Typical mortality online fish purchase

[Pepere]

Just ordered a batch of fish from an online fish store.

20 green neons and 6 pygmy corydoras.

1 pygmy corydora was dead in the bag and at least 1 other has died.  I think a third is dead too.  Not positive it is a cory vs a green neon but I think it is.  It has a black strip on lateral line, no hint of blue or red.

 

They are in a 20 gallon quarantine tank, no meds yet giving them a day to rest after shipping before doing quarantine trio.

ph 7.2

ammonia, nitrite and nitrate 0

gh 5 degrees, 

kh 3 degrees

just wondering what typical mortality one should expect from online fish store.

I know fish stores experience some as they receive stock.

with my first batch I picked up from a store I lost none of them.

 

[KBOzzie59]

I would expect zero and that is what I've had so far.

How many corys?  All in one bag?  Corys have the potential to self poison if they feel threatened.

If you are a coop youtube member you can checkout this presentation.

 

[Pepere]

There were 6 pygmy corydoras in one bag.  1 arrived dead.  I am thinking the other two fish I have pulled out are also pygmy corydoras.  

 

 

[modified lung]

I'd also expect zero. Every time I've had fish die during shipping, there's been heavy ammonia in their water. That means the seller probably didn't stop feeding before shipping. Although to be fair sometimes unexpected things can happen during shipping that the seller can't help.

The corydora self poison thing is interesting though.

[Pepere]

I tested bag water parameters.  Ammonia under 0.5ppm by API wet test.

 

usps reported possession of package in Washington StateTuesday 10:50 eastern time.  Package arrived in Maine Noon yesterday.

 

1 cory was dead, another did not look promising in the bag.

 

they are smaller than I was expecting to receive.

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

@Pepere Its often no DOA and no issues when I have received fish on or before 2 days in transit. That is just my experience up here and does depends on variables on the shipper end and the transit experience of the fish.

I generally have seen a

0-4% DOA rate to me overnight through day 2 (insulation and heat / cool pack dependent)

5-10% DOA rate to me on day 3

80-100% DOA rate to me on day 4 or later.

DOA do occasionally happen things just happen sometimes. Odds are based off the location sent and species amounts I have used that seller more than a few times before. He has been very responsive with emails and DOA policy refunds on the rare event that those occur for me. 

Edited July 22, 2022 by mountaintoppufferkeeper

[_Eric_]

I expect 100% which is why I've never ordered online before 😄  After seeing these other comments maybe I should reevaluate.  Good luck with the remaining fish - I love green neons.  

[Pepere]

Package was insulated with a cool pack.  Water temp was very reasonable to touch, I didnt use a thermometer to specify exactly.

 

the neons are swimming around happilly in a group.

I have confidence the seller will honor their doa guarantee…

Things happen….  Just wondering what peoples experiences were.  I suspect something unexpected happened that is affecting the cories.

[Nanci B]

On 7/22/2022 at 9:48 AM, Pepere said:

There were 6 pygmy corydoras in one bag.  1 arrived dead.  I am thinking the other two fish I have pulled out are also pygmy corydoras.  

 

 

My experience with Pygmy corys, I love them and have kept them over a year, is that they are a little fragile. But with those losses, it sounds as if there was something else wrong. I hope that the vendor respects their DOA policy. 

[Nanci B]

When I order online, I try and pick stores that do some type of quarantine on the fish. I have had very bad luck ordering special fish from local fish stores, and they do nothing except a quick visual. And if I don’t buy the fish immediately, I loose out. And then in quarantine they die. So I had better luck with ordering online. Sad 😔
 

 

[tolstoy21]

I expect no mortalities either. The typical places I order from deliver extremely healthy fish to me every single time without fail. 

Spend time reading a seller's reviews to see what people say about the health and color of their fish, about their shipping practices, how they handled DOAs or other issues. And if you find a seller who does the right thing and delivers healthy, nice looking fish, and, who rectifies their mistakes-- stick with them. 

