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melev

Live Aquaria / Diver's Den order

Rating: 4 votes, 5.00 average.
Yesterday, Fedex showed up with four big boxes from LiveAquaria. I couldn't believe my eyes.





I mean, this can't be all my order. When I'd placed my order, there was some discussion of quantity, and I replied with "Surprise me." I'm not picky - I love my fishies and I wasn't sure what they had in stock ready to ship. So I start pulling out these giant bags of water to see what arrived. Each bag had a single fish in it.



Initially I floated the bags in my sump to keep their temperature, although they were packed so well, they felt right to the touch. Each box contained a styrofoam cooler. The bagged item was immersed in packing peanuts to protect from shipping mishandling, and there were two envelopes filled with heat packs on top, under each lid. The lids were taped down to the ice chests to maintain the temperature during transit.



As I sliced through the layers of plastic bags to get to the fish inside, I realized it was way more than one might expect. I've received double and triple bagged livestock before, but these were bagged NINE times. I counted twice to make sure I was right, and checked a few other bagged items. Diver's Den doesn't mess around.

The instructions in the box recommended drip acclimation, so I proceeded to do as suggested. Note that the cooler was placed on the lid to prevent the concrete floor from dropping the water temperature too quickly.



I just used what I had handy. This was a large coil of 1/4" thickwall tubing.



This small inline ball valve allowed me to control the drip rate.



The water in the cooler (below) was what came out of all the bags. I think I received more than 10g of water in this shipment.




So by now, you're probably wondering what I got. When I visited Live Aquaria two months ago, I wanted to get some mangroves, a curly-cue coral (listed as wire coral Cirrhipathes anguina), and some fish. Now that I'm back home for a few weeks in a row, this order was finally placed & filled.



Here are two of the six Purple Firefish. They immediately took to the protective cover of the mangrove roots.



Why was this order so well packed? I've seen orders of fish come to fish stores with 30 fish in a box of 24 bags, and here I'd received one dartfish in a big bag of water in a temperature controlled cooler. With so many boxes, I called Kevin at LiveAquaria to find out why. What he told me is that the day my order shipped, it was 0 degrees outside. LiveAquaria/Diver's Den won't take chances with livestock; they want the order to arrive with healthy happy fish & corals. Why were they bagged so many times? Well, it turns out that if the staff hears that a friend of Kevin's has placed an order, they get a little overzealous in the packing department.

Getting fish from Diver's Den is always best, because the fish have been quarantined, observed for at least four weeks, and trained to eat prepared foods. Diver's Den livestock thus has a better success rate, which many hobbyists appreciate. Their facilities are clean, and their staff stays busy making sure every animal is well tended to. In an upcoming article, I'll share what I saw and learned during my afternoon there.

Here's the link to their site: http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/

All of my fish were put in QT for the time being, and the mangroves were added to the refugium zone. I have an idea that will take a little effort, but could be kind of neat. The curly-cue coral was put in the suncoral/frag tank. The new angels are in my reef in a social acclimation box I built tonight. I'll share images of that in tomorrow's blog.

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Comments

  1. mhowe9's Avatar
    Cool Marc! Diver's Den is one of my favorites. I have an order coming on Saturday that I am Saturday that I super excited about.
  2. jlemoine2's Avatar
    Well... what did you get? You referenced six purple firefish, and new angels, which I assume are the two dwarfs you already had in QT. Are the firefish the only fish in the order?

    I've ordered from both of Live Aquaria's facilities. I've had good luck with their fish both times, but the Diver's Den fish are clearly of better quality. They also do a great job of honoring their 14 day alive guarantee.
  3. Brad Syphus's Avatar
    Very cool Marc. I love those kind of boxes, lol just like christmas morning feeling.
  4. Blake's Avatar
    Just ordered a Christmas wrasse from there myself! for the 125
  5. steve8855's Avatar
    kool stuff but they wont ship to canada
  6. shred5's Avatar
    Kevin does a wonderful job up there in Rhinelander, WI with live aquaria but I have had problems with thier shipping department out of California. I know others who have too. I don’t know how a place can very so much from on facility to the next.
    But they have the best warranty.
  7. losbeek's Avatar
    that is crazy!! 9 bags!! must be nice to be a bigwig!! lol

    cant wait to see more pics of the livestock in the tank, have to admit u take some of the best pics ive seen!
  8. jagreef's Avatar
    Having seen this , I decided to give them a try. I ordered 6 sps. I am unfortunately not a bigwig and got the following: 3 corals appear to have been just glued prior to shipping and detached in shipping. Inconvenient, but not a big deal. The worst part was I did get a partially RTN'd pink millie that I am struggling to keep alive. I sent them an email and received a kinda of ; well these things happen, keep us posted. Huh? Not impressed at the moment.
  9. melev's Avatar
    Did you order from Divers Den or from Live Aquaria?
  10. jagreef's Avatar
    I ordered from Live Aquaria. Are they not the same organization?

    UPDATE: I just received an email from them crediting me for the Acro Millie ! Wow, they must monitor this blog?
  11. Blake's Avatar
    They are two different facilities. In order to get the best fish and corals you need to order from Rhinelander, Wisconsin (Diver's Den) and not from California (Live Aquaria). Because they are the top protocol facility. Live Aquaria claims to have been forced to adopt all of divers den's facilities but I do not trust it (as far as corals go) However fish are a different story as I received my Christmas Wrasse as stated above ^ From Live Aquaria not Diver's Den and he is awesome he came to my home fat and happy and is doing awesome already eating after two days. But if you want the best of the best (as far as taking chances go which is what you do by ordering online anywhere) you need to order from DIVER'S DEN. However they both have the amazing warranties so you can really order from both and be safe from a "money" standpoint I am happy to hear they gave your money back and good luck with the milli!