Overnight Shipping For Live Fish Unnecessary??

So because I live far away from any decent LFS I have been ordering all my fish online for years now. Based on personal experience I have had absolutely zero issues with priority shipping with live fish. Meaning, order the fish Monday, they get here Thursday. I have done this with both TrinsFish and AquaHuna 5-6 times now and have had not 1 fish die on me. From rasboras, to cory cats to the sensitive otocinclus. Priority shipping costs 12 dollars. Every other site forces overnight shipping costing 25-40 dollars. I'm really starting to think overnight shipping is absolutely unnecessary as long as the company packs and ships appropriately. IE they use heat packs when it's cold, or cold packs when its hot. Sure your odds of no deaths are better with overnight, but from personal experience I've seen nothing negative about priority shipping. Thoughts?

 

depends.

some people pay over $100 for a high quality fish.

sometimes the seller will guarantee a fish if its overnighted. if you email them and tell them that they are free of all liability they might priority mail it to you.

 

True. If it was a high dollar fish I would opt for overnight. For most of your standard fish I think priority works just fine. I know aquahuna. com offer a guaranteed live on arrival policy even with priority shipping. Don't remember if Trinsfish. com does. There's at least one other site I can't remember which offer priority shipping.

 

True. If it was a high dollar fish I would opt for overnight. For most of your standard fish I think priority works just fine. I know aquahuna. com offer a guaranteed live on arrival policy even with priority shipping. Don't remember if Trinsfish. com does. There's at least one other site I can't remember which offer priority shipping.

Trinsfish does it for bigger fish, expensive and I think discus.

 

Just got a package from Aquahuna today and yeah it took 2 days USPS Priority and they arrived better than Aquatic Arts shipping FedEx overnight. Aquahuna doesn't even send extras in case there are some deaths along the way cuz they're just good at shipping properly. Aquatic Arts, even tho they force overnight shipping down everyone's throats can't get a package here without smelling like ammonia and death. It always makes me angry that I can ship shrimp priority and have the package get lost for a few days and still have them arrive alright, but Aquatic Arts will ship overnight and they send extras and still end up crediting me for future purchases. Their live arrival guarantee is more like a return customer guarantee cuz they give credit.

 

Just got a package from Aquahuna today and yeah it took 2 days USPS Priority and they arrived better than Aquatic Arts shipping FedEx overnight. Aquahuna doesn't even send extras in case there are some deaths along the way cuz they're just good at shipping properly. Aquatic Arts, even tho they force overnight shipping down everyone's throats can't get a package here without smelling like ammonia and death. It always makes me angry that I can ship shrimp priority and have the package get lost for a few days and still have them arrive alright, but Aquatic Arts will ship overnight and they send extras and still end up crediting me for future purchases. Their live arrival guarantee is more like a return customer guarantee cuz they give credit.

Ha, I just got an aquahuna package today too which got me thinking about the topic of this thread. Another 10 harlequins and 6 peppered corys to up my schools of each in my 55 to 19 rasboras and 18 pep corys. The packaging was on point as usual. Tripple bagged, with a cooling pack and placed in a styrofoam cooler. All fish were just fine and even had color to them and were eating 10 minutes after getting in the tank. Unlike my also poor aquatic arts experiences.
I never had a DOA with them but fish always came in very poor condition. Pale white, gasping, water wreaked. Lost 15 pygmy corys through aquatic arts once because the bag leaked all the water out during shipping.

 

I personally think overnighting them is best.

The only fish I've bought online was $250, so I definitely didn't want anything happening to her. Even if I bought cheap schooling fish and they were likely to survive a few day long flight, I don't want them being stressed or uncomfortable for that long!

 

I use an online fish supplier every time.

Here in the UK there is only one courier company that is permitted to transport live fish. They are checked every 6 months by the Ministry of Ag & Fish and the RSPCA checks them monthly

All fish suppliers must use this courier company and as a part of the permit to transport live fish the suppliers and courier must guarantee delivery before midday which means the fish travel overnight. They are also only allowed to send/deliver live fish on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday so if you order fish you can do so any day of the week or weekend but they will not be caught/bagged until at least 2100 the day before delivery.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered fish from my usual supplier, the weather was extremely warm but the supplier & courier took this into account and they caught/bagged at 2200 and delivered just before 0700 the next morning thus making sure that the fish were not distressed by the excess heat of the day.

My supplier is just over 300 miles from where I live. I have used them 3 times so far and in that time they have supplied a total of 28 fish with just 2 losses, which I think is a pretty decent statistic. The supplier also guarantee's live delivery and 14 days after delivery. Any losses that happen I have to take a photo of the fish, email it and they refund or replace via a credit note on the next order

Orders under £50 are charged £16.95 delivery, orders over £50 are free delivery and as said, ALL deliveries are guaranteed before midday on the chosen delivery day

 

95%+ of the fish I ship go out priority 2-3 day.
I have had 2 losses this year out of maybe 150 boxes.Both weather related IMO and the customers.
I do ship some fish express and weather is my main consideration when I do ..
Packed properly I have had rams [EBR] last 14 days while lost one February on there way to California ..
I always figured they were lost inside ??