At this point I purchase all my fish online. But this is just a personal preference.

On 7/22/2022 at 4:42 PM, Nanci B said:

So I had better luck with ordering online. Sad 😔

Same here. I wont go as far as to say online is always better, but for me, that's been my experience. I guess your mileage may vary depending on the quality of the fish stores in you area.

[PineSong]

I've  had great luck with fish from Aquabid coming from NY state, Florida, and California to me here in Kentucky. No DOA and all survived QT.

I've ordered three times from Aquahuna and zero DOA, one fish did die the next day. Shipping was in cold weather with heat packs, not hot weather with cool packs, though.

Compared to fish I've bought at local chains, big box stores, and the local mom and pop, online has yielded the best results for me.

[Pepere]

This was my first experience with it.  The online retailer comes highly recommended by some big names in the industry.

so far standing pat at 3 loss.  I will check again in the morning and then submit a claim.   I doubt there will be any problem with having the claim honored.

 

after a week soaking in quarantine tank they will be transferred to another tank that is well planted and well established for another 6 weeks with follow up paracleanse treatment in 4 weeks time.  At that point I will likely get some another replacement pack of pygmies and see how they do.

 

Sitting here viewing my main display tank I am rather surprised at how much my emerald green cories have grown in 2 months time….

 

10 of the Green Neons will end up in the display tank and ten will stay in the planted 20 high along with the pygmy cories.  Then looking to add a few sparkling gouramis to the 20 h and maybe some cherry barb to both or perhaps some platys.

little to choose from with local stores.  In our local two cities we have a combined population of roughly 70,000 and we have 1 very poorly stocked and managed run down dirty Petco with zero interest in ordering anything other than they have.  Every time I walk in I end up walking out wondering why I bothered…. How on earth can a store always be out of neons?  Shelves are generally half empty,  skids of pet food and kitty litter always block the fish aisles and you have to shimmy past.  The shelves are always half empty…. The tanks always have a half dozen to a dozen dead fish drifting with the current.

 

30 miles away there is a petco that is like night and day with this one.

 

I have not found a single non chain tropical fish store that is worth going in to again.

 

I can travel about 50 miles to a Pet Quarters that has the best stocking of tropical fish thatbI have seen locally, but that is a distance.. and if I have to drive back for a dead fish the drive would cost more than the refund.

 

Online is looking to be my most convenient bet to get what I want.  This episode could well be a fluke…

[tolstoy21]

I'll add from my own personal experience . . .

I've shipped 300+ orders in the past year, and I've had my share of DOAs. I haven't really been collecting stats on those, but I could probably cobble something together based on re-shipments. Off hand I'd say it's probably between 4-5% (around a dozen shipments).

Reasons for DOAs include:

• Leaking bags (I used to use breather bags but they started failing too often for my comfort)
• Heat packs coming loose and laying too close to a bag.
• Shipping delays, usually in the sense that my carrier would miss an AM shipment and the package would sit in a hot truck longer than was healthy. If I target something for AM delivery and then see the carrier update their schedule to say delivery by 7pm, my heart just sinks! This a rare occurrence, but when it does happen on a borderline too-hot-to-ship kind of day, things get dicey and I get ready with the refunds. 

All in all, I'd say I lost the most shipments to issues with breather bags.

I also agree with @mountaintoppufferkeeper, I think 2 day-delivery is the limit. And by two days, I mean you receive the fish within 48 hours of the time printed on the label. (For some reason 2-day shipping with USPS is more like 3 or 4 through some weird logic I'll never understand). Fish can last longer than 2 days, but 2-day delivery gives some room for a delay on the shippers end of things.

Personally, I don't find that distance matters much in terms of shipping, since shipping to one state away leads to stuff being inside trucks longer than shipping something across country, which leads to things being inside planes and shipping hubs more. In the end, neither method matters. What matters the most is the weather at the destination, in my experience. The last leg of the journey--from the destination hub to your home via a delivery truck--that's the most critical and vulnerable part of the journey.

