ordering fish, etc. online

[angelminx]

I've always shied away from ordering fish online, since you can't visually inspect them prior to purchase--also, you can't usually order a specific sex (and most people don't know how to tell the difference between, for example, male and female Black Phantom Tetras--assuming they are old enough).  I've ordered plants through the mail  before, but again, I'd prefer to see them first.

Has anyone ordered anything from Arizona Aquatic Gardens?  I've heard mixed reviews about them, but they list things I rarley see elsewhere.  [Occassionally I will see things on sites like Seagrest, but they are wholesale only, and Petco only has a small list of what they can order from them--which only tends to list the more common items.  For example: Seagrest carries the Schwartzi corydoras, which I really wanted, but they are not on Petco's order list, so they couldn't get them.]

Some of the items I am interested in are the Red-spot Ozelot, the Kleiner Bar Sword (they have a red variety that is supposed to stay red under lower light), E. rubin, E. bleheri, E. "Rangeri", Anubius coffeefolia, A. barteri v. "broadleaf",   Bolbitis heudelotii, the tall form of Sagitaria subulata, the floating form of water sprite C. pteroides (my C. thalictroides is doing great), I'd like to replace my water wisteria because they're kind of ragged (my angels like to munch on them), Cryptocoryne "Balansae", a large selection of C. wendtii in various color forms (more than usual), Moss Balls at a decent price, a "new" Nerite snail that came out at the end of 2013 called the "Bajingo Batik" (which gets a little larger--and is pretty,too), the true SAE, they show the adult coloration of the clown pleco Peckoltia vittata (mine died during an ice storm-caused block out while he was a sub-adult),  the "black" form of Emperor Tetra, and the Electric Blue Ram, also at a decent price. They also carry the New Life Spectrum Crustacean Formula (a little more than I'd like to pay, but I haven't found it anywhere else); I do have the Hikari Crab Delite, but I'd like to provide a variety of food for the shrimp, too.  This is not a final list, just a line-up of species I would like to choose from. 

Any comments or suggestions would be welcome.  Thanx.

[Ameenah]

I've not ordered from the particular vendor you mention; but I have ordered rare hard to find FW fishes online. Often the shipping is very expensive but guaranteed to arrive alive. Most FW fish vendors will give you the option of 1- overnight delivery or 2- 2-day delivery. I always go for the 2-day delivery. The fishes are shipped with cool or heat packs and loads of insulation.

Just be very careful when you unpack the fishes and acclimatize them NOT TO USE LIGHT - it takes a good 24 hours for the little munchkins to get over their airplane ride and total complete darkness. And of course if you order any albino fishes remember they need lots of hiding places as their eyes cant handle "normal" aquarium lights very well - in my experience.

You have "gone the extra mile" in researching reviews of online vendor(s) which is more than I have ever done. If it is a rare fish and I want it I just buy it and trust the vendor. If they can afford a nice website, and you can actually call them AND speak to a human being, then they should be okay to order from. That's my theory anyways.

[Ameenah]

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[angelminx]

How do you unpack and acclimate them without exposing them to light? I bought some room-darkening shades, but I don't see much difference between them and what I had before. I have no lights on the 10G quarantine/hospital tank, and when I do a drip acclimation I cover the bucket with a towel.

I spoke with the owner of AAZ the other day to ask him some questions, and be sure I got HIS email address, so I could ask him some more-detailed questions (and give him time to double-check anything he needed to). He seemed very nice. I sent the email at 11:40 PM, and got the reply just after lunch the next day. I had one question I forgot to ask, so I emailed him back later that day, and got a reply within a couple of hours.

I HADN'T done any research at first, but the other day when I logged on to the computer and entered in the site, the 1st thing that popped up this time (never did before, and hasn't since) was a site that said there were "mostly bad reviews" in their (?)tag-line. I don't know if it was a legitimate site, or someone "venting", and as I said, it only "snuck in" before AAZ's site the one time, so I haven't been able to check any of its info again. Of course I never thought to look, but maybe there is something further down on the list of sites that came up with the search. Guess I'll have to check.

[angelminx]

BTW: do you have any sites you can recommend? I'm interested in plants, too, since the "selection" is terrible aroung here.

Thanks, Angelminx

[goldenpuon]

I wish I could help more. Unfortunately, I have never ordered fish via mail and don't have experience with AAZ. However, I have received plants via mail once though. A good site I have heard of for fish is aquabid. They have people selling plants too. url=http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?liveplants]Aquabid Live Plants[/url]. You also may be able to get plants from friends or even people on Everything-Aquatic if they have too much in their aquarium. What type(s) of plants or fish are you looking for?

For acclimiating the fish, perhaps it would be better to do it at dusk or dawn when there is little light. Putting a couple dark towels over them can also help I'm sure but I don't know if it's possible (or necessary) to put them in complete darkness for the acclimation.

Renee

[parker002]

Carl has a link to a decent place to buy plants in his Planted Tank article.

www.aquariumplants.com/Default.asp