You know there are a lot of bad reviews for this company and I really wanted to post my honest opinion for those of you who are unsure if they are a real business. I apologize for its length. First of all, when placing your order you definitely want to make sure you order in the right season where its not too cold or hot for the ideal condition of the fish. I had ordered 2 gold gouramis and 3 kribensis cichlids with a note asking them to pick out what they thought to be female. Here are the facts Pros: 1. Shipment arrived on time. 2. Packaging was good in one box, fair in the other 3.Temperatures seemed well 4. Fish were all alive 5. From what I could tell the kribensis did look to be females and to be very healthy so I was happy. 6. The water they came in looked clean Cons: 1. The health of the gold gouramis were questionable. At first one looked healthy and the other looked like it was in rough shape. I have had trouble keeping gold gouramis alive in the past so I ordered two just in case. Anyways, I thought I would give them a chance and added them to the tank with everyone else. (I know quarantining is important but its not something I personally do, instead I do extra water tests, water changes, and analyze the fish). Within 24 hours the first gold gourami died as expected. However the other was looking happy and healthy for the next 48-72 hours. Well I was wrong and failed to realize the extent of mouth fungus that the two gouramis had when they arrived. This morning when I fed the fish the female gourami was still active and I had hope she would survive but a few hours later she was gone. Unfortunately it was irreversible and both gouramis died. On a happy note, the kribensis are still doing amazing. Important parameters just so you know the set up wasn't the problem. 1. 125gal tank 2. Ammonia- around 0 3. Nitrite= less than 0.25 4. Nitrate=less than 5 5. Tank has bubblers, 2 canister filters 6. Planted tank, plenty of hiding spots 7. Temp= 76F 8. Gourami tank (Before adding new fish): Kissing, Leopard, Blue, Snakeskin, and Opaline gouramis (1 of each species), 2 male kribensis, sailfin pleco, snails Anyways that was my experience and honestly I think they might be a good company. Whether it is at the petstore or online I personally believe that gold gouramis are just too fragile compared to the others. After all, the kribensis cichlids I received are beautiful and healthy. I would say give them a chance. Ps. I mainly ordered to get the kribensis and thought I would try getting some gold gouramis in the process so I didnt bother trying to get a refund or anything read more

I placed an order, several fish were DOA and one wasnt even in the box, even though packing slip said it was. They did issue store credit, so I placed another order and waited 2 weeks and finally canceled the order because they never shipped and I was about to go out if town and didn't want a box of fish sitting until i got back. Anyhow, it looks like I'll lose my money since they won't issue refund. AVOID! AVOID!! read more

They advertise fish they don't have any intention of selling you. You'll spend time placing an order only for half of it to arrive and then a refund to your credit card...and you'll be lucky if your order arrives on the scheduled shipping date. Customer service is nonexistent. With so many different online options out there, there is absolutely no reason to choose "Live"Aquaria; this company has hit rock bottom in every facet. Never again. read more

Terrible service. Placed an order online, no email confirmation. Two days later - nothing. Called customer service. Was caller number 10 in the queue. After an hour of being on hold, I got top being number 5. The the line indicated that they are closed. Emailed, left voicemail. Still no answer, no information on the shipment or even confirmation of the order. Literally like a business that is no longer in business. Stay away from them. They do not valuer your business, $$, and time. read more

My live.aquaria order featured the 15 gal bow front glass aquarium w/ hood+light, which got here fine, zero damage and after 10 hours of holding water in bath tub, no leaks either ! Many Thanks to UPS ! The order also had 2x 100-watt glass aquarium heaters which got here fine and test great. However, missing : Hydor Theo Heater - 200 watt Qty: 1 It took 3 days to ship order, and order got split into 3 shipments. Worked great for the glass aquarium. read more

Permanently closed. They went out of business. They no longer exist and left many customers with paid ordered hanging with no communication or delivery of paid orders. read more

