hey folks...

I have a question,a opinion poll of sorts.

But first an explaination before the question. So, some of you use Aquabid to buy and sell your fish.. personally, I have gotten addicted to it. Well I want to share my experience with an auction I recently bought and wanted to get your oppinions on how I should handle the situation.

I bought a trio of fish, final winning bid was 61.00.. I thought that was alot for three fish but the picture was beautiful and I really wanted them.. I sent the seller a 76.00 and then the seller shipped the fish... all was well...I recieved the fish on time and I was home when the postman dropped them off...I opened the ox and found that the two females were very large and very pregnant... at first I was excited but then I noticed that they were not looking so well...they were extremly stressed. The male seemed fine.. I floated the fish for the afternoon in their tank,as I didnt have time to "drip" them before having to go to work... The fish floated for about 6 hours untilI came back home. I came home to find the two females belly up (dead) in the bag. Well I contacted the seller and he seemed very willing to make good on this situation... when asked about sending a couple more females if Isent him the shipping costs, he told me he had no more of this type of fish. In fac this was the last trio he had.. but he did have about 50 babies from this trio that he was growing out and asked me to wait two weeks so the babies could get a little bigger... I agreed and it all seemed fair,I thought nothing of the situation since the seller has 100% positive feedback on AQB.

After two weeks I contacted him to inquire about the babies and the replacment... I asked him how many babied would he be sending to replace the two females... he said "how ever many you want to pay for". Certainly this is not what he said two weeks prior.

He know says he had no responsibilty in the fish dying since I admitted that they arrived alive.. Although I told him that they arrived alive but in clear distress...

Here is my position.

I understand that shipping very pregnant females is highly stressful on them and could result in a higher mortality rate. He should have known not to send those fish in that condition. (afterall the picture that he showed on the auction were subadults.I thought that was was what I was getting.. not his over bred cull fish)

Secondly, if he had no intention of sending replacment fish,he should have said so the day the fish arrived when I contacted him... Right?

Now he wants me to send him 20.00 more dollars for 15 unsexed and uncolored fry... and before he does that he wants to see positive feedback on the auction before shipping out the replacements.

I am considering just telling him "no thanks".I will keep my now 61.00 male fish and leave appropriate feedback for the auction.

As fellow fish keepers,I ask you to give me advice on how to keep me and the seller happy...

any advice would be much appreciated.

This is just my 2 cents, but i purchase quite a few fish from aquabid, so i thought i would let you know how i feel. It may be your fault for floating them for so long... If the bag was not opened, the temp of the water would have slowly risen to the temp of the tank. Fish, when shipped, are normally in cold oxygenated water when they arrive, and tend to be quite inactive. By driving up the temp of the water, the fish "woke up" and began to use more O2 and expel more CO2. This coupled with the fact that warm water holds less O2 than cold water probably caused your new fish to suffocate. Ive shipped prego fish and recieved them and it is in my opinion that they are no harder or easier to transport than males or non pregnant females. Once again, just my thoughts on the subject...Better luck next time...

this is good to know.although the bag was opened. when I say floating I meant sitting in the water for which they were to be getting used to the temp.

so are you saying it is better to leave the fish in the box instead of letting them float?

I have floated fish bought from the petstores over night before and they had no problems...

I have also had fish that were bought pregnant form the petstores that died either before or shortly after giving birth.

And... what else would have killed just the females? The male in the same bag was fine and did not seem to be stressed at all. The females were the only ones who seemed stressed at all upon opening the box...

Were they all in separate bags? Or were they bagged together?

In the event that they were all in the same bag then it could have been the attention of the male which killed the females.

Personally I hate posting adult fish, I always prefer young fish but if I ever do send adult fish, I would never bag them together.

My tuppence is that if the fish were showing signs of distress then you should have taken them out the bag straight away or at least introduced a small amount of fresh water to freshen it up.

Well, I think that if he said he would send you replacement fish (free) then he should or he would be lying and I think it is ridiculous that he wants $20 AND positive feedback. Can you tell us the seller's name so we can avoid him?

That is an interesting question that you post. I trade fish more than I buy fish online for just that reason. I like to deal with people that I know and have a relationship with. About half of the adult pregnant female fish that people have shipped to me have died in transport.

There is a difference with shipping females that are a week pregnant and ones that are a week from dropping fry. You don’t say what species of fish it was. In my experience Goodeid females that ship within the last two weeks of dropping fry are pretty well doomed to a quick death. However, in my experience, most other pregnant livebearer females tend to hold up better during shipping. My personal preference is to wait to ship fish until after they drop a batch of fry but then again I mostly keep and breed Goodeids so it is easy to separate them and insure that they are not pregnant. I would also prefer to ship younger fish as well.