Anyway, that's my "shippers view" of things gathered from my last 2 years shipping.

In the end, a good seller will attempt to make things right should the unexpected and out-of-the-seller's-hands problem occur.

Edited July 23, 2022 by tolstoy21

[Pepere]

48 hours after delivery, 5 of the 6 pygmy cories did not make it.  All of the neons seem fine swimming around happily and alternating before schooling and independent exploration.

1 cory off by himself…

morning of day three I just did a wellness check looking for dead bodies.  None this morning…

It has been disheartening.

However, given that 1 was dead on arrival, and another 1 was not looking terribly healthy at that time, and that none of the neons have passed it assuages my conscience that it was not something I was responsible for.

[BuzzDaddy21]

On 7/22/2022 at 6:54 PM, PineSong said:

I've ordered three times from Aquahuna and zero DOA

I have also ordered from Aqua Huna (Snails and Pygmy cory's - 12 cory`s) my LFS hasn't been able to get Pygmy`s for like 8 months. I stick with sellers that go the extra mile to take responsibility even if it's not their fault, that says a lot about a company. 

[Pepere]

On 7/24/2022 at 7:35 AM, BuzzDaddy21 said:

have also ordered from Aqua Huna (Snails and Pygmy cory's - 12 cory`s)

How was your success rate with Aqua Huna delivered Pygmy Cories?

 

[BuzzDaddy21]

On 7/24/2022 at 7:56 AM, Pepere said:

Aqua Huna delivered Pygmy Cories

No DOA and they are doing great. 

I will add that order also included 6 large Amano`s (Cory`s were in 2 bags.) unfortunately for the Amano`s something happened to the bag, and they were DOA. No problems with Aqua Huna and they sent me 10 small Amano`s and they are growing like weeds. (This was last May) Yes, I will order again from Aqua Huna.

[gardenman]

Stuff happens when fish get shipped. I had a big order from a now closed company arrive in August with a cold pack at the bottom of the container and the bags lying atop the cold pack. The warmest bag was around 50 degrees. I had 90+% casualties from that order. A box can be handled roughly in transit. A relatively small fall of say five or six feet can shock the fish in the bags inside the box. Boxes fall off conveyor belts fairly regularly in the shipping facilities. The box could just have been tossed into the back of a truck instead of carefully being placed.

I've heard of companies shipping active accelerometers and g-force monitors to see how a "typical" package is handled and what kind of forces it's exposed to so they can better design safe shipping options. Some of the results of those tests show that there's no "safe" way to ship a package. Some of the packages pretty much had car crash level impacts along the way to their destination. You like to think your package is handled carefully and lovingly all along the way. Some pretty much get drop-kicked and slammed around. It's one of the risks you take with a shipped package.

[Brandon p]

I order all the time online. It depends on the type of fish, how it’s shipped, and company/person shipping. I typically expect no fish to die but I do understand that it does happen. Even in unboxing video Cory has and other YouTube fish store have some die. 
1. some fish are hard to ship they don’t deal well with the stress or have fragile parts fins,tails , barbells, scaleless fish, and shrimp and crawfish( for me personally I can say that for others). And some many other things

2 overnight typically has the least number of dead fish but I have gotten discus overnight and had 12 dead. Probably handle ing or packing issue. Fish can travel a long way for many day with no issues. Fish on long trips can be treated to lessen stress but for the avg shipping in the US mail 3 day that doesn’t happen.

3. The more fish that companies ship the better the tend to pack best and know when to put heat or cooling packs when needed. Hobbyist sometimes don’t have the the know how. There are all types of bags to ship in , the amount of protection in the packing. I allows love when I open a box and the white shipping cooler is in there. That normally means my fish are safe. 

