# Tropical Fish Distributors, Inc.



## Philosophos (Mar 1, 2009)

This is a hard review for me to write. I feel as if I've gotten bent over by big business.

My order consisted of 30 threadfin rainbows, 20 otos, 100 blue shrimp. I paid for overnight delivery, and picked these guys up about 24-26 hours of them being bagged at their facility. They were in my tanks within 28 hours.

What I actually received consisted of 27 threadfin rainbows, 20 otos, 93 blue shrimp, 2 bee shrimp and one DOA blue shrimp. 5 of the otos had no tail, 11 of the threadfins died within 48 hours of some sort of Pleistophora (neon tetra disease), and 2 more shrimp died.

I called them, they offered credit for the 4 missing shrimp and 5 otos without tails, but wouldn't do anything for me about the neon tetra disease or missing threadfins. Clearly the neon tetra disease was pre-existing; I added them to a new tank, and it still holds only their stock. The person I talked to on the phone hadn't even heard of neon tetra disease.

The real pain of all this is that I can't order $200 worth of fish to credit for the new order, and this being my first experience I'm not inclined to order from them again. I'm essentially left having to buy more fish that I don't want in order to get what should have been a cash refund. I am not aware of a single person on these forums who would do something like this to a fellow hobbyist.

Their policy is credit only, 2 hour DOA pictures. Getting even this requires overnight shipping. There is no guarantee beyond this, they will not do anything for you if they ship infected fish that have not yet shown symptoms. 

I will not be buying from this company again primarily because of this underhanded method of forcing further purchases in order to simply receive recompense for their failure to deliver in the first place. Forcing overnight shipping for any guarantee and a $200 minimum order is a sure deterrent from any hobbyist actually getting their money back without spending even more.


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## billb1 (May 29, 2009)

Well - this is a bit freaky - I ordered threadfins, otos, and blue shrimp from Tropical fish distributors back in December! What are the odds.

This was my second order from the company ( both under $200). In July I ordered Ember Tetras and Otos. Both species were in excellent condition and thrived from day one. I was really pleased and the prices balanced the shipping costs. I was a fan.

My recent order was not quite so clean. The "blue shrimp" are dyed/treated. you will find the offspring will be wild type neocaridina - still cool looking and very hardy but decidedly un-blue. The Otos were in bad shape. no tails and emaciated. most died in the first week. 
The threadfins were fantastic and still are. I think I got them soon after the company got them. The only problem - they were 100% male! so much for my species tank.

I did not pursue replacements for the Oto's. They are cheap enough locally. I did buy some females threadfins for 3x the price from Inverts Factory. These came in emaciated and two had curved spines. I will say that they did try to give me females ( well most were actually males but I did get three females that have started to get healthier. )

So. if I am going to order fish on-line again, I will call and ask questions before hand. TFD answers the phone - I can ask them how long they have had their stock. I believe that would have prevented the Oto porblem and the 100% male threadfins. The majority of my fish ordered from them have been healthy. Inverts factory is not as easy to communicate with. Personnally, I have had more casualties with their fish, and, frankly, the threadfins were pretty sad. I know my experience is not representitive. But I will definitely ask questions up front next time. This is the best way to protect my investment.

I will order from both companies in the future

Bill


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## Philosophos (Mar 1, 2009)

Dyed? Are you 100% sure? Did the females look colorless when berried?

If they turn out to be I'm going to be more than a little irritated. I bought 100 of them, and some are intended for breeding.


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## billb1 (May 29, 2009)

Hi Dan,

It would be better to say treated, I don't know how they achieved the blue color. Both males and females were colored. There was variation in the intensity, but this did not vary by sex. Many of the females were berried ( all have expired but the eggs hatched). The offspring - wild type brown coloring - have grown fast and now I have berried females among them. I assumed - again, I should have asked - that they were blue pearls. I'll try to post some pics of the offspring later tonight.

Edit: here is a link with pictures that match the offspring
http://www.arizonainverts.com/articles/wildNeocaridinaHeteropoda.html


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## Philosophos (Mar 1, 2009)

Thanks for the reply. I'd really like to see what your grown out young look like.

