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LiveAquariaReviews 32

1.8

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LiveAquaria Reviews Summary

LiveAquaria has a rating of 1.8 stars from 32 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with LiveAquaria most frequently mention store credit and customer service. LiveAquaria ranks 25th among Fish Store sites.

service
21
value
21
shipping
20
returns
20
quality
21

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Kansas
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Order else where
May 8, 2024

Done with this site. Order fish then when they get around to shipping them unless you order from their diver dens chances are you won't get fish. They oversell their inventory and leave you expecting fish, but nothing arrives. Their emails abut shipments never arrive, so you have to contact their help on website. Closing my account and looking elsewhere

Date of experience: May 8, 2024
Ohio
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Unfortunate experience
February 17, 2024

My experience with LiveAquaria was not positive. Fish that arrived alive, but sick. (Order number A*******) I am an experienced aquarist with five large tanks up and running beautifully. My experience with other online fish companies has been positive (Aquatic Arts) so I tried Live Aquaria. I quarantined the sick fish and tried to treat the ich, but they all died. LiveAquaria gave me a store credit for three of the nine fish that died because I could not take photos of the other six. They had decomposed to the point of mush. A store credit is not helpful to me - why would I order more fish from a company that sent me nine sick ones?

Date of experience: February 17, 2024
New Jersey
1 review
0 helpful votes
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I have been ordering from Live Aquaria for years and have always had a great experience until yesterday. The crab literally arrived in pieces. PIECES! Are you kidding me?

I have been running a reef tank for years and am not new to the hobby. I temp/drip acclimated like I always do and dropped it into the tank. Woke up this morning not even 24 hours later and the clean up crew was going to work.

Not happy at all and I don't plan on ever shopping from Live Aquaria again. The quality has gone completely downhill. Not sure if its new ownership or just lack of caring, but the quality is showing. Stay with a LFS or a very reputable online dealer. Live Aquaria isn't it anymore.

Date of experience: January 25, 2024
Virginia
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Shrimp dead on arrival
January 24, 2024

70% of the shrimp arrived dead. One day later almost all of the rest of them are now dead in my tank. The water in the bags was freezing when the shrimp arrived. Thin cardboard box with a bit of newspaper and two small and useless heat packs. Why do you ship shrimp in the winter in this pathetic packaging? Order number A*******

The water in my tank is perfect - I have had shrimp for years - and I followed best practices unloading the few shrimp that temporarily survived the shipping.

Date of experience: January 24, 2024
Illinois
3 reviews
0 helpful votes
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All marine fish die, some freshwater die
December 20, 2023
Updated review

I have ordered for over 20 years and the past 3 the quality of fish has declined drastically. Nothing ever dies until recent years. Such a shame. They must have cganged where they buy from and their practices. My guess is they are using dealers that poising the area to catch the fish more easily. Those fish always end up dying in a feww weeks in captivity which is what is happening to mine.

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Date of experience: December 20, 2023

Fish die in two weeks
October 29, 2023
Previous review

I have been a client for 15 years, the past two years fish continue to arrive dead or die within two weeks. The only exception seems to be the ORA or captive bred saltwater fish. I have five tanks and have kept tanks for 25 years, so I know what I am doing.
All the other fish from my local pet shop are fine, water tests fine, etc. I would not order form here if I were you.

+1
Date of experience: October 29, 2023
New York
1 review
1 helpful vote
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I have been ordering fish from liveaquaria since the 90's.
Over the years I received fish that were fairly healthy and in good condition.
However, last 6-7 years I have been receiving fish that are either sick with red sores, emaciated, and/or not eating.
I have mentioned this to them several times.
Yes they gave me refund every time fish died but they also charged twice the price of my local fish store.
I order from them because of availability
It's heartbreaking to see these beautiful creatures treated this way
I don't know what happened to Liveaquria,
Perhaps they need to change their supplier and get a supplier closer to US or a supplier that handles these fish with more care.
I have $108 credit with them for fish that died within couple of days of arrival. Actually they looked like they were going to die as soon I saw them. They did not pass quarantine.
They did not survive quarantine box in the reef tank,
I even risked putting them directly in the reef tank with other healthy, fairly peaceful fish. The angelfish, anthias, etc just dies after couple of days
Some of these fish were from Diver's Den.
I will not order any fish from them even though I have $108 in credits.
I don't want to keep explaining to my children why their pet fish died.

Date of experience: September 3, 2023
Missouri
2 reviews
3 helpful votes
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Dont buy their fish
July 11, 2023

My son ordered 24 fish for me. They came today poorly packaged in which the fish were jostled around in the box. Out of 24 fish only 8 were alive. Two of those 8 obviously have ick, there is no way they did not notice this yesterday during packaging. Treating my 125 gallon tank for ick now and hoping that my previous fish do not die. I would never consider getting fish from liveaquaria.com ever again. I can get diseased fish locally a lot cheaper.