Ordered fish last week and recommend in the comments on the order that they delay shipment due to inclement weather (on top of their published warnings about delays due to weather). They clearly don't read the comments and shipped anyway. Shipment was delayed from Friday to Monday delivery. I called, emailed and messaged the company several times between Friday and Monday with no response. As expected, all of the fish were dead on arrival. I've been on hold with customer service all afternoon and never got through. Very disappointed with customer service and the apparent lack of concern for animal wellbeing. read more

Since my last yelp review Feb 28, 2025 (1 star). LiveAquaria has made me whole again. They appeared to have... 1) issued me my 2nd and final credit. 2) issued my my $50 coupon. And.... 3) honored the price difference for a fish I ordered on sale but they did not ship but had to pay full price on a subsequent order. Additionally... 4) their customer service # 800 334 3699 works for me now. Weird. This all happened without any further attempts from me. I was too fed up with dealing with them but now I will give them another try. I have bought fish from LiveAquaria for many many years and would like to continue but I hope their customer service department picks it up a notch or two, read more

I had ordered two tangs from them (a yellow eyed kole tang, and a sailfn tang). I had waited months for the yellow eyed kole tang to be come available. When It did I jumped on it. Ordered it right then and there. Now two weeks later, I get the we cancelled your order. No other information. I had to go on the web site and chat with one of the agents. They told me you fish died, and we have no more available. Could you have put that in the email? Instead I have to jump through hoops to see what the heck happened. Bottom line I will NOT be buying anything else form them. You don't just cancel an order, without an explanation. Terrible service. read more

I ordered fish, expecting them the day they were supposed to arrive. I didn't receive anything so by the late afternoon i tried to reach out to them. I called them, waited in the calling que, waited to fifteen minutes just to be disconnected when it was my turn. Happened several times, eventually gave up. Tried messaging them and finally was able to "talk" to someone - only to find out that my fish that were supposed to be sent were not in stock and they could not tell me when they would have them in stock! They didn't even have the courtesy to let me know in advance that the fish would not be arriving the day they were supposed to. I took the day off to acclimate the fish quickly once they arrived - I will never order from them again. read more

This review is on the 2nd order placed with in 2 weeks should have learned my lesson on the first order. When order arrived on the day I told them not to deliver on it was missing 3 Gourami and 3 Gobys these fish are what started this order and received a what was suppose to be a Premium blue half moon betta according to the pic. I added more fish and shrimp just to get the free shipping. I called them today about the missing fish and the red plain half moon betta. I was told the fish must have have health problems, that is why they did not ship and that the order for those fish was canceled I had to reorder them I had to complain to get them to match the 25% off sale price that I paid but I would have to pay the 40.00 shipping and handling. I pointed out that I already paid that on the order they were missing from. She got mad and said I did not pay shipping because I had free shipping. {I spend over 230.00 to earn that}. Then she started going on about being sick of people trying to get everything for free. I pointed out that I was just trying not to pay for something I already paid for, she went on again that I didn't pay I got free shipping. When I brought up the Betta she said the add states Due to variations within species, your item may not look identical to the image, which it does but pointed out that there is no variation of blue that is red and that my local PetSmart has that exact same red halfmoon Betta for 7.99 and their premium bettas that look like their add were 19.99 what they sent me was not premium they disagreed When the call ended the customer service girl did not hang up like she thought because I could her her saying what a jerk. I have been buying from them for many many year since Drs Foster and Smith started the web site always had good experiences, Until now do not what happen but I will never buy there again not with the customer service they now have read more

horrible cusotmer service fish arrived DOA will not refund or replace do not use them negative star if possible read more

Livestock arrived late, doa. Box not insulated properly. Waited for customer service 45 minutes. was told full credit would be issued back to our original form of payment. Never happened. oh yeah, the water that the doa's arrived in was chilled to 40 degrees. read more

I would leave ZERO stars, if possible. Such a scam of a company - listen to all of the reviews here and stay far, far away. There is no way to contact customer service. You will get disconnected after being on hold for 15 minutes - I'm beginning to think the phone number they give isn't actually a working phone number. Our order was canceled numerous times with no explanation given but our credit card charged multiple times. Seriously, find a local fish store and forget this place. Total scam. read more

