Any serious interest in a LiveAquaria order?

Another note in addition to the Diver's Den is that we just broke $450 in live items for this order. Nice...

 

FYI that I would like to have everything called in by 10:00 pm tonight. They automatically "lock" the order early tomorrow, so if need be, I can make a final call when they open in the morning to add any paid last minute items.

 

Well, it is 1:45am and I am going to bed. I will look for any additions around 7:30 and probably go back to bed (I have the day off) around 8:00 am as I have been running on about 4-5 hours of sleep a night, so any last minute items, let me know.

Just FYI that we have the following coming:
1 Coral Beauty
5 Coral Catfish
1 Zebra Catalina Goby
3 Firefish
2 Yellow Clown Gobies
2 Orange Shoulder Tangs
2 Ocellaris Tank Bred Clownfish
1 Blue Cobra Guppy Pair
1 Red Cobra Delta Guppy Pair
1 Sea Cucumber (Yellow) (small)
4 Sexy Anemone Shrimp
3 Dwarf Tip Hermit Crabs
3 Tank Bred Aiptasia Peppermint Shrimp
1 Sympodium Coral (Diver's Den)

That is 20 fish, 11 inverts, and 1 coral. Total was something around $450.
I was going to add some peppermint shrimp myself when I was wondering if we would hit $225, and might still in the morning, but my original plan was just to get some fish.

 

Here it is at 11:30 am and still no delivery. They went on the truck around 7:45 and we know how warm that will be. FedEx says "by noon" but these packages (three in total) can't be the last ones on the truck. I hope....

 

So FedEx shows up at 11:45 am. Nothing like cutting it close to noon.

Three good sized boxes of goodies.

Besides the 3 different backorder items (3 Dwarf Tip Hermit Crabs, 2 Yellow Clown Gobies, 1 Yellow Sea Cucumber) that we knew about, we discovered the following:

1 DOA firefish (We ordered 3, and one was for me so I kept the dead one.)
1 Almost DOA Zebra Catalina Goby
1 Missing Tank Bred Aiptasia Eating Peppermint Shrimp
1 Extra Sexy Anemone Shrimp (as in one more than we ordered, not that is was "extra sexy" LOL)
1 Missing Pair of Blue Cobra Guppies FW (Pair)

The missing guppies was strange. They were ordered with a bunch of other items including a pair of Red Cobra guppies. The freshwater fish come in the "blue water". The Red Cobras were in one bag of blue water, there was a bag of blue water for the Blue Cobras. Those bags had air and were rubber-banded shut and both put inside another larger bag together. Somewhere in the process they just forgot to put the Blue Cobra guppies into the bag. As in the bag was sealed still with air and water, but no fish. Strange.

Live Aquaria will cover the shipping of replacement items from an order ONE time and only if the replacement cost is $30 or more. We have more than $30 of DOA, almost dead, and missing stuff, but will want to wait until towards the end of the 14 day "alive guarantee" in case other things don't make it since we only get 1 claim.

I wonder how they did today with the order going to Des Moines.

 

I DID know that. The Rhinelander, WI site is just the Diver's Den. Reading elsewhere on the internet, people have had very little problems (good success) with Quality Marine's live stock. It seems that the firefish, which are labeled on LiveAquaria as "seasonal" are way to sensitive to the cold temps. The other things were people mistakes with forgetting items, mixing up quantities, etc that LA is going to fix for us. So not as smooth as I would have hoped, but it sounds like we will get everything again. Of course, unless we get some warmer weather in about 2 weeks, the firefish may be a problem again.

I asked them about putting backordered items and DOA stuff together, but I guess that the two systems don't talk to each other, so if it happens it will be pure coincidence.

 

My clownfish are doing great. But yeah, there were a number of odd issues.

 

I had a little scare this morning. One of my clowns was laying at the bottom of the QT sort of "tucked under" the little 90 degree PVC elbow I have in there. I thought he was on his last "fin". Well, I found out that he was just "sleeping". It was so dark in our basement with all of the lights off and blinds closed when I checked on him (sun was barely up) that he was just snoozing.

I turned on the lights in the family room next door to the QT tank, and then 15 minutes later turned on the lights in the same room before finally turning on the lights above the QT. He was back to swimming and eating in no time.

 

So backordered stuff comes today. I got the email around 5:00 or so last night. Good thing I didn't go to Bacon Fest in Des Moines or it would have been an issue. Anyway, this time they were delivered to the FedEx office by Best Buy in Cedar Rapids (by Lindale) around 9:00 am. I got there, only to find that the guy working was saying that they aren't supposed to accept live animals, but he was certainly curious. So I opened it up right there and the water temps we a LOT better than last week were we had DOA stuff, and everything looked really good. Not sure if it was the fact that it spent 3 less hours in a cold truck, or if some other variable was in play, but SO much better than last week.

So now to get the stuff out to the people that had backordered items. HarleyHawk picked up his yellow cucumber at the FedEx place shortly after I got there, Shayna is meeting me at the mall at 11:30 to pick up some hermit crabs, and jstngates is making the drive to Marion this afternoon for some cute yellow clown gobies.

Then the saga continues with the primary shipment from last week and needing to make our claim later this week for anything that didn't make it. It seems like most people are OK, but the person that bought the must stuff is just having some tough luck. Let's hope for some decent weather again since my next option is to drive all the way to the airport to pick stuff up. Nothing like 60 minutes round trip drive time for a $10 fish for me. LOL

I think that *IF* I ever do this again, it will be in spring or fall. Not winter or summer. I think that we get a lot closer to 100% live...

 

Note: I don't mind it since it helps everyone out, I just find it ironic...

 

Yeah, this time around I would say that things were more like room temp. Last week, the bags were just plain cold...