No Marinecenter, where to get healthy fish?

[pmrogers]

I'm restocking our 750 after losses from flatworm exit. All of our healthiest fish came from The Marinecenter.com, never a case of ick or any other disease, and never a problem adapting them to prepared foods.

Now, though, it seems that Marinecenter is either out of business or on a very extended vacation.

Are there any other sources for reliably healthy, eating fish? I'm not price sensitive, just want the best possible specimens.

Thanks!
-Paul

[shag26272]

liveaquaria.com

[stuccodude]

flatworm exit crashed your tank? i'd be p**s'd

[pmrogers]

Shag, 50% of the fish I've ordered from liveaquaria have died within the month. What I like(d) about Marinecenter is that they quarantine for a month or longer until the fish are eating prepared foods. I haven't found anyone else yet who does this.

Stuccodude, I don't blame flatworm exit but instead the toxins from the dying planeria. Basically, I didn't siphon out enough before treatment and/or didn't have enough carbon and water change for recovery after the dosing (though I thought 60lbs carbon and a 300gal water change would suffice).

When the little red buggers reappeared 2 weeks later I treated again with flatworm exit with no ill effect, mostly, I think due to there not being so many flatworms present to die.

-Paul

[myerst2]

If you want Hawaiian, Cgristmas, and some Aussie. I highly recommend Wet Pets Hawaii. PhishyBusiness is also a very reliable source for high quality quarantined fish. Regards, Tim

[shag26272]

theres a guy near houston I just ordered a fish from on ebay, he puts a youtube of the exact fish on the listing. he told me the fish has been in quarantine for a month, I will be receiving it tomorrow
http://stores.ebay.com/aquabreeder

[saltyESQ]

I attempted to purchase corals and fish from marinecenter.com and the keyword is "attempted.

I ordered everything from their website and 3 days later I get a call telling me that over 1/2 my order is out of stock. I asked them if they could tell me what was out of stock and they said "NO". the guy then told me that they don't write it down.
I then asked what do they have in stock and the guy said I don't know and we don't have a list of goods that we have in stock.

All I can say is they are a joke and i cancelled my order.

[marinelife]

From there site:
Hello everyone!
As you may have guessed, we’re not shipping at the moment. We’re taking some much-needed time off. Our major personnel haven’t had a vacation in about 15 years! No kidding! In the meantime, please browse the site. We have stunning photos and lots of info on all types of cool livestock!

[pmrogers]

Tim, thanks for the Wet Pets and Phishybusiness pointers.

SaltyESQ, I accepted partial availability as a necessary cost of getting only healthy specimens. However, they could at least always tell me WHICH items were unavailable!

Marinelife, they've had that banner up for a month+. I wish they would have put a return date.

[saltyESQ]

Originally posted by pmrogers

SaltyESQ, I accepted partial availability as a necessary cost of getting only healthy specimens. However, they could at least always tell me WHICH items were unavailable!

The guy specifically told me he had no idea which corals in my order were unavailable because they didn't write it down. I asked the guy don't you think you should have written it down and he responded we never do.
Then I had the whole ordeal about trying to find out what specimens you guys do have in stock and was specifically told that your company doesn't keep a list of available fish and corals. When told this, I was shocked and asked the guy if he was sure there was no list of available fish and corals. The employee responded that it is a large place and he would have to walk around and see what was in the tanks and it would take too much time.
This was before you had the availablity list on your website.

I sent several sarcastic emails over the years asking your company if they ever decided to stop being mickey mouse and try to actually run the business and create an availability list....I never got a response.

[pmrogers]

Salty, that's really strange. As of the time I last ordered, 6 or 8 years ago, they would post a list of available fish updated each week. I would always order from this list, but then end up with some or all unavailable either because they had declined in health or because they had already sold to another customer. A bit of a hassle, but still better than getting sick fish.

I never ordered any of their inverts so I can't speak to quality of those at all.

[saltyESQ]

if you want some nice fish, vividaquariums.com, which is a sponsor of RC and is one of my lfs is a great place.

[Amoore311]

Pacific East Aquaculture and another +1 for Vivid Aquariums.

Dr.Mac over at Pacific East doesn't mess around!

Very surprised you had a bad experience w/ Live Aquaria. They quarantine everything coming out of the Diver's Den for quite a while before it goes into stock.

[pmrogers]

Thanks for the Vivid Aquariums and Pacific East pointers.

To be fair to Live Aquaria, the fish I ordered were either delicate or low survival rate in general: non-Australian copperband butterfly (I didn't know yet about Australians), 12 Chromis (probably killed each other off down to school of 3), squarespot anthias, rock beauty angel.