My order was a nightmare. Missing livestock. The livestock that was shipped, was shipped in small bags probably with air rather than oxygen. The clownfish didn't make it. They sent it UPS in a non-insulated box. Worst of all is that their telephone went to voicemail that was full. Emails went unanswered. read more

Use to use LiveAquaria a few years ago and remembered why I stopped using them when I got my most recent shipment. I placed an order and made the mistake of not looking at the most recent Yelp Reviews or reviews in general for this company. And yes indeed avoid this Mom & Pop operation, they haven't gotten better.... This place uses 'drop ship' from Los Angeles fish mills, not their 'mom and pop' store in Wisconsin. The main thing LiveAquaria had going for it was selection, but they don't stock what they claim (and they don't pay attention to what's healthy). My order of 12 Black Neon Tetra's arrived covered in Ich with 2 being DOA. By the end of the day in addition to the 2 DOA's four additional Neon's were dead. By the end of the second day an additional Neon and one shrimp were dead. Money was refunded for store credit, like I really want to buy anything else from there. By the end of day eight lost a Black Loach. Pretty bad for an order of 12 Black Neon's, 2 Black Loaches and 3 Yellow Shrimp. Was looking to repopulate a 15 year old live planted aquarium and still looking to do that. Aquatic Arts, Aquahuna here we come!!!! read more

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More dead fish from Live Aquaria, they sent marine fish today in December with no heat packs in one of the boxes so the fish were dead when they arrived. How senseless that they are killing fish because of incompetence. I wish they would fix their processes, they were so good up until three years ago. read more

I have been buying from LiveAquaria for some time now on saltwaterfish. The quality of fish is hit or miss. I ordered 3 Anthias of the same species, and they sent me 1 that is price 50% difference lower than the one that I ordered. It was very difficult to acclimate in the dark, not to mention need to get them to eat frozen food so I just end up keeping the wrong Anthias without making a fuss. Lately they start having sales every week in July but the quality of the fish is a bust. I ordered 4 small Anthias and the size they shipped is less than the size of a water bottle cap. Now I don't quite know what to do with them because they are just way too small. I would call this nano size as they have no way to compete with the other "small / medium" size Anthias in my tank. Last but not least, 1 died so I have to file a claim. Attached pic just so everyone can see how small these fish they ship. You cannot find this kind of size anywhere in fish store. *** Post customer service feedback Customer support did get back to me through facebook and all issues from size to other casualties ( I had 2 more on day 1) within 7 days guarantee also got addressed. Thank you. read more

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My order for frozen Baby Brine Shrimp arrived 1 day after my order was recieved and processed by LiveAquaria, the dry ice was still working to keep the frozen shrimp frosty and the care of packaging my order was obvious with the insulated pakaging. I am impressed and am glad to write a note of appreciation for the professional processing of my order and the expedited process. Thank you for helping me feed my Betta Fry. JUST AWESOME! Mr. David Niewoehner read more

They were all alive and I thought could just add medicine but the platys were affected with ICK they all died today and one pretty guppy as well hopefully the rest will survive the night read more

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Buyer Beware. Scam. Ordered 30 fish from this online store. Six were DOA due to shipping taking 48 hours and not overnight as was promised and paid for. Water was ice cold. The other 24 fish died over the next five days due to stress. This place uses 'drop ship' from Los Angeles fish mill, not their 'mom and pop' store in Wisconsin. Shipping box was $10 extra which provided no insulation. $10 because it was printed 'live tropical fish' on outside. Customer service is a joke. 6 of the fish were not the ones I ordered. Received incorrect amount for partial store credit. Still fighting with credit card company and only got 50 pct refund so far. This place is one big rip-off! Cruel to fish and frustrating for customers. With basically nothing but 1-star reviews, this place should do the right thing and close its doors. If I could, I would give them a minus-20 star review. They care nothing about fish and even less about customer satisfaction. Make a stand for this sort of lack of professionalism and spend your dollars elsewhere. UPDATE: The Business Manager reached out to me further to my post. I did receive a full reimbursement a few days later and I do applaud Customer Service for its follow through. I have increased to a three-star review due to their good faith efforts. I believe their procedures for shipping fish and ensuring true overnight delivery need to be addressed asap. It all worked out for me in the end, but dead fish and a back-and- forth with this business was not what I planned on when I placed an order. read more

