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

KStatefan said:
How do you determine if it is the fault of the seller or purchaser?
Click to expand...

You can't.

Do we have fish that go out that wouldn't have made it even in the hands of the most experienced hobbyists... of course.

Do we have fish that seemed fine, but just couldn't take the joys of being bounced around by FedEx and pass away... sure.

Do we have fish that die due to something not being 100% correct in a customers QT / Display... of course.

Lucky for both parties there are lots of online sellers who honor their guarantees and for us there are honest hobbyists that will let us know if they do something wrong.

Had a $$$$ fish pass away after a day and the customer called as back the next day after he reported the death and said there was something wrong with his QT system and didn't want the $$$$ back.

I was blown away. Needless to say he's been a great customer and bought a replacement a few weeks later and it's going great now :)
 
nuxx said:
You can't.

Do we have fish that go out that wouldn't have made it even in the hands of the most experienced hobbyists... of course.

Do we have fish that seemed fine, but just couldn't take the joys of being bounced around by FedEx and pass away... sure.

Do we have fish that die due to something not being 100% correct in a customers QT / Display... of course.

Lucky for both parties there are lots of online sellers who honor their guarantees and for us there are honest hobbyists that will let us know if they do something wrong.

Had a $$$$ fish pass away after a day and the customer called as back the next day after he reported the death and said there was something wrong with his QT system and didn't want the $$$$ back.

I was blown away. Needless to say he's been a great customer and bought a replacement a few weeks later and it's going great now :)
Click to expand...

Good vendors are the ones that end up with customers like that.
 
DD vs. LA

DD vs. LA

Have had good experiences with DD as they ship healthy, well-packed livestock and will unconditionally replace the DOA's or those that die within the 14 day guarantee'
Have tried for 2 weeks to order a custom clean-up crew from LA - first week, no shipment because 1 item out of stock. e-mails to delete that item never answered; several phone calls over a week finally led to 3 of 5 items now out of stock, plus they would not reprocess the original cc. finally gave up and cancelled. ordered from my vendor in Key West.
 
I think they get a bad report because of the quality name LA has brought to the industry. They are undoubtedly the best online fish source out there today. I think if we were comparing them to other online sources they would look amazing. Instead many people compare it to what it use to be which gives them a bad image bc people expect the same standards.

I haven't bought enough from them to give credible feedback as I like buying local.

However, I believe their corals went to s***.
 
LA has lost my business because the petco merger and the fact they are charging sales tax now. there are alot of choices when buying quality livestock online that are better.
 
Wow the different experiences are intersting. I had mixed experiences with Blue Zoo. They shipped a whitetail bristletooth tang in about a quart of water. Ammonia level was >5 , obviously he didn't survive. Before that I bought a Lineatus Wrasse at a great price and he was packed well and very healthy.

My LA experiences have all been good. One fish was DOA but it was packed well and all the other ones I've ordered made it through QT.
 
Ive had nothing but good luck from blue zoo but have had fish die from la and dd but they were refunded, their cs is great i will give them that
 
I've had both positive and negative experiences with LA and DD. My biggest complaint with them is how they photoshop pics of their corals. You get them and they don't look near as colorful as they are in the pics. Also, they always seem to size their fish bigger than they are. You order a 4" fish and it's actually a 3" fish. I've had livestock show up diseased and had to treat fish in QT. I've had livestock show up dead, but when you're shipping live animals that's part of the gamble. My last order from them was a clean up crew of hermits and snails. Put them in my display and they had ich on them because my display broke out with ich about a week later. Had been ich free for 3 years up until that point. Lesson learned and I will QT inverts just like I do fish from here on out.
 
I purchase from both LA and DD. There has not been a survival rate difference for fish between LA & DD based on my order history; both have had fish causalities (DOAs & fish lost in QT). Some types of fish I prefer to get WYSIWYG (DD), some I prefer to choose size, collection location and gender (LA). I have also not noticed a significant change in livestock quality or customer service post-Petco.

In regards to corals, I have ordered DD corals before (usually to reach the free shipping threshold) and have had very poor luck with long term survivability (1 colony out of 6 is still living). However, the only 2 ORA coral frags I've ordered are growing like crazy. I do not expect to order coral from LA/DD again (ORA I will consider), especially since there is a new-ish LFS that is carrying a really nice selection of corals.

I should also say that I also order from both Peter and Michael for fish. They are both quality sellers and should be considered by anyone who is comfortable purchasing from LA/DD. Peter especially is very good about communication, answering questions and trying to help his customers be successful reefers.
 
I have ordered from LA and DD on many occasions. Some of the experiences have been positive and some negative. I have also ordered from other on line vendors and can say the experiences have been about the same (some good, some bad). However, I will not order from LA or DD again until they stop using UPS as a delivery service and that is another story for another time.
 
Ive ordered from LA/DD/Bluezoo and the experience is quite the same. For both places, Ive had fish perish while in QT but Ive never had DOA.

The major difference between the two is how they handle their guarantees. LA/DD have 14 day and bluezoo has 7. LA/DD will also give a refund vs store credit.
 
LA/DD also have a 14 day on all fish; other sites restrict to 'arrive alive' for many of the trickier species (not necessarily a bad thing as it likely discourages novice purchases).
 
Ahhh well it looks like UPS screwed up. Not really shocked given the service I've seen from them in the past. Package was supposed to be here by 12 and now estimated at 4pm. Greattt.....
 
The tang arrived at 3pm after the long delay. To my surprise after acclimation he looked great. He didn't appeared stress or discolored and went straight the eating. Looks like LA is continuing to do things right in the fish category.
 
Bent said:
I've heard nothing but smack about blue zoo.
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Well, if you are around long enough you will "hear" smack about everyone sooner or later...

I just did my first order with BZA, and all the fish (8 in total) came in without disease, although I did lose one of the sapphire damsels after 11 days (it was thinner than the other). My biggest issue was color "quality" - the coral beauty has almost no orange or lighter blue (is therefore very dark), and the trio of golden domino damsels have very little gold on them.

All in all, that is probably being "picky" a bit on my part, which is why I typically purchase all of my fish through LFS's. BZA had a lower "free shipping threshold", and I could not find the fish I wanted locally, so I gave them a shot. I would order through them again though...
 
I, too, was disappointed in my purchase from LiveAquaria. I ordered this: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+321+3181&pcatid=3181 and the coral looks absolutely NOTHING like it. I figured it just needed some adjusting and gave it a few weeks but it still doesn't look like it. I could contact them but I have a weird attachment to it now so I'm keeping it around.

I've decided to only get WYSIWYG from them so I know EXACTLY what I'm getting. However, one of the snails I got from them had no water in the bag and wasn't moving. I contacted them for a DOA replacement and they responded asap. fortunately, the snail was still alive and he's thriving.
 
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