LiveAquaria.com Clownfish?

[Travis Savant]

Hey guys :)

I am wanting to order 2 B&W Ocellaris Clowns from them, but wanted to see if any of you guys have bought from them? Are your experiences bad, good, or somtimes bad / somtimes good?

Here's a link to the fish I want to order: http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=1114

TIA :thumbsup:

[reefraver]

hey man i have never ordered from there because all the stuff i here is bad.


plus if your fish come dead you have to freeze it and ship it back to them.

it is not worth it.
i just look at the fish to get ideas of what i want

best of luck

[PRF]

i heard the opposite, i heard all their fish and everything else is good

[LukFox]

I hear that everything comes super healthy and in good condition, but sometimes they mix up the order.

[weilerda]

I've bought things from them twice and both times have been successful. In fact all the fish I bought from them have out lasted LFS. Only my opinion.

[criccio]

I purchased a pair of clowns last November, Fedex screwed up, and LA sent out a new pair and covered all costs.

[Drewpy]

I have spent thousands with liveaquaria...

And have three clowns from them. All very nice. Very healthy.

On the odd occation they something dies or an order is messed up, shipping once with me-- but more my fault... They honor their guarantee and/or make things right. I have never had to ship anyhting back to them.

[clown fanatic]

yea ive read pages and pages of nothing but good stuff about them. me myself, i think they're prices are pretty high but if your willing to fork up the cash id say definatly go for it

[Travis Savant]

Thanks guys, I think I will be placeing an order with them soon :)

[ricordiaking]

Nice place, I got a nice Akin pair from them

[Travis Savant]

Cool, do yo have any pictures? I'd love to see them :)

[ricordiaking]

Here is link with a few old pics

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=575360&highlight=akindynos+pair

[Travis Savant]

They look happy :)

[Travis Savant]

OK!!! Tuesday I will be ordering the B&W Ocellaris Clowns from LiveAquaria.com, so they SHOULD be in by Wednessday :).

[Travis Savant]

I will post pictures in this thread of them when they come in :cool:

[reefD]

very good online store IMO. have used them for dry goods

[Jovreefer]

They do QT their fish with ALOT of copper...thats my only complaint, I bought 2 fish from them including a clown, they both got lymph...no biggie though...it fell off.

Both fish were very fat and eating flakes when I got them though.

[sarduci]

I go to the F&S retail store since it's only a drive away from me. They order their in store fish from the same place the mail order fish come from.

I've seen them stocking the tanks right out of the bags and the fish looked great all three times. I'm going to the retail store when I pick mine out, but anything they don't have stocked right then will be mail ordered on the spot without a second thought.

[dchao]

Originally posted by Jovreefer
They do QT their fish with ALOT of copper...thats my only complaint, I bought 2 fish from them including a clown, they both got lymph...no biggie though...it fell off.

Both fish were very fat and eating flakes when I got them though. Most LFS puts copper in the fish only tank as well. So I don't see any difference.

I buy *all* my fish from LiveAquaria. Best shipping rate, fish and corals have always arrived very healthy. They use FedEx, which I think is much better than UPS.

[Travis Savant]

OK, I jsut placed the order, actually it was aproxamatly 7 minutes ago.

I should be getting the litle guys in Thursday morning before 10:30 am CST.

After they are acclimated, I will post pictures of the little clowns.

Thanks for all the info on LA.com, I appreciate it :)

[dchao]

Travis, just follow their acclimation procedures, do it slowly over 2 hours. I always put one drop of Prime to remove ammonia, because the ammonia become more toxic as soon as the bag is opened and CO2 in the air gets in.

[Travis Savant]

Thanks Dchao, I always aclimate my fish for 1-2 hours.

[Ritten]

Travis, FYI, when I got my black and whites from LiveAquaria they were very small. It took them a good couple of days to settle in. Two years later they are a pair and my favorite fish. Also, when they are that small they are brown in color.

[Travis Savant]

Thanks for the info kellierick :)

I hope mine do well :cool:

BTW, do yo have any picture of your clowns?

[Ritten]

Sorry, Travis, no camera. They are sweet. Enjoy the anticipation of receiving yours. Oh, mine took a couple of days to eat also so don't panic if this happens to you like I did.

[Travis Savant]

Ok, thanks.

Are your's misbard in any way? I requested a pair that didn't have any misbartation whatsoever.

[outdoorguy]

You will be very happy with them. I placed order for two clownfish and a cleaner shrimp. Arrived on 6/2 and were very healthy.

[captbunzo]

I am thinking about getting a pair of cinnamon clowns sometime soon and am really wanting to get a male and female so that they might mate down the road sometime.

Anyone have any clue how accomodating liveaquaria is about provided a M/F pair?

Also, anyone have any other suggestions for where/how to get M/F pairs of clowns?

[dchao]

captbunzo, you better put the question in the clownfish forum.

IME, if you just buy two young clownfish and put them in the same tank, they are very likely to pair-up. The larger one will become the female.

[captbunzo]

Will BECOME female??? Are you saying that they change gender???

[Travis Savant]

captbunzo, when Clowfish are born, they have NO gender. So they are called "Juvees", then if you as it gets older it will turn to male, then to female. If you have to in the same tank, they larger/more dominant of the pair will turn all they way to female, and the smaller, less dominat of the pair will turn male, and stay there. If for some reason the Female of the pair dies, the Male will turn Female, and it will be possible to add a Juvee, or anoter Male so that they may pair up. Once a clown goes male, it can't go back to juvee, and once a male clown goes female, it can't go back to male or juvee.