I wish I could rate 0 stars, I ordered 24 rummy nose tetras then was given the run around for almost three weeks, then out of nowhere it says my order is Shipping, I receive the tetras and open the box to find 7 DOA and the rest looked STARVED, had FIN ROT and we're COVERED IN ich. After I took the 7 out I started drip acclimating them because their bags were filled with fish waste, during drip acclimation of over 5 hours, 4 more of them dropped dead, I then placed them into my fully cycled 1 year old planted 75 gallon with the most perfect parameters, I did this to just try and save at least some of them, in the past hour 2 more of them dropped dead, and out of 24 rummy nose tetras I have 3 left. I have been in this hobby for years and have never ever had this happen from any website or any LFS I took the utmost care with these guys, they died because of their treatment at the live aquaria facility, it looked almost as if the fish have just been swimming around with their dead friends rotting in the tank like at Petco! The fin rot also was just terrible it looked as if they were using tap water for all their tanks -_- DO NOT BUY FROM LIVE AQUARIA MY REAL REVIEW IS 0/5 STARS. Below are pictures of my 5 month old planted 75 gallon tank with freshly added Monte Carlo, every fish I've put in this tank has flourished from the terrible pet store state it was in but not even my tank could save these doomed rummy noses. If you want good fish that won't die or kill all your fish due to their diseases order off aquatic arts or aquahuna, I've ordered shrimp and many rummy noses from them with no DOA and also no deaths after 2 weeks, same exact acclimation process as well (slow drip over 4 hours method) Long story short this whole facility is very scammy and 90% of their stock is diseased and will die on you quick according to everyone else's experiences. I don't care if I get a refund because you can't return my time wasted calling you guys, supplies wasted trying to save YOUR messed up fish I paid good money for and most of all for all the potential deaths I might have now because you guys sent me DISEASED FISH THAT JUST TWITCH AND DIE. NOTE some of my fish are 5+ years old so if this kills them all off, I'll probably be done with the hobby thanks to these guys! read more

LiveAquaria - Last 3 dead ones I just pulled out I now have only 4 of the 24 rummy noses I ordered :/ - Pet Stores Near Me - Rhinelander, Wisconsin

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Unfortunately this will be our last order with LiveAquaria. Who is in charge of inspecting specimens before shipment? Why on earth would you choose to send a Betta with obvious fungal growth? Or - do you not inspect specimens at all before shipment?Customer Service did their best by suggesting treatment and extending guarantee by ten days or so but....Today is seven days into their suggested treatment, nothing has changed. The growth is slightly bigger, and now I am left scouring the internet for different medication. After spending 60 dollars for this beautiful fish, I am continuing to spend money on him to find a remedy. Remaining hopeful but it's difficult after these reviews, and after losing my first Betta from them purchased earlier this year shorty after diamond eye developed (which was already starting to show when he arrived. Dead within 3 months or so of purchase). In total, two sick bettas, out of three purchased, and this most recent one with the growth came from Divers Den, which is even more surprising. We simply cannot choose to continue supporting this business. Sick fish. Order A4166766-1 read more

LiveAquaria - Blue rim with growth and fin and under scale - Pet Stores Near Me - Rhinelander, Wisconsin

Divers Den is the best! Was a little concerned of my shipment due to weather delay a quick call to customer services definitely put my mind at easy. Looking forward to seeing what diver den has this upcoming season hoping get a rare catch read more

No stars for me!!! Fish are sick and don't last a day. Do not buy anything from these people. They send dead and sick fish through the mail. You don't get your money back trust me!!!! Don't do it!!!! Very disappointed read more