Date of experience: July 11, 2023
Massachusetts
3 reviews
3 helpful votes
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DO NOT BUY
May 1, 2023

DO NOT BUY FISH FROM HERE!I purchased 5 fish from here.experienced aquarist.fish were quarintined.2 fish died within 7 days.sent in the forms for the guarantee and NEVER got a response.Another 2 died soon after.only have 1 left after spending so much money on fish and the insane shipping cost.Also,website clearly states a size range.We purchased bigger fish because if not they would be eaten by the other fish and we received all tiny tiny baby fish forcing them to be quarintined for years had they not all died anyway.BUYER BEWARE!

Date of experience: May 1, 2023
Washington
1 review
3 helpful votes
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Sick fish & doa
April 7, 2023

Will not be ordering again, extremely frustrated. Ordered 6 male cobra guppies, all arrived sick with split tails, cottonmouth, at least two females, two doa. Shipped yesterday arrived today, the health of the fish makes me think they were shipped sick. Extremely low quality cobras at that. They've definitely solidified my lack of interest in ordering fish out. I'd rather drive the two hours to a quality specialty fish store that won't run the risk of further disease in my aquariums. Waste of money, and no point in store credit if I won't be ordering again. Ridiculous.

Date of experience: April 7, 2023
New York
2 reviews
1 helpful vote
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They USED to be so good
March 21, 2023

I called to find out the status of part of my order. Was told it was cancel because it was out of stock. Yet when i checked a few days ago it showed one of the fish still available. I told the customer rep that I would never buy from them again. She actually got sarcastic. I have bought fish from them for years. Definitely gone down hill.

Date of experience: March 21, 2023
Montana
1 review
2 helpful votes
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The worst place ever
February 17, 2023

If I could give negative stars I would. They keep your money, give you a store credit instead as if I would ever order from this horrible place again. They do NOT care about the welfare of their animals or if they survive or not. They even shipped mine in -5F temps! The water my fish arrived in smelled putrid. I find it hard to believe they were alive at shipping time. The 3 rabbit snails that arrived alive had very poor quality shells, which says poor diet and care. Buyer beware! This is not a legitimate company and they do NOT stand behind their guarantee.

Date of experience: February 17, 2023
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Response from LiveAquaria
December 8, 2022
Updated review

Since posting this review, today Dec 8,2022, LiveAquaria has contacted me and offered a complete refund for my order. My photo of the damaged FedEx box wrapped in a plastic bag and then re-boxed I suspect had a lot to do with it.

Date of experience: December 8, 2022

Damaged Shipment-Dead Fish
December 3, 2022
Previous review

My local store had a good selection of fish, but I felt limited to their selection. I thought i'd try an online supplier for fish. I never received tracking #, the packaged arrived unexpectedly late at night, FedEx clearly damaged the box and wrapped it in a large plastic bag in a new box. 3 bags inside were broken with dead fish. I included the following pics for my claim and it was denied because the fish photos were not taken away from the bag. The fish sent looked nothing like on their website. Their website reviews are only the positive ones. Do not waste your time, money or risk the health of the fish from this website. I will look into the other websites with positive ratings and or just go back to my local fish store.

Date of experience: December 3, 2022
Tennessee
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Don't waste your money
September 24, 2022

I ordered three fish and 5 snails and calcium test from them. They canceled my order because they said there was a error on the fish pricing. They did ship the calcium kit but charged me more for shipping. It would have been less for combined order. Also slow shipping.

Date of experience: September 24, 2022
Colorado
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Can I do -5 stars?
I bought five Shubunkins for my pond. Looked a little sickly. Quarantined. On day 7, three of them died. No refund issued. Put the last two in the pond and now after 7 weeks they are gone.
Also bought five Ryukins for my tank. Also looked sickly. Two died on second day of quarantine and got a refund for them. One by one two others developed white fuzzy patches. I isolated and medicated them. Both slowly died. We'll see what happens to fish #5.
Thankfully nothing spread to the fish I already had!
Fish from my LPS don't die like this. Wish I knew not to buy from Liveaquaria.

Date of experience: July 29, 2022
Illinois
1 review
2 helpful votes
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ZERO STARS WOULD BE MY REAL RATING!

My first order from them was for 2 fish. When the shipment came there was only one fish that had a bad case of ich. I called the and they shipped out the 2nd one the following week. I paid for a medium sized fish and received a SMALL saltwater butterfly fish that would never eat and eventually died... goodby $70!
I had put a notification request for an Australian Harlequin Tusk fish. I had been wanting to get one for a while and had a hard time finding one. So... I thought I'd give them another chance. I ordered a Juvenile/Medium which was advertised as 2 1/2" - 4 1/2" for $225. When it came in as a 2" fish I called and complained. This was the response:

"Thank you for the photos with measurement. As the item was a Juvenile Medium it is under the small Adult size stated of 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 inches for the adult small it would be more 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 inches for the Juvenile medium. We have submitted to update the page showing the juvenile sizes. Our apologies it is the correct size."