HTH

[captbunzo]

Holy clownfish!!! Way cool!

[electrokate]

Hi,
I went in on an order with this company, they forgot a few fish or the website sort of dumped part of the order, not sure which, so I only got one little fish myself which did well. The bicinctus and other clowns my friend got all died within a week, and most of the other fish were extremely small. They offered full credit with future free shipping, taking our word that the fish were dead, no shipping frozen dead fish or photographing corpses, and they offered to refund the credit card if we didn't want to reorder. That is a great deal better than most vendors. They had a 2 week window when the fish had this full replacement guarantee and they were so nice I can't complain.

Buying wild caught clowns is always very risky. If you will find yourself morally or emotionally offended by the deaths then look around longer on the local level. Here there are always locals selling well established fish, often pairs. People move, get sick of them, have kids etc. Check club lists and local ebay listings, often people selling tanks offer the fish sold separately, or the winning bidder will sell the fish. Impulse has always cost me far more than patience-yesterday I got 2 free skimmers and a tank and half my fish are freebies from people downsizing or separating aggressors. These deals usually come up right after you pay for a brand spanking new piece of gear/fish/etc. If a freebie isn't perfect pass it to your friend and he will make sure you get something later... freshwater clubs are a great source of free marine stuff because there is no competition (:

There are also breeders here who have young fish you can grow out, which is fun and they are really cute! Bet you can find them near you.

If you do order and can swing it go for the captive bred/tank raised clowns. This should theoretically improve your chances drastically, as long as the vendor keeps them apart from wild caught fish. I assume this company does as they are large and professional.
Good luck!
Kate
Oly WA

[Travis Savant]

THEY CAME IN ALIVE!!!! :D

The little guys, when I say little I mean like Under 1.25", are SUPER healthy looking, they are all ready swimming around the tank and playing with the smaller chromis. The largest Chromis didn't take it too well. He didn't like them at all. He keeped horasing them, so I tried to net him out. That didn't work so in my frushtration, I place my hand in the tank, waited for him to swim by, and PLICKED him right on the kisser. He hid for like 5 minutes at most, and is now out and about. He dosn't nip the clowns any more, but he still bullies the other 2 chromises.

Like kellierick warned me about, they arn't eating. But I guess this is fairly normal for being in a box for so long.

BTW, the shipping method was great, it had a cooling back that was still cool when I got the fish, and some kind of bubble wrap that was insullated.

I will definantly order fish from them again.

Pictures to come soon :)

[Ritten]

That's great, Travis, can't wait to see pixs.

[Travis Savant]

Here you go guys :D

2 of them are abit blurry, they don't like to take pictures lol.

http://savantcutting.com/Travs-Stuff/6-23-05/Clowns/C1.jpg

http://savantcutting.com/Travs-Stuff/6-23-05/Clowns/C2.jpg

http://savantcutting.com/Travs-Stuff/6-23-05/Clowns/C3.jpg

Here's a God shot of the tank with the clowns. they are in the Middle left side near the corner :D

http://savantcutting.com/Travs-Stuff/6-23-05/FTS-Left-Angle.jpg

What do you guys think? Are they a keeper?

[electrokate]

They look great! That was my experience too, the fish were mostly very small. If you quarantine great but if you do not then you have to figure out how to house a 1 inch fish in a community tank! But on the plus side the small ones ship better.

Getting them to eat will be trial and error at first, try small amounts often and move slowly. Baby clowns apparently do get scared of food and can change their minds daily about what they "like". Plus they have to get used to you feeding them and to the space. I got some and fed them a variety of things, they like tiny round pellets best (golden pearls by brine shrimp direct 300-500 micron size) and live brine shrimp. Frozen food is great one day and they don't like it the next, flake they like but they swallow a lot of bubbles and have trouble with big pieces. I have been told they can choke on big frozen mysis and such so small bits are best. Good luck!

Kate

[Travis Savant]

Thanks Kate :)

[Ritten]

Sweet, Travis, looks like all is well!!!!

[Travis Savant]

Yep, they are doing fine, and the largest Chromis still isn't bullieing them, so everything seems to be going great. I really like both clown's white bands, they seem so...perfect :D

[Travis Savant]

The lights just kicked off and the clowns are 10x more active lol. The tank is lit by 9 blue LEDs and I can see them exploring the uper parts of the tank. When the MH was on, the were active, but staid on the left side of the tank.

They seem very happy :)

[dchao]

Like Kate has said. Frozen Brine is excellent for small clownfish. Make sure the chromis aren't stealing from the clowns, and they have enought to eat, the chromis are fast eaters. You may need to target feed to new fish first.

Once the clowns have settled in, introduce flakes slowly. I also feed frozen formula-one, which is actually formulated for breeding clownfish in mind.

[Travis Savant]

Thanks dchao :)

[Travis Savant]

I woke up this morning, and it looked like the clowns were hosting my mag float lol. They are still doing great, and seem to be more relaxed.

I am going to a LFS today and pick up some frozen Brine.

Hopefully I can get them to eat today :cool:.

[Travis Savant]

Oh yeah, if they have the frozen Formula-One I will pick that up too.