[skinz78]

I ordered a 50lb batch of live rock on sunday and I found out that the company shipped it out yesterday. The problem is they used dhl ground and they are in florida, I live in north west Washington. Dhl tracking says the scheduled delivery is aug 28 wich means a full week in shipping! is this too long??? will my rock arrive and be dead?? should I demand my money back even if it is alive on arrival?? does pay pal help out when it comes to matters like this??thanks chris

[Ninong]

Hi Chris,

PayPal cannot help you UNLESS the vendor specifically advertised overnight shipping or second day shipping and then decided to ship via DHL ground. I suspect that what probably happened is that the vendor advertised "free shipping." In the fine print at the bottom of the last page you would have found that the free shipping was called "regular shipping." "Regular shipping" is what one particular vendor in Florida uses for live rock. I don't know of any other vendor in the country that would ship live from from Florida to Washington state via ground shipping. For one thing, the live rock will be bouncing around the country for the next week in very hot trucks.

One thing you should always do before ordering livestock (including live rock) online is to check the various reefkeeping bulletin boards using that vendor's name as the search term. Another thing you could have done was to check the Better Business Bureau in that vendor's state to see if they have a report that is less than favorable.

Unfortunately, at this point all you can do is wait for your live rock to arrive and then try to make the most of a bad situation. There will be a lot of die-off because of the long, hot trip from Florida to your house but the live rock will recover in time. You will just have a much longer cycle than normal because a lot of the life will have died off during transit.

[fish outa wata]

sorry skinz, that's too bad. First, I'd do what Ninong suggests and look for the fine print. If it's not there than get on the dealer for some type of refund. If the website stated the shipping method as ground than follow the steps above and consider it a lesson learned. Either way good luck.

[Saltie]

Hi Skinz78,

When your live rock arrives, be sure to thoroughly check it out. It will most likely smell a bit, but don’t worry that will just be the die-off that Ninong was talking about. Dunk each rock a few times in a bucket of salt water to remove any of the die-off you can (you don’t want to raise ammonia levels anymore then you have too) before putting it in your tank.

If you can, I suggest curing the rock in a separate container for week or two. This will help the rock recover and become live again (you may even want to seed it with a rock from your tank). The container should have high water movement and a skimmer if possible. You will need to do one or two 100% water changes during the curing process.

Hope this helps,

Saltie

[skinz78]

well 25 lbs of the rock actually showed up today and I am not pleased at all. There are 3 huge pieces and about 5 pices of rubble. As for life on the rock there is less coraline algae than the base rock I have already purchased for a $1 a lb, I paid $3.35 a pound for this stuff. There are a few sponges wich I am sure are dead since even the newspaper that the rock came in was dry. The rock was just in a single garbage sack inside a cardboard box with about 4 pieces of newspaper. The other 25 lbs are supposed to come tomorrow, I will keep you posted on that shipment.But on the other hand I talked to the owner yesterday and he sounded like he would be happy to make it right with me if the rock did indeed come on the 28th so I am hoping he will do something about the quality of the rockthanks to all who have given advice, it is much apprieciated.

[slvlurph]

what site did you use?

[fish outa wata]

Too bad, I def. think that saltie is right, re-cure it for a couple of weeks and get rid of the die off.