested as well. Was considering ordering over $200 of livestock but would love to hear other's experiences first.
 
Ive had good luck with them in the past but havent ordered from them sence they switched to petco. But there are a few threads with bad reviews after the switch. Then again your gonna hear the bad reviews more than the good most of the time.
 
I've only ever ordered live rock from them, but I too have seen several bad threads from both LA, and DD, after petco took over.
 
As far as I am concerned Petco has not changed DD. I received a pair of Golden Angelfish from them and everything was perfect just like the orders before the Petco take over. It has been since December last year since I ordered from LA and the order got lost because of the shipping company. I will never make that mistake again ordering around Christmas. With DD you know what the fish will look like before you order, something that can't be beat.
 
We have had mixed experience with both.

I would say that from DD we have had more positive than negative, but one shipment of a clownfish pair and mida blenny arrived very cold. Only one clownfish survived of the three. Another problem I had was not their fault... there was a weather delay that caused the shipment to be 4 hours late and the fish did not make it. In the last order we made a few months ago, the two fish came in with ICK. One of the fish died a few days ago in quarantine for no discernible reason, and the other is undergoing tank transfer right now. Granted ~9/10 of our orders have been just fine.

Now for LA, we have also had mixed reviews. One shipment was not packed properly and some abalones were shaken to death (horrifying...) and several bags were upside down. SO was sure to talk to a manager about that one. Then in the replacement shipment (where the manager assured us she would talk to the packing company), one of the bags was upside down again. To her credit she was livid, and any subsequent order has not had that problem. I have received some stellar stock fish specimens for LA and will not hesitate to get those in the future, but apart from stock SPS corals, I will not buy stock corals. Two of the stock corals I have received I am less than impressed with to put it mildly (a green platygyra and a zooanthid rock). Also with the build a clean up crew option, I was quite surprised at how small many of the animals were and will not do that again. Overall though, I would say that I have been happy with 8/10 of the orders.
 
Liveaquaria AND DD order

Liveaquaria AND DD order

I recently ordered for the first time from DD and LA because of the 175$ shipping threshold, 20% off, and a sale on clams I wanted.

I received items from FL, CA, and WI (I live in WI). I ordered 2 Atlantic blue tangs, a sstylophora, 1 ultra gold maxima, 6 gold maxima's and a beautiful green, blue and gold, gold maxima from DD.

One of the fish was DOA. The maxima from DD was an empty shell this morning (2 days after receiving).

My other tang, stylophora, and 7 clams are looking great.

While our LFS is fantastic, I'm not willing to buy a clam from someone local who can't offer a 14 day guarantee (I will fish though! Yeah that doesn't make sense). I don't know that I'd order a lot from LA but I've had similar losses from buying local- and was just out the money. At least this way there is a bit of protection.

This was my first purchase from LA and DD.
 
I've had great experiences with LiveAquaria. Everything is always packaged really well, and alive when I open the bags. I am actually waiting for 2 fish to show up on DD and I'm going to pull the trigger again. If they dont show up in the next 4-5 weeks I'll just order off of LA.
 
I have ordered from DD on many occasions and have never had a DOA fish. The closest I have had was a Carpenter's Flasher wrasse that looked like it was on its last leg. I managed to get him into QT and proceeded to get him back to good health. I have never had a DD fish not make it out of quarantine, which I can not say from fish purchased from my LFS. I have never purchased anything from LA, and more than likely will not in the future.
 
I purchased a Medium size Purple Branched Montipora from LA. When it arrived, the coral was in a bag within a bag. During shipping, at least 5 pretty large frag pieces had broken off the main coral, which in turn popped the inner bag that held its water. The outer bag contained a lot of the water, but the coral inside had been sitting dry for who knows how long.

LA said they believed that it would survive. It never did.

I think that I blame the shipping company more than LA though, but I will never order from them again.
 
I agree that nothing has changed with LA/DD post-Petco other than the recognition of sales tax (which was likely to happen anyhow). My experiences with both sides of the house have been very good. They both offer the best guarantee in the business. Clearly DD animals have been 'conditioned', including eating, so there is reason to pay the premium for tricky or rare animals. For more common things, I typically use LA. At least with most of my LFS, pricing is in line.
 
I've only ordered once from live aquaria. I ordered a cleanup crew and was disappointed. Packing and shipping was fine, but most of the hermits were empty shells. I would say I would only order from divers den in the future, so I check that from time to time. I have an amazing lfs near me, so I feel more comfortable shopping there even if I have to pay more than live aquaria.
 
This thread is in 2 places.
Anyway a repost. There is a difference between the two and I dont think some people even know there is a difference between the two.. Even after reading your message, I dont think people know.

I have had the exact same problems. Divers den everything is fine and packaged great but their other facilities cant get a order right. I mean they ship the wrong stuff. The packaging was all wrong too like putting black clowns bag directly on a ice pack.. Then they did the same with the replacement, water in the low 60's. Then they ran out and I had to buy them somewhere else. There is a difference for sure. Kevin does a nice job at the Rhinelander facility.

I am going to make this gamble too.. Since Petco now has taken over live aqauria I bet Kevin will leave eventually. Either for some other place but most likely for new start up that is even better.
 
I have had good experiences with LA over the years until recently. I ordered a clean up crew and a gold maxima clam (clam shipped from FL) that was on sale. The Astrea snails came DOA in cloudy stinky water. I called and they said try to acclimate anyway. Some were still moving but they never survived. They did refund the cost though. The gold maxima did great for a month then developed a pinched mantle disease and died out of the warranty period :-(. In the same order I purchased a 5 pack SPS package from DD that shipped from Wisconson. All the corals were a brownish color and one arrived DOA in cloudy stinky water. It was fleshless. I did get a refund for that coral. All the other corals are doing great and developed color after a few weeks in my tank.
 
Last edited:
In the other thread I said this:

"With everything fish wise passing away, I'd bet it more on the shipment/carrier than on LA.

The package could have been handled roughly, or maybe got too hot/cold.

LA gets healthy livestock out of Los Angeles, so I'd put blame more on the carrier.

Also remember, DOAs will happen. Just a part of selling/shipping live animals. "
 
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