Coryies can be hard to ship, I saw someone posted the info about so I wouldn’t rehash it. I will say I was cleaning tank  that had a lot of moss and was not excepted any fish left in the tank and grasped the moss and a Cory fin went all the way into my hand to the back of the fish about 4mm not that long but it hurt for days and can only imagine that if they poked each other in shipping. 
Im Surprised about the neons. 
 

I know this is a dumb question but the fish were shipped in different bags right. 
 

Even the best companies do lose fish sometimes. I’m sure it’s been pointed out about the guarantee most companies have about live arrival. A few hobbyist with reship including shipping. Sorry you lost fish it alway is no good. 

 

[Pepere]

On 7/24/2022 at 4:10 PM, Brandon p said:

I know this is a dumb question but the fish were shipped in different bags right. 

Yes. 10 Green neon per bag, 2 bags. 6 pygmy cories in another bag. Shipped in a styrofoam container with an icepack which was wrapped in bubble wrap.

 

36 hours doorstep to doorstep.

 

i am checking my quarantine tank twice a day for a body check. Last morning was the last time I found a dead cory.  I have 1 cory left and feel bad for him being lonely.

1 live cory out of 6.

without question it is demoralizing to pull out a dead fish twice a day.

 

if it was rough handling in transit, I would have expected the neons to also be affected.separate bags but same package…

[Brandon p]

Corys are can be hard to ship. If the neons get roughed up in shipping they don’t have daggers sticking from 3 parts of three body.  That is a bad day. I’m sorry that happened 

[Pepere]

Seller issued a refund as I had no doubts they would.

[Brandon p]

I have  not every had a seller honor there policy regarding fish arriving a live some policies are not dont very go like if it’s a live when you get it your out of of luck even if the ere is no way it will make m. Most have good poiclies but don’t include shipping. If shipping with USPS you can have your fish insured. The problem is you have to show that it was the handling that killed them. Express packages are auto insured for $50 and you can ask for more but with it being hard to prove it was USPS I have only collected 4 time 3 with fish in which it took several days to long or the boxes were damaged

”Either the sender or the recipient may file a claim for insured mail that is lost, arrived damaged, or was missing contents. The person filing must have the original mailing receipt. Each claim must be filed within a certain time period and include proof of insurance, value, and damage.” USPS

[tolstoy21]

On 7/25/2022 at 3:46 PM, Brandon p said:

Most have good poiclies but don’t include shipping.

I never understood this practice. I recently got a $5 fish off Aquabid (was a great deal) but had to pay $25 shipping. The fish arrived late via USPS and was DOA as I expected. Got a $5 refund!

My personal practice as a seller is the following (and maybe I'm nuts):

• If the whole shipment or the majority of a shipment arrives DOA, I'll issue a 100% refund, shipping included.
• If a shipment arrives partially DOA, I'll issue a refund for the cost of the DOAs (but not shipping), or ship the customer replacement fish, free of cost.

I don't know how many other sellers do this, but I can't in good conscience double-charge someone for shipping if I have to do a partial re-ship, and I cannot not 100% refund someone if they get a box of dead fish. Yes, I'm not to blame for problems and mistakes at the carrier's end of things. But the carrier I use is the one I picked so I see it as my responsibility to take the brunt of the financial damage when thing go wrong, not the buyer. In my eyes, you should receive what you pay for, period and, as a buyer, not have to pay more to rectify a problem.

I've taken some time think about how to build these costs into my overall model, and, well, if i mess up, or if my carrier messes up, then yeah, I go into the red. But this just makes me do everything I can to ship properly, ensure everyone is happy and try to get better at this aspect of the hobby.

Sure I'll never get rich, not even close. But, I just can't see how problems become the customer's fault and loss? I'd rather people have a positive experience, even in the event of a mishap, than leave a transaction with people pissed off, just to prevent a few dollar's loss on my end. I'd rather close up shop than operate otherwise.

Edited July 25, 2022 by tolstoy21