LiveAquaria - Dead upside down catfish - Pet Stores Near Me - Rhinelander, Wisconsin

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I ordered 2 different orders of fish and all arrived dead. I called their customer service and she told me to float them and they should come back to life! Well that didn't work so I took pictures of the dead fish and sent them in as requested. I also requested an upcoming order be cancelled as I did not wish to do business with this company any more. Well, it's been about 2 weeks and I'm still waiting for my refund on the purchases and they still shipped the order of assassin snails that I cancelled. Guess what? They all arrived dead as well. Best advice I can give is to stay far away from this company. read more

Update: after denying my claim because they've made it so the fine print means they can deny every claim, they've said they'll work with me if I'm medicating the fish. They want me to medicate DEAD fish. Like I'm a fish necromancer. These people are straight up crooks. It's theft. I'm sure the fish they sent were sick, but their excuse is that the fish are "expert only". Several of the same species I bought last year are alive and well. And miraculously, the inverts from the same shipment are fine. But somehow it's my fault, because I was late with the burden of proof that they put on their customers. Do not buy from LiveAquaria. They are not the same company they used to be. read more

LiveAquaria - Dead Cardinal tetras - Pet Stores Near Me - Rhinelander, Wisconsin

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 read more

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!! read more

Total disaster and the customer service was awful. The delivery was supposed to be overnight. Fedex seemingly lost the delivery for days and instead of the company wanting to work with us they kept insisting we just wait until the shipment showed and then confirm everything was dead. Then they would talk to us about next steps. When we insisted on a refund they outright refused and when we said we were going to dispute the charge with our credit card company they said they would bar us from any future orders. Don't go near these people. Should have just used our local shop instead of trying to get a deal from what is clearly a poorly run operation that has no regard for its customers. read more

BEWARE VENDORS Live Aquaria does not pay their bills. I would recommend not working with them. We have been in business for 21 years and this has been THE WORST experience to date. Not honest people. Hobbyists purchasing from Live Aquaria, you are supporting a disreputable company that is poorly managed. Buy quality somewhere else! read more

What a scam. The site said if you buy on Sunday early which I did. You will get your order Tuesday. So I got a notice Monday that my order would come Thursday just in time for a gift. Then Thursday I get a notice that my order won't ship until a week later but after a certain date they would cancel and refund my order. So I told them to cancel it and give me a full refund. I even followed up with to confirm and the Indian accent guy said we see that you cancelled via email. So I get a partial shipment a few days later missing the main thing I wanted and 2 items they say they shipped. Apparently if they have 75% of your order they go ahead and ship without your approval. Keep in mind I had cancelled a few days before they shipped. So I purchased enough to get free shipping but because they only have part of my order they added the $30 shipping charge back on. So much for combining to save on shipping! So far no refund on the 2 items short and the 2 items that were missing in the partial shipment. I will be contacting my credit card company for a full refund which I think I totally deserve? Tried them once before and 1/3 of my overnight order was dead but they replaced it. Oh when you have 75% partial order shipped they cancel the rest and someday refund your money less the $30 shipping which was to be free with a certain size order. The guy on the phone even admitted to me that they are experiencing several problems. Time to shut it down folks. This is America not India and we expect much better service. read more

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. read more

LiveAquaria - Pet Stores Near Me - Rhinelander, Wisconsin

TERRRRRRIBLE COMPANY!!! DO NOT BUY FISH FROM THEM! I ordered two premium black snowflake clownish with Saturday delivery and they told me "they forgot to deliver them". I said ok whatever deliver them to me next Saturday and they do one day delivery on Friday but not Saturday guarantee that I PAID FOR (confirmed by usps) so they didn't come until Monday. I Asked them about it and they just lied to me and said it was UPS fault... THEN AFTER ALL THAT they sent me THE WRONG DAMN FISH! What is wrong with these people! Petco Buying them was the worst thing ever to happen to them! AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS! read more

