Policies:
You must have an established (2 months or older) aquarium, with the proper parameters (as listed in the details of the animal) that are required for the animal you are purchasing.
All Fish, Invertebrates, and Corals have a 48 hour alive arrival guarantee (unless otherwise noted) All procedures of our alive arrival guarantee must be followed or guarantee is void
All Fish, Invertebrates, and Corals that are not covered by our alive arrival guarantee are noted as such and will be purchased at ones own risk. These animals require either expert care and/or are poor shippers.
All pictures are WYSIWYG (unless otherwise noted)
None of our pictures are doctored in any way, we will be glad to tell you the lighting we use in any photograph. Some Corals may appear different depending on the lighting that they are under, please keep this in mind when purchasing Corals.
Contact us if you have any questions prior to purchasing.
All livestock may be held for up to one week upon purchase.
It is our policy to hold all livestock for a minimum of two weeks prior to listing an item for sale on our website (most items are listed with their arrival date in the details)
Acclimation:
There are so many recommended ways to acclimate livestock out there, and we are not saying that any of the are wrong or right. We are merely saying that from our years of experience with these organisms we have found that the following acclimation procedure has worked the absolute best for us minimizing stress thus proving a better success rate of survival in captivity. This whole process takes about an hour to complete and requires only a few items) Most of these we all already have or should if we are in this hobby…
Items you will need;
1. Acclimating Vessel(Bucket or container to drip in) preferably a dark vessel at least 3-5 gal. volume
2. Some airline tubing, enough to reach from your aquarium to the floor.
3. Airpump with tubing and airstone. Any will do…
4. Small heater that has an internal thermostat
5. A net if you are acclimating a Fish or Invert, and a rubber/latex glove for Corals
Now with all the items ready to go and about an hours time, you are ready to acclimate;
1. Turn all lights in aquarium off and leave them off for the entire process. Float the bag with the animal in it, unopened, in the aquarium for approx… 20 minutes. You are doing this to equalize the temperature of the water in the shipping bag to the water of your aquarium .
2. Cut the bag open from the top and pour the contents into your acclimating vessel.
3. Take some airline tubing and run it from the aquarium to the acclimating vessel. Now start a siphon of water from your tank to the vessel. Tie a knot in the end of the airline tubing, tightening it just enough to make the drip a broken stream ( a very fast drip)
4. Add an airstone and plug in an airpump. This will provide much needed oxygen, water movement, CO2 off gas, and PH stabilization.
5. Set a small heater to the same temperature as the aquarium. This will ensure a stable temperature while acclimating. One of the biggest stressors when acclimating without a heater can be a major drop in temperature in the acclimating vessel.
6. Now, if you are acclimating a Fish we recommend putting something mostly covering the acclimating vessel to prevent a Fish from jumping out. And for Corals we recommend at least shading or keeping any bright lighting out of the acclimating vessel. Most room light is perfect for acclimating.
7. At this point you should let the animal drip for at least 30 minutes, preferably 40-45 minutes. If the acclimating vessel starts to fill to high, simply remove and discard some of the water from the vessel.
7b. For Corals, about half way through the drip procedure we recommend some type of disinfectant or dip procedure should be done. This is not necessary for the alive arrival guarantee, so we will not go into further detail here. For more information about what we do in house please see our recommended Coral Dip procedure.
8. After the appropriate amount of dripping, gently remove the animal and place it in the aquarium. If it is a fish or Invertebrate we recommend gently scooping it out with an appropriate sized net, then placing it in the aquarium and releasing it low in the tank and near some rocks or decorations. This way the new addition is not considered a food item falling from the top, as food normally does for our current aquarium inhabitants. If it is a Coral we recommend having a rubber/latex glove on, and grabbing the piece by the rock base/frag plug and placing lower in your aquarium, not in direct bright light for the first 24 hours, then moving it to its final mounting spot. This helps to reduce the stress from lighting, allowing the coral to recover from the stress of shipping.
9. Leave lights off for at least 1 hour, and discard water from acclimating vessel. Replace water removed from acclimating with new water.
Guarantee:
We guarantee the health of all animals prior to shipping. We will not ship any animal that is not 100% healthy and ready to ship. We offer a 48 hour alive arrival guarantee; this means from the time the package leaves our facility, for the next 48 hours we will cover any Dead On Arrival organisms with a store credit for use on a future purchase. (hopefully to replace what did not make it, but it can be used towards any future Livestock purchase) As long as all of the following procedures are followed;
1. Package must be received and signed for on the 1 attempt to deliver.
2. Any damage to package or leaking must be claimed to the driver upon delivery. This will be noted in the delivery status information we receive
3. All acclimation procedures listed above must be followed exactly.
4. We must be notified by telephone or email as soon as there is a loss, and within the 48 hour time period.
5. You must provide us with the parameters of your aquarium and they must be in the correct range for the animal in question.
6. A digital photograph of the deceased animal must be taken and provided to us.
7. The animal must be put into a Ziploc style freezer bag with some salt and frozen until notified to dicard.
8. In the case of a loss, if all of these steps are met satisfactory, we will credit you the full purchase price of the animal for a future livestock purchase. Livestock credit may not be used towards dry good purchases. And we can not refund or credit the shipping cost.
Shipping:
We ship exclusively with FedEx Express and FedEx Ground. We have found them to be the most reliable and most responsible when it comes to shipping, especially overnight shipping with Fish, Inverts, and Corals. We use FedEx Standard overnight, which is guaranteed delivery by noon. We can use express which will get it there by 10am, but that is an extra charge. Or pickup at your local FedEx location is 98% of the time ready by 9am, and is no extra charge. Please let us know when ordering if you prefer something other than standard Overnight.
Currently our shipping rate for overnight anywhere in the country is $70 (and that is actually us eating a bit of it) We are working on better shipping rates. As we get going the more we ship the better our rates will get.
We will never charge you a box charge or a handling charge or any other miscellaneous charges or fees…ever.
If you are in New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont) Overnight shipping is only $20…
We ship out Livestock on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.
Please contact us upon purchase to coordinate the best shipping day.
We ship out dry goods Monday through Friday via FedEx Ground. Rates for FedEx ground are calculated at time of purchase.
