This page contains a list of Frequently Asked Questions from our customers.

If you have a question, please look through the Questions and Answers listed below. Click here for information about our Warranty. Click here to go to another page in this web site with a list the Information and Advice on this site.

We hope that these resources will help you find an answer. If not, click here to go to our Search Page, where you can search for any word or phrase on this web site.

Question 1
"I've never kept fish, but I'd like to start. What do you recommend for beginners? Can you recommend a good book?"

Answer. No, we don't know of a good book for beginners. The ones we've looked at include too much irrelevant information and not enough about the essential methods you must know. This site contains specific practical information about how succeed in keeping fish. For example,

• Click here for the Seven Essentials of Keeping Fish.

• Click here for Information about Keeping Fish.

• Click here for information about How to Choose Fish.

• Click here for how to Choose a Home for Your Fish.

Question 2
"I've had problems with keeping fish in the past. I bought lots of chemicals, treatments, and remedies but still had lots of problems. Is keeping fish a really difficult hobby?"

Answer. We don't think so. You mentioned chemicals, treatments, and remedies. You don't need most of them. We minimize the use of chemicals and emphasize preventative maintenance and that helps avoid most problems.
 
Practically no one is successful in keeping fish without some help and guidance from a more experienced aquarist. This is a knowledge based hobby, and successful aquarists study and learn before they act!

Once you have some knowledge, about all you need "elbow grease" to scrub your fish's home, change some water twice a week, wash the gravel, don't feed more than your fish will eat, plus a few other simple tasks. Click here for more information about the essentials of keeping fish. Click here for the maintenance schedule.

We often hear about beginners buying 10 small goldfish and putting them in a small fish bowl, which is not an appropriate home for these fish. Click here for information about choosing an appropriate home for your fish.

Question 3
"Getting live fish delivered all the way to my residence from San Diego sounds risky. Does it really work?"

Answer. Yes. In fact we have successfully shipped many thousands of boxes of fish including many to customers very far away. How far? Tokyo, Japan. Auckland, New Zealand. Perth, Australia. Moscow, Russia. Fairbanks, Alaska, but at the present time we cannot ship outside of the United States, and we ship to Anchorage and Fairbanks in Alaska only during warm weather.

We're confident in our methods of shipping. But we haven't been perfect, and we'll replace any fish that does not arrive alive. Click here to read our Warranty.

Here's something to consider. If you buy live fish now, chances are they've been shipped from a fish farm, to an exporter, to an importer, to a wholesaler, to a retailer, then finally the fish go home with you. 

This is a much more difficult trip than from us to you. We think this site can be of value to you by offering an outstanding combination of price, quality, and convenience, and that is what will determine if this site continues work and satisfy our customers.

Question 4
"I've decided to buy 8 fish that are listed with a price of $5.00. Here is my question. Do I pay 8 x $5.00 = $40.00 plus $24.75 shipping for a total of $64.75 and that's it?"

Answer. That's it, exactly. You pay for the fish plus one charge of $24.75 for shipping to one address. There are no other charges of any kind. So in the example you gave, the total for all charges is $64.75. Click here to see an example of an order with all the charges shown.

Note: There is an additional charge of $12.50 per shipment for an optional delivery on a Saturday. Click here for more about Saturday delivery. There is also an additional charge to Hawaii or to Anchorage and Fairbanks in Alaska during warm weather. Click here for more about where we ship.

Question 5
"I've looked at your list carefully for Cardinal Tetras and Kuhli Loaches and can't find either one. Do you have them? If not will you special order them for me?"

Answer. We don't sell Kuhli Loaches or Cardinal Tetras. We know both fish very well, and we kept them alive and well in our aquariums for many years, but both Kuhlis and Cardinals are what we call delicate wild fish. Frontosa, Discus, Kribensis, and Angel Fish are also delicate fish, that are usually tank raised.

Click here for more about Small Tetras including Cardinals.
Click here for more information about Discus.
Click here for more about Frontosa Cichlids.
Click here for more information about Angel Fish.

We do not have more information in this web site about Kribensis Cichlids or Kuhli Loaches at this time.

We like all these species of fish a lot. Kuhli Loaches are hard working little scavengers and fun to watch. But they have never been available in the quantities we need from the fish farmers. So Kuhli Loaches have to be caught from their natural habitats and imported.

Cardinal Tetras are perhaps the most intensely colored of all freshwater fish. We bought them and raised them up to 1.5". Visitors to our facility were dazzled by the brilliant colors of our school of huge Cardinal Tetras and wanted a school just like them.

Knowing that people want to buy Cardinal Tetras, many skillful fish farmers put a great deal of their time and energy into breeding Cardinal Tetras, but farm-raised Cardinals have never been available in the quantities needed by distributors like us. To get Cardinal Tetras we would have to import them from the wild.

Most wild fish, like Kuhlis and Cardinals, don't ship as well as the fish produced by fish farms. In 1986 we began to accurately count our fish losses and enter the numbers into our computer data base. The percentage of losses on the Kuhlis and Cardinals was large enough that we decided to discontinue carrying them.

I think we still made money on them, but our consideration was really for the fish. We didn't like to participate in taking them from their natural homes, and then having the feeling that a few too many of them were dying. The percentages weren't big, but the percentages of losses on farm-raised fish are much smaller.

Are we critical of other fish dealers who do carry these fish? No we're not. We hope their experiences are different than ours were. Perhaps they know how to care for these fish better than we did.

Do we sell any wild fish? Yes we do. For example Clown Loaches arrive and acclimate very well for us, and we have very few losses. The same is true for Elephant Noses, Baby Whales, White Tip Shark Cats, Pictus Catfish, Siamese Tiger Fish, and several other species of wild fish.

We hope that we can satisfy you and the other aquarists with a few types of wild fish that arrive and acclimate well for us plus a wide variety of farm-raised fish, that have been raised to go into aquariums and really wouldn't be alive without aquarists like you.

Answer. We don't have a catalog to mail, and we apologize, if this disappoints you. In the spirit of the internet all the information that we offer is right here on our website. This is one of the ways this website helps us keep things simple and efficient, so we can keep our prices down and our quality up.