They screwed me over on my order. I really wanted a dusky wrasse and a hammer coral and LA had both for a good price, so I figured the shipping charge was worth it if I added another reasonably priced fish which was a yellow wrasse. Well, guess what, the yellow wrasse is the only one they shipped, and the other orders were cancelled. So now I payed $40 dollars shipping for a $20 dollar fish that wasn't even my first choice. Furthermore, if the dusky wrasse was unavailable, why was it listed on the website? Very shoddy business practice. To be fair, I will give them 2 stars instead of one because the yellow wrasse does look good. read more

So last week I contacted LiveAquaria and their lack of customer service regarding ember tetras and gold dust mollies. The website duplicated quantities across devices that I did not want and I attempted to correct the issue several days before they shipped to no avail. When I called, 'Jen' put me on 'hold' but I could hear her complaining about me to her coworker. Poor form for a customer service agent. I wanted less than 20 fish. Roughly 40 arrived. I contested the amount prior to receiving any communication. I never received an order confirmation or a receipt. Just a shipment notification and rude emails about changing the order even though they could change it. The fish were not what I ordered and several have died within 72 hours of delivery. Of the two species on the order, 1/4 of them were not the correct species. DO NOT expect service from this retailer. I'm so disappointed. I'm attaching photos of the first two to die. More have died since. read more

LiveAquaria - Pet Stores Near Me - Rhinelander, Wisconsin

liveaquariua.com listed a product on their site that included several things. I emailed them requesting verification if the website is correct. They replied yes and all the bells and whistles. GREAT I ordered it. Next thing you know, only 50% of the stuff was delivered. I emailed them asking for the other 50%, they said their site is wrong even though the site has all the details, descriptions and pictures of everything. Bummer, OK technical error. no biggie What drove me to the next level of pissed off is this. They said a cargo will pick up the stuff and that's it. No other information provided. I replied do I know when\who the cargo is. They said UPS will will make 4 attempts to pick up. If they fail after 4 attempts, then I won't get a full refund. WTF? Why didn't you tell me that in advance instead of me digging it out from you? My pissiest (is that a word) moment is that it seems they try to extort me. First incorrect site description, second not informing me of return process, third attempting not to tell me in order for the 4 failed attempts of pick up to fail so they won't refund me. read more

I've been buying from LiveAquaria for about 10+ years, around 20 separate orders, and I strongly encourage you to shop elsewhere. LiveAquaria doesn't actually stock what they sell, and they don't honor sale prices. Your order can be cancelled with no prior notice after you've already paid. I purchased two fish during a sale, and they sold more of one of the fish than they had. Later, they notified me that they couldn't ship because one of the fish wasn't in stock. They said they'd ship when it was back in. But when the second fish came in stock, LiveAquaria had failed to keep any stock of the first fish, so now my order can't ship because the first fish is out of stock (even though I already paid for both). It's easy to see why they do this: the fish I paid for was a sale price, and the people buying that fish now are paying full price--by failing to honor their sale prices, they make more money, and for everyone who didn't get screwed during the sale, they make profit there too. The main thing LiveAquaria had going for it was selection, but they don't stock what they claim (and they don't pay attention to what's healthy). I used to be a big fan of their quarantine process too, but after receiving things with parasites, I don't buy into their quarantine process being real either. I won't order from them again. There are better options. read more

I used to purchase fish and corals from Liveaquaria years ago and always had good experiences. I recently made two purchases. The first one was short shipped with no contact made for possible replacements. Two of the fish were practically starved to death upon arrival and died within 3 days. The second shipment (which they covered shipping costs so that was good at least) had a starved fish which died promptly. The 7 other fish received have fin rot. WTF Liveaquaria? I won't be purchasing again. read more

This is horrible company. Bought fish and half of them dead on arrival. I took photos of the dead fishes still in bags and submitted them. They still want me to take the dead fishes out and photo them on a white ground. Why would I want to touch deceased fishes? These fishes are decomposing and I am not going to catch diseases. The photos of the dead fishes in the bags are the best proofs to show I did not temper or stage the photos. These are showing exactly what I received. I will file a complain with better business. Will not ever buy from them again. read more