You say that you thought that you would be getting a young trio of fish because the picture was of young fish. Did his ad say that they were young and the picture was of the fish you would be getting? If it did then you would be looking at someone who is falsely advertising the fish in the auction. If not then you should have inquired as to the age of the fish. The seller should have also noted that his fish were pregnant at the end of the auction and asked if you wanted to him to wait for the females to drop before sending them. The fact that he wants positive feedback before sending fish is a little shady if you ask me. The best I would give is a neutral in this case. Blackmailing people to get good feedback is not a good way to do business.

I don’t think you will end up being very happy with any outcome from this situation. If you purchase the extra fish you will feel that you were cheated due to your prior conversations with the seller. And if you don’t then you will feel cheated that the fish were not as young as you expected them to be whether your expectations were right or not.

This is a good lesson for people buying fish over the internet.

You should always ask;

How old is the fish?
Is the picture of the actual fish? If not can I get one?
How big is (are) the actual fish?
What type of water is the fish kept in? Temperature, hardness, chemical or salt additives. . .
What have the fish been fed? Is it eating?
How long have you had the fish? Did you breed them or buy them?
Are there any deformities with the fish that don’t show in the photo?

I know I am spoiled in Michigan with 4 active general aquarium clubs, several specialty clubs, close proximity to Chicago, Indiana and Ohio (a longer drive from the West side of Michigan but well worth the trip to the OCA) I have had lots of opportunity to meet many people and find many fish. I can understand buying fish on places like Aquabid, I do that as well, but there is nothing better than getting to know people and trading with them.

I would never send a fish that looked like the one in this picture, I hope it shows up

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You should have immediately opened the bags and poured the fish and shipping water into a bucket .If these fish were shipped properly they should not have not been feed 2 days before they were shipped. I never bother with the traditional “bag Float“. You should have set up a drip line using a piece of airline tubing, let this run until the water in the bucket is about double what it was when you started. Then you should pour off most of the water until there is just enough to cover the fish. Let the bucket fill up again. This procedure slowly introduces the fish to your water and allows the temperature to equalize. The fish is now in your water . Take a net and remove the fish to their new tank. Do not add the shipping water. Almost all fish can tolerate moving to harder , warmer or higher ph water. But moving to softer, cooler, or lower ph water, you should give them extra time to adjust , slow down the drip process.
I have been shipping fish for about 30 years now and even though YOU made mistakes receiving these fish. You did receive them alive, I still would make good and replace them for any hobbyists. Most fellow aquarist are great people, and for the most part problems are rare.

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Please do NOT tell us the seller's name. That is not an appropriate use of this forum. The topic of purchasing and transporting fish is certainly appropriate, but we should steer clear of endorsing or black-listing individual vendors or services. Thanks.

Fish should be taken out of the bags as soon as possible. Opening the bag compounds the pollution issue and crashes the water very quickly. Floating bags also stresses fish all the more.

I find ice cream buckets to be perfect for these situations (and I am a dedicated fish-keeper so I eat lots of ice cream for the cause..lol). I add water to the bottom, laced with Amquel and a little salt to help reverse any nitrite poisoning (if the fish tolerates salt well), then I pour the fish & water in and gradually fill the bucket. If the water is really foul looking, I quickly drain as much of it as possible before dumping into the bucket. Once the bucket is as full as I want it to be, I scoop out about a quarter of it and replace it with fresh.

They are adult fish in a small amount of water - it doesn't take them long to foul it, even when properly fasted for shipping. It's absolutely crucial that they get out of that environment ASAP.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I received dozens of fish in a medium fish bag. I have never worked so fast to get fish out of a bag. I had to make the call to skip gentle acclimation and get them out of there. I dumped them into a waiting q-tank, added a bunch of aquarium salt because their gills were red & swollen, and figured there was no way they'd make it. They laid on the bottom, barely moving. The next day they were all fine and I've only lost a couple. Aquarium salt works miracles sometimes.

In my opinion, the seller isn't at fault. If he specifically said he would replace the fish for free, then he should do so.

The seller ended shipping me 15 fry with my paying the shipping costs only. I am happy with the outcome. I think this situation got off on the wrong foot and I being new to fish keeping, may have gotten my "you know whats" in a twist thinking the seller was ripping me off...

thanks to everyone for your wisdom ;)