If I got the same deal, I'm going to be calling them back.


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## cah925 (Jun 23, 2007)

I recently purchased from TFD also and was unimpressed. I bought from them because I wanted large quantities of tetras I was having trouble finding in FL. I only had a few DOAs even with overnight shipping, not even worth calling to complain about. All fish were acclimated/quarantined immediately upon arrival. Unfortunately most of the fish did not survive past 1 month.


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## Philosophos (Mar 1, 2009)

Cah925, did your tetras go down to neon tetra disease? I've got it rampaging through the threadfin rainbows that I bought. 27/30 shipped to me, ~12 alive right now. A few shrimp and otos went down last night too.

Water changes have been done, there's no known cure so medication is out of the question, and naturally the parameters are all good. I blame the seller for my issues 100% and they aren't going to offer me a refund, even though they sent me fish that were handed a death sentence before being shipped.


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## Burks (May 25, 2006)

I'm surprised they let you guys order, especially since they are "wholesale only".

When I dealt with them (myself and a buddy did all the freshwater ordering for a store), the stock was subpar. All of the 50 Bee shrimp, 25 Tigers, and most of the Cories were dead within a couple days. The remaining stock was nursed back to health. Bad shipment? I find that hard to believe as these fish could not have all come from the exact same shipment (they had to go "find" some of the Cories). That and the substituting without calling was a big issue.

I called them, as a hobbyist, because the LFS around me refuse to order anything I want. I was told "no license, no sale". Funny...I keep running across these same topics with the same feedback. Sad thing is I am less than 60 miles away. Maybe that's why they won't sell to me, wouldn't want me to see their facilities! 

I'd caution anyone who orders. Just an FYI.


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## edwardn (Nov 8, 2008)

I keep ordering my fish through my LFS. Not in hundreds, but the total was well over 200 in time.

They getting their stock from Segrest Farms. Fish is packed in the afternoon before delivery day and I honestly cannot say one bad word about health and the quality of their fish. They raise Ottos and many other fish, and right now the Threadfin is on their availability list, which changes from week to week. 

I ordered from Aquabid only once, and the fish came O.K., but all of them turned extremely bad - after some 10 month in my tank, I'm not able to catch any of them, so i will not buy any fish by mail anymore...


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## Philosophos (Mar 1, 2009)

Burks, they told me that they only supply people who aren't within something like 50 miles of a store that they stock.

Bad suppliers and breeders can be every bit as nasty on the inside as what you'd imagine. Here's what livefishdirect.com looks like:





Their water comes in unfiltered from a stream. Locally, they've cost thousands of dollars between perhaps 3 hobbyists/breeders because of a highly resistant disease that's going around their tanks right now.

After seeing that, I wonder what TFD looks like. Maybe we should supply Burks with a ninja costume and headcam :ninja:


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## Burks (May 25, 2006)

Philosophos said:


> Burks, they told me that they only supply people who aren't within something like 50 miles of a store that they stock.


Then they are just losing money. Maybe they need to kick their stores they supply in the butt a little bit and learn some customer service. I wanted $200 wholesale worth of fish. Think they'd order? Nope. "We hand select all our fish". Bull crap, no you don't. If he can't pull his ear away from the phone for 30 seconds to answer a question, he isn't going to "hand select"!

Their loss. I still caution anyone who deals with them.


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## janftica (Apr 18, 2010)

I read this post before I went ahead and ordered my shrimp for TFD....should have listened :beef:
#-o

Got my shrimp alright, but several have since died...almost every day now I am losing at least 2 or 3.
The shrimp all seem to be adults, and I am wondering now how long TFD has had them in their tanks before getting them sold....a while I bet!

Out of 30 bee shrimp I have 6 left, and out of 30 (didn't seem like there was that many in the bag?) I have approx 10...several are berried females, so IF they drop the babies that will make up for the dead ones, but I just lost a berried one today, so now doubt that I will get them to hatch fast enough before they too kick the bucket 

I definitely WON"T be buying from them again.


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