How many of these have you had? It's got to be at least one...right?

[Reefs and Geeks]

7 years in the hobby, maybe ordered 3 times online. I enjoy trading frags locally, and ship some from time to time myself. I save the boxes and either give them away when I sell/trade frags to keep them warm on their ride home, or have reused to ship coral to someone else.

 

[Arabyps]

1. How long have you been in the hobby and how many online livestock orders have you had?

I have been in the hobby for less than 3 years. Given we have only 2 LFS and both seem rather cluttered and dirty, I purchase mostly on-line from vendors that quarantine livestock before releasing for sale (I.e. TSM Aquatics and Diver's Den). For CUC it is Reef Cleaners. I do purchase frozen food from the LFS and Petco. Amazon is my source for flake and pellet food.

2. What do you do with the empty styrofoam shipping boxes?

The styrofoam and cardboard boxes go into recycling per guidelines of our local disposal services company.

 

[adumb112]

My LFS stock and quality really took a dive over the last year. I finally pulled the online shopping trigger on a few coral pieces and had a good experience. I do always purchase WYSIWYG and remember that these online sellers are experts in making the their pictures look amazing.

 

[BackToTheReef]

None - Last time I was in the hobby online shopping and availability wasn't as prevalent as it is now and I got great deals at the LFS I worked at. This time however...

 

[tweeter]

I have been in saltwater for 9 years, freshwater proir to that for 15 years. When I first set my saltwater tank up, I bought locally. The fish that I got had ich, all of them, and it killed everything in my tank!! I had to let my tank set empty except for one lonely shrimpfor 3 months. And let me tell you, he was lonely!! He would follow me from one end of the tank to the other, and swim to the front of the glass to get attention! Poor guy! Anyway, that experience, along with the very bad advice, and rudeness that we would recieve everytime when we went into the local fish shop, was enough for me. We finally just stopped going in at all. So, every fish and every coral but a couple came from online vendors. I do not regret it, not one bit. LA has sent me lots of nice fish, and UC, Cherrys, ASD, and a few others have filled my tanks with beautiful corals. And anyway, it always fun so see "whats in the box!!"

 

[Mick51]

I started keeping fish (freshwater) when I was about 10, I’m now 63 started salt around 05 around the time extra money went away.. I work in the pet trade so I am able to go to an importer in my area so I just return the box when I go back. Also they offer excellent advice ..”no you don’t want that”

 

[Glass Algae]

I save the styrofoam coolers for transporting frags from lfs to my house as I'm around an hiur away in traffic.

 

[Dwaters]

I give any boxes to my LFS. They always have people coming in from a distance and need containers for them to transplant things safely.

 

[TK72]

I am fortunate to live in an area where there’s some great LFS and hobbyists. The shipping costs alone are enough to make me not order online but also the greater chance of some thing showing up DOA

 

[kenchilada]

I like to see live stuff before I buy it.

I try to get to the LFS on the day they get orders in and buy straight out of the box, before they go in the store tank.

 

[Rod999vance]

Use them as an ice chest when going to lake or camping, then toss em at end of day. One less thing to pack up and return home with.

 

[ScottR]

1. How long have you been in the hobby and how many online livestock orders have you had?

Off and on for 20ish years.

I’ve always lived where no livestock shopping happens. Previously was in Hawaii and there was almost not saltwater hobbying there at the time, oddly. Now in Asia and no livestock shipping here either. Although the hobby is great here IMO.

 

[damselindistress]

I truly hate Styrofoam from an environmental standpoint but it is a necessary component in many applications.

My husband has a pretty active ebay side hustle and he can use the Styrofoam shippers when he's packing very fragile or delicate items.

 

[ReefReadyYouTube]

I’ve made about 5 or 6 orders from liveaquaria and I’ll only order off line if there’s a good deal or specific fish I want. I try not to Though. Coral and fish isn’t something you buy without looking at it first.

 

[BKLYN651]

Been in hobby 15 years. 95% of livestock is purchased online. Used Liveaquaria 80% of time. Fish are more stressed with humans bothering them. The few problems I had were refunded with no problem. Most problems were due to UPS. They use Fedex now. Boxes go in the trash.

 

[Dragon8736]

I been ordering for many years. I do have few that didn't survive but majority of them do survive it also depends on what kind of coral some do well in shipping than others.

 

[Reeferdeluxe]

12 years or so in the hobby. Only thing I have ever purchased online was cuc can't beat the prices vs. Local fish stores.

 

[Bcdjoe]

I recently received a couple livestock orders this past week and I was left with the shipping boxes and wondering what to do with them. I hear you....KEEP THEM right? Well that was me too about 1000 orders ago! Ok maybe not that many but it's been a lot and I have too many boxes now.

It did get me thinking though, not about boxes, but about online livestock orders and how many I have had over the years. I don't know exactly but I'll take a guess and say since 2004 it's been around 200 or so. 170 is a conservative bet I would think. So what about you? Let's make this a two fold question of the day.

1. How long have you been in the hobby and how many online livestock orders have you had?

2. What do you do with the empty styrofoam shipping boxes?

 

[Doctorgori]

Yeah I’m over 100 , started ordering online whenever it started (90’s? can’t remember)
I tried to print all my LA orders but it only goes back 3 years or whatever
....The sad back story with me and everyone else is: “where are all those fish?”

 

[Fishy Art]

I have been in the hobby 9 months now. I bought pair of clowns from my LFS but stopped buying livestock from them due to bad practices regarding poor quarantining of livestock. So I only buy online. The remaining 6 fish I have I bought from Live aquaria and everything was good except for one order when the fish arrived dead. I buy my corals from Aqua Corals and Tidal Gardens and they both offer great corals and I have never had a problem.