Here's a few bad things I've come to notice about buying fish online.
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- You cannot see what you're buying. You have to have faith and trust within the company you are ordering from that they will send you a healthy specimen. In the past week, I have placed two separate orders for a Zebra Dwarf Lionfish, the first one died overnight. The second one I got today and is in even worse shape and probably wont make it.
- Shipping. Shipping is expensive and stressful on your livestock, usually 23 times longer of a trip for your specimen then from the local fish store to your house. Further increasing the chances that you will not have a healthy specimen when it arrives on your door step. It's also non-refundable - which can get pricey even with a "warranty."
- Minimum Purchase Price. Most stores have a minimum purchase price before they will actually sell you fish. So if you only want $5 worth of turbo snails, you have to find $25 of something else before you can even get your snails.
- FedEx, UPS, and USPS. On the way from their warehouse to your door, your extremely delicate specimen is in the hands of these "trained" professionals. If you knew the torture boxes go through and whats in side them, during shipping, you would probably pack things really tight. Go to a loading dock (warehouse that loads the truck that delivers your package to your door) and watch how they handle boxes that say "FRAGILE - THIS SIDE UP" - it's terrible. They throw them in the back of trucks, spin them in circles, throw them through the air, and slam them against other boxes. I ordered a tube coral (very very fragile) awhile ago. I was so excited I was waiting next to the front door watching out the window. The FedEx driver pulled up, went into the back, carried my box through the front door flipping it through the air trying to find the label to scan it. 20% of the coral died and is only now growing back.
- Fish/Inverts/Corals are cheaper than your local fish store. Sometimes even with shipping, if you buy enough, it can be cheaper then going cross town to a store. They have more regular sales on fish. They offer better "bulk buy" discounts then most local fish stores.
- More specimen's are in stock more often. It's very rare that my local fish store get anything like triggers, lions, angels, mantis shrimp, crabs, mandarins, hell even some gobies. Since most online stores don't have a "open to the public" store, they can put them anywhere. This subtracts from store costs which adds to the space that they can get somewhere else, more space means more room for livestock, more room for livestock means higher sales.
- Fish Health. The major online stores usually have a really good quarantine procedure in place, once again, because they don't have to pay for storefront they can afford these things. Most local fish stores can't afford to quarantine because of the cost of space it takes. My local fish store turns over their entire stock twice a week. It would cost them TONS of money in order to quarantine everything before sale. If a fish is offered for sale 2-4 weeks after they receive the fish, that fish is most likely eating and already has made the cross over from ocean life to aquarium life. And as we all know, a fish that's already taking flake or prepared foods is a huge load off your chest.
- Warranty. Most local fish stores here offer a 48 hour warranty period. Some online stores offer a 14 day warranty on fish and 30 day warranty on some corals. You don't always get a 100% healthy specimen and it is less stressful on you buying a $50-$2000 fish to know if you spend that money and it dies for reasons out of your control, you will get another fish or credited for your loss.
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