Live Aquaria Mandarin Adventure

[Mark_C]

Ordered a Biota tank bred mandarin this week as well as some inverts.
Normal Mandarin $20-25, this guy $80 plus $15 shipping for Saturday delivery.

Raised on .5 micron food and frozen cyclo, so got the food ready (as well as some tisbe pods to seed fuge).

Boxes arrived Saturday. Bit overkill for 1 fish and a few snails.



The big container is for a single juvenile mandarin, the smaller for 4 snails and a feather duster.



Inverts all good, though a bit cold.



But the mandarin bag is actually cold, the cooler is way to big for 1 small heatpack.



And, unfortunately, we have a DOA.
This guy was very juvenile, smaller than I thought they would ship.




I contacted Live Aquaria and explained the situation thoroughly.
The operator was a bit surprised and offered a refund or a new fish.
I was wary of the fish at this point but was assured that a smaller container would be used, with 2 heat packs, and a larger fish would be sent.

New arrival date Wednsday.
Will keep updating.

 

[diana a]

That was a tiny guy. Well at least your refugium will be well stocked. Crossing fingers that the next one is delivered with a full belly, and healthy

 

[Hawkeye]

That's terrible. Sorry to see that.

 

[Mrx7899x]

better luck with the next one

 

[Labridaedicted]

Sorry to see that. Always a bummer to have a DOA, especially when it's the reason for the order.

I will say that that size is pretty normal for the biota mandarins from what I've seen.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

[jazeel50]

I have had good success with frozen pods. I would mix in with frozen brine and other fish food. Now mines eats frozen foods with no problems. I Bought my male a Female and the female is now weaned on brine and other frozen foods


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[MadReefer]

Sorry to hear this. Biggest problem ordering online is that animals are smaller than stated.

 

[Mark_C]

Round 2

Wednesday morning, UPS drops a box on my doorstep with no knock or bell ring.
Fortunately I heard the truck.

Same packaging as previous order, but 2 heat packs inside.



Same double bag, but again, its cold.



But this time we have an active and very curious mandarin (but again, very 'worried he may get ambushed by the serpent star' small).





Living in a net house on the inside of the tank atm. Tried it on the outside of the tank, wasn't working well.



Did a feed of frozen baby krill and cyclo mix. He/she seemed to be eating.
Dropped in a bit more Tisbe as well as some pod endowed cheato into the holding cell.
Going to try some very small white worms tomorrow.

We'll see how this goes over next few days.

 

[diana a]

Congrats on the new addition. My fingers are crossed he does well!

 

[mnat]

Awesome.

 

[horseplay]

Very cute. Good luck

 

[Mrx7899x]

Good luck

 

[KenM]

Wow he is small! Best of luck with him though

 

[Mark_C]

Figured I'd update this.
Number two was a loss as well.
Acclimated over a few hours due to temp differences (bag was 67, tank is 80).
Seemed to go OK but he didn't survive the night.

Contacted Live Aquaria, seems this is not an isolated problem in this weather, especially as shipping is from California.
Theres a few drastic temp swings over a 24 hour period and it seems the size of the box and the limited ability of the heat packs are a concern
Note this shipment had 2 heat packs, and the fish arrived cold but alive (the first arrived very cold and not alive).

Live Aquaria took advice on board.
They are contacting the supplier to advise allowing the mandarins to mature a bit more (or LA themselves may consider purchasing juveniles and raising in their tanks for a few weeks), and they are looking into improving shipping conditions.
They issued me a full credit for a future mandarin for when the weather is a bit more stable and the shipping issues are addressed.
Astounding customer service.

 

[diana a]

Sorry to hear. I have heard their customer service is great. Good luck next time. Are there any of our LFS vendors that can get one for you?

 

[Jim]

astounding in what sense ? seems a bit negligent that they would only consider these steps based on bad results

 

[Mark_C]

Astounding based on the fact that its a 3rd party shipper.
On the first DOA I called immediately.
I was given the option of a credit for the $80 (fish was $80, shipping was free) or another delivery.
Chose the latter requesting the largest fish, a smaller box, and 2 heat packs.
There was no cost to me, overnight shipping.
The delivery box arrived next day, was slightly smaller than original, had 2 heat packs, and the mandarin may have been slightly larger but hard to say.
After the acclimation and passing of number two, I called LA.
The operator expressed discomfort for a second loss (it was sincere, we talked for 20 minutes), she took my opinions on board, offered suggestions she could offer their 3rd party liason, and requested detail of the packaging concerns.
I asked if they needed photos of the dead fish at this point (crap, if I were dishonest I may have had 2 live fish swimming about).
She told me they trust theor customers and no photos were necessary.
She then gave me a credit of $80 (again) and added on an additional $40 for a total credit of $120 to cover any future overnight shipping.
She also advised waiting on another mandarin order, if thats where I was going, until she could discuss issues with the ordering folks.
At the least she advised, if I wanted to go mandarin again, that I wait until the warmer weather so 'we don't lose another one of those little guys'.
So, IMHO, astounding.

 

[mnat]

Doesn't really get better than that as far as customer service and listening to your customers. One fish dying can be an aberration, but two the same way and they changed which shows they care as well.

 

[Jim]

got it, thats true nice to know they had a good response. As a newbie LA had seemed like the gorilla in the room for online, I would have thought they knew what they were doing more so than the smaller outlets; but it hasn't been my experience.

 

[falconut]

Sorry to hear of your losses. I recently tried them and didn't have much luck, so I'm just sticking with local. Their service is good, but their suppliers don't seem to be. I ordered two medium fish & got two small fish (one with lympho) and a few snails & hermits (hermits were almost microscopic). They gave me 1/2 credit for the small items. The lympho spread to the other, but cleared up after 1-1/2 months on the original fish, but because he was small he got harassed and eventually died. The other one (smallest) still has lympho & still can't add him to my DT. I'll probably wind up with nothing from my order when it's all done. Not impressed with them.