About Livestock

Our live arrival guarantee applies to overnight service only. We use UPS NextDay Air because it's the fastest service available and best for the livestock, it's usually guaranteed by 10:30, 12Pm in some areas, end of day in rural areas. You are welcome to use Standard/NextDay Air Saver which is overnight by end of day or Ground, if you are in a 1 day ground zone. Saver and Ground are at your own risk for fish and inverts. 2day air is fine for liverock, you will have a little more curing time going 2 days.

Filling Orders

The industry standard for filling livestock orders are to substitute, up size or down size (and charge accordingly) or leave out any item that is not available at time of shipping. We do not follow this standard. We know you want your livestock and we will hold your order and make arrangements to either ship without it or get you something else you want or wait until we do have it. We might make a small substitute or leave out something small, for example 10 snails instead of 12, but you will be contacted if we can't fill an important part of your order. You can however tell us to follow the standard fill rate policy if you want.

Shipping Your Order

Our live arrival guarantee applies to overnight service only. We use UPS NextDay Air because it's the fastest service available and best for the livestock, it's usually guaranteed by 10:30, 12Pm in some areas, end of day in rural areas. You are welcome to use Standard/NextDay Air Saver which is overnight by end of day or Ground, if you are in a 1 day ground zone. Saver and Ground are at your own risk for fish and inverts. You have to pay $14.50 extra for Saturday plus the NextDay Air Overnight charge. For rock orders, there is a UPS 2-day Air plus Saturday option. You need to mention you want this service in customer comments and we'll add the $14.50 Saturday charge to your order.

Parts of Ohio, Illinois, & Kentucky states can have liverock and sand shipped UPS ground. It is a risk, but most of you are in a 1 day delivery zone from us. Check transits time at ups.com. If we are shipping to a commercial address, it's a better chance of making timely delivery. When weather is mild, 2 days in transit will be ok for the Live Rock.

Also available is Airport to Airport delivery. This service is usually $55 to $75.00 for 100 pounds of weight (100 pounds charge, even if you don't have 100 pounds), after 100 pounds, it is billed per pound. Airport delivery is more of a hassle but is the best value for heavy orders, they also handle the rock very well. Usually we ship Tuesday nights, can vary. We only drop off your order when we pick up ours. It's an hour and a half round trip, so shipping same time saves time and money. Special Trips to airport other then standard are available for an additional $35.00 fuel/time charge.

Packing Your Order

We are dedicated to making your package safe for shipping. Have you ever got a box of corals or fish in a big cooler box with no packing. The bags just flop around inside, this is not good for your livestock. I'm sure you all have seen how the shipping companies just throw boxes around!!

We use the appropriate size box for your order. If their is extra free space we fill it with newspaper and/or build styrofoam bridges and braces to lock everything in place.

We also start packaging your livestock in the late afternoon. This lets us leave your livestock in the water for a few extra hours and we believe the less stress the animals have the healthier they will be for you.

Bagging Livestock

We do not cut any corners here. We use minimum one 2mil bag plus a 4mil bag over that one, if the coral is sharp or a crazy fish like a tang or trigger, we'll use 3 to 6 bags to make sure it doesn't break or bite the bags open. In the winter we use 20 hour heat packs and in the summer we use Ice Gel packs. These are all included with the box charge, on perfect weather days, 50-70 degrees, we do not use ice or heat and this type of weather is ideal for shipping. Depending on weather conditions, we also use special Breathing Bags, where they draw in oxygen and exhale CO2, allow us to ship longer times and save space. When the weather is nice, we will ship some crabs and snails with wet plastic strips only, this keeps them from polluting the water in the bag and saves you on weight, which means less money to ship. We do not use any methods that are not good for the animals, we use which ever method that works best all around. For example, we are shipping most crabs and snails without water, we will continue until weather makes this not possible. Customers have been reporting great arrivals, critters moving around right from the start, so hopefully the weather will remain nice.

All polyps, yellow, button, colony rock ships using the dry method. We wrap the polyps with 2 layers of wet newspaper and then bag it without water. This cuts down on weight, but is also the best method for shipping polyps. You'll find the polyp is much healthier. Weather permitting, we ship SPS frags with plastic strips only, we loosely wrap the coral, soak in tank water, then drain. It's amazing how much healthier they ship then using water, plus saves you freight cost. When it starts getting really cold, we'll go back to floating frags upside down with foam and water.

We also treat the shipping water for fish with Kordan's NovAqua & AmQuel. The NovAqua adds protective skin coating and helps repair any damage to the animal, like netting or just stress. The AmQuel is a detoxifier. It will remove the ammonia that the animal produces during shipping. Whenever possible, we catch your fish with plastic specimen containers, prevents fin tears and most of the time the fish doesn't even know it's caught until it's too late (less stress). Fast fish, sometimes have to be cashed a little with a net.

Live Arrival Guarantee

We guarantee your livestock will be alive on arrival. You must be available to receive the items and acclimate them to your system within 1 hour of delivery. If you are not home or plan on acclimating them later that is fine, but that is at your own risk. Many of the animals can go a very long time in transit, but we use the fastest shipping available to preserve the animals health. The delivery company may require a signature, if you do not specifically ask us to release the signature and you can't be home. Just leave a note saying it's okay to leave and sign the note with your full signature. They'll cut out your signature and use on there delivery board and leave the package.

If you get livestock that you think is dead or close to it, just let us know and go ahead and acclimate the livestock like normal. If your new livestock dies within 12 hours or does not arrive alive we will give you a full instore credit for the animal. We reserve the right to request Digital Photos and on rare occasions send the item back for verification. You can use the store credit for next livestock or drygood order, you do not have to reorder the same item. We do not put livestock credits back on your charge card, our instore credit does not expire though and we keep track of the balance for you. Shipping cost is not refundable unless it's a shipping company delay. Often bad weather conditions can void guarantees on shipping, we will always attempt to get you a full shipping refund if it's a late package.

Misc Charges

Small/Medium Box Charge $7.00, box is 8x8x8 or 14x10x10. These boxes can ship most small to medium corals and of course crabs, snails and fish. On average, 3-5 items works very well for filling the box and taking advantage of shipping cost. Example, some crabs, snails, and a couple corals.

Large Box Charge $7.00, box is 16x16x16. This box can hold up to 50 pounds of Fiji rock, 30-50 Marshall. It can hold probably 15-25 corals and/or fish.

We ship Monday thur Friday. You can generally call up to about 2PM and still get your livestock the next day. If you choose email please send the email by 2PM with confirmations otherwise it will be delayed. You are welcome to order via online, email or phone, if you want the faster and best fill rate I would recommend calling. If you are ordering via email and have emailed back and fourth, always include a final list of items you want, help keeps mistakes low.