Have Any Of You Ever Bought Fish Online?

[Hannahpryor]

I was just googlin away and noticed that its possible to buy fish online very cheap and they are delivered to your house???

Something concerns me about this idea and not sure why.... They are very cheap and if I had some advice on whether its a good idea and if others have bought I would consider getting some.

Is this a common thing to do as I've never heard of it?

Thanks
Just to add not from private people or other fish keepers I mean the companies who do it as a business . Thanks

 

[Fishmanic]

I bought my initial stocking from liveaquaria.com.  It was a few weeks ago when air temperatures were reasonable.   Might be a bit chancy to order during the dead of winter.  They have a good selection and prices are comparable to local fish stores.   They only ship via overnight air and the cost is $35--a bit expensive but if you're buying a lot of fish for an initial stocking it may be worth it figuring convenience and selection.  They oxygenate the bags for shipping the fish and use a styrofoam box within a regular box and put in a heat pack.  They shipped mine at 5pm on one day and i had it delivered at 9am the next day.  You should be home so you can add them to your tank as soon as you acclimate them gradually to the tank water parameters.  I ordered 11 fish--two got stressed from the acclimation to the tank and didn't make it.   They refunded the cost of the two fish.  
 
It was a good experience and very convenient.  I would recommend them if you want to buy online from an experienced fish source.   

 

[guppy2002]

I personally have never ordered any living thing through mail. as Fishmanic said, they can get stressed out and die.

 

[Fishmanic]

fish can get stressed out coming from a local fish store too and during acclimating to your tank---I probably should have used the drip method of acclimating or took more time slowly adding water to the bag---these fish were only  in travel for 16 hours---and liveaquaria guarantees the fish will live for 14 days or they will refund the cost of the fish--none of the fish that lived  showed any signs of stress

 

[BelldandyShanny]

I've gotten plants from aquabid, and that worked out well enough, I'm iffier on livestock though. I might try it though after the first of the year

 

[attibones]

I order off of aquabid all the time. I've never had a shipping related death. All my fish have been here happy and healthy.

 

[Fishmanic]

I order off of aquabid all the time. I've never had a shipping related death. All my fish have been here happy and healthy.

where are you located?  did you ever order fish in the dead of winter?  do you have them shipped overnight or do you use priority mail?

 

[jakroebuck6]

i have ordered shrimp before and they came with no problems, over night delivery in a box with heat packs and bubble wrap to protect the bag. 

 

[attibones]

I order off of aquabid all the time. I've never had a shipping related death. All my fish have been here happy and healthy.

where are you located?  did you ever order fish in the dead of winter?  do you have them shipped overnight or do you use priority mail?

I live in Mississippi where the winters are brief and the summers are excruciating. However, I have ordered during cold weather and had them shipped with a heat pack. I have only had fish shipped over night once and that was because I had spent way too much money on an absolutely beautiful show betta and I needed him in the tank pronto. The others have been shipped priority. As I've said, I've never lost a fish due to shipping. In fact, I find that fish from aquabid sellers are typically selling better stock, so they manage the trip just fine. However, I might lose an LFS fish on the drive home because they are just poorly bred and managed.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have ordered 100s of fish shipped in and I have shipped out even more. But i am in the USA where we have lots of options for shipping.
 
However, every fish you buy in a fish store has been bagged up and shipped a few times before you buy it. When it is done properly, shipped fish will do fine.

 

[Tongue_Flicker]

If it is a really unavailable fish in my area then i would. Especially if it's the one i like. I got my blind cavefishes via online shipping from dubai and it went out just fine. It was in a nice plastic bag covered by another inflated plastic bag inside an insulated polystyrene box filled with little soft beads to fill the gaps and sealed with a fragile/handle with care/this side up signs. Really nice. Too bad their shop was shut down to pave way for a kids soccer field

 

[Donya]

If you are buying fish that are common and hardy, then there are probably no issues with buying online. The main issue livestock-wise with buying online from a big store, aside from the fact that you foot the shipping risks yourself, is that you can't see what you get before you buy it. So, for species that may be finicky eaters or easily unhealthy for other reasons (particularly wild caught species), you can't verify that the specimen is healthy before it goes in the post to you. Also, unless you are buying WYSIWYG where the store have a photo of the specific individual specimen available, it's not impossible that you could end up with a surprise . The one time I ordered livestock online many years back from a large online site rather than a fellow hobbyist, I got a totally different species than was listed. Of course, I have to give the site that it was a very hard one to ID properly at the time and they corrected their listing after I discussed it with them, but it still meant I had to do a last-minute reshuffling of animals to accommodate the unexpected arrivals. LFSs have the same problem quite often too and end up with odd things in shipments from suppliers when buying in bulk.