So... they get away with changing the advertised size after the fact? And I should be OK with it!
The fish developed popeye 2 days later, and barely eats. I asked them to extend the warranty. I received it on 7/22/******* and the 7 day warranty covered it to 7/13/2022. Here's the response:

"We have extended your warranty through 07/14/22"

An extension of 1 day! How generous!
I will copy and paste this everywhere I can!

Date of experience: July 11, 2022
Florida
3 reviews
22 helpful votes
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Dishonest
April 26, 2022

I was told an order was cancelled and then it shipped. The one order I did receive was not like the WYSIWG. The medium size Gramma looks like it just hatched.

Date of experience: April 26, 2022
North Carolina
1 review
3 helpful votes
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I have tried to work with Liveaquaria but they really just dont care. This week was my 72nd order relating to my saltwater tanks. They say they have fish in stock only to be told days later they dont. They hold on to your money for weeks just "in case" they get a shipment in. Saltwater fish arent cheap and it could be hundreds at times. They still advertise the same fish they say they don't have! This has happened repeatedly to me over the last year. I decided to try one more time and guess what... yet again. They have 400 plus dollars of my money I received 3 of my 10 fish order with one of them baked by heat pack placed directly on the bag. A second fish arrived in poor shape which I notified per their messaging system along with dead one. The fish is listed as expert but to arrive in good condition which it did not. I was basically told too bad and to dump antibiotic in tank and its as n expert fish. Now I am successfully caring for 12 of these leopard wrasses and am aware of all the issues that arise with them but I cant raise a half dead wrasse back. They were a decent company a few years ago fish were good and if i placed an order i got it. NOT NOW. Their so called customer service people are rude and could care less. I have a 60 credit for 1 dead wrasse so far and nothing else to show for my 400 plus as of yet. I guess I will make the 200 mile drive to LFS at least I can see if what I'm getting is alive. Some 60 fish later I'm done stocking my aquariums from Liveaquaria. 1.5 years ago I had nothing but good things to say about them. Not now.

Date of experience: April 6, 2022
California
1 review
1 helpful vote
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They sent me over $200 of dead items that arrived a day late and on Xmas Eve. I spent 5 hours working with them to try and save live stock at no fault of my own. They got MY money. I got a wasted Xmas eve that I should have been spending with my family. Went to use my store credit and they told me it had expired. Now that I worked with them, thy can't work with me. Very rude customer service that is replies every few days. Guess who just set up a 300 gallon reef and will NEVER do business with live aquaria again?

Date of experience: March 18, 2022
Washington
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Shop somewhere else
November 9, 2021

2 orders months apart not shipped due to covid 19. Third shipment fish were dead upon arrival. Can't get a refund only store credit. Don't have available "in stock" marine fish.

Date of experience: November 9, 2021
Arkansas
1 review
0 helpful votes
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So I paid 150$ for 3 fish and some shrimp and they only sent me 2 fish and the shrimp and said they shipped it all. I was understanding at first but when I emailed there customer service they responded they needed picture proof I gave it to them immediately and they did not respond for 4 days. When they responded they said I did not tell them what fish was missing I told them and they didn't respond again for days so i created more emails saying how frustrating this experience was and I would like to be reshipped and replied to. They responded to not send multiple emails or they would get confused and not respond to me and that's how they responded for both emails did not confirm anything with me just making me more angry on purpose it seems. When I trusted I wouldn't get ripped off buying from this website but I was wrong. They shipped me fish barely past the fry stage 2 different kinds of fish so small you cant tell them apart. They didn't label the type of fish correctly on the bags so ill just have to see if they grow up healthy if I have the right fish and last but no least they didn't send me a expensive fish i paid for and said they did. It was a absolute terrible experience buying from liveaquaria.com

Date of experience: August 28, 2021
Cindy S. — LiveAquaria Rep
over a year old

Good morning Austin. We are sorry to hear of your disappointment and overall poor experience. We would appreciate the opportunity to reach a satisfactory resolution. Please reach out to me privately with detailed order information. Thank you and have a nice day!

From the business

LiveAquaria is your single destination for all things aquatic. Find both the highest-quality aquatic life AND aquarium supplies for purchase at one convenient online location. LiveAquaria offers aquarium hobbyists the best shopping experience possible, with a trusted selection of freshwater and marine fish, corals, reef rock, invertebrates, live plants, AND quality aquarium supplies... all at great prices!

Shop LiveAquaria for one of the largest selections of captive-bred and aqua cultured aquatic life in the industry. LiveAquaria seeks out the best fish, corals, and invertebrates from the most responsible suppliers, aquaculture facilities, breeders, and hatcheries in the United States, Asia, and Europe to provide aquarium hobbyists a viable alternative to wild-harvested fish whenever possible.


liveaquaria.com
Rhinelander, WI, United States
+25