Somthing else I should point out about the shop.
If we trans-ship items in directly through our own license we quarantine them for two weeks at a minimum and monitor them for illness.
The main reason for this is so that we don't lose money (obviously) by having to refund people for dead fish - but obviously it's a plus to the hobbyist as well knowing they will get healthy stock.
I personally have been caring for fresh water fish for around 20 years, with 12 years or so of that being seriously into the hobby (once I found cichlids I was hooked). I take care of these fish like they are my own, and anyone who knows me on this forum knows I've had some pretty fat fish in the past.
The particular fish listed for sale in this thread are through a middle man - and as a result we pay a little bit higher of a price than we would trans shipping them. The benefits of this - however - are that we have a guarantee on the fishes health. They have all been quarantined for at least 2 weeks before being offered for resale purposes.
There is no guarantee on most fish in the shop - as there isn't with any fish store. This should be fairly obvious to hobbyists who know what they are doing. Unfortunately there are just too many people that don't have the learning curve beat yet in the hobby, and as a result otherwise healthy fish die from things like ammonia poisoning ect.
However, with the MFK community in mind - we do offer a store credit on any fish you receive that die within 72 hours, with certain exceptions (if they die while you're driving them back across state into Nevada for example - there is nothing to be done about it).
Honestly, I'm doing my best to serve the hobbyists first, and take a special interest in offering great deals to the MFK community - if it were not for this website I wouldn't have had nearly the level of pleasure I have gotten out of the hobby in the years I've been keeping fish, and I appreciate that.
Unfortunately, the differences in cost between running out of your garage and running an actual shop are tremendous - so pricing, while competitive, will never be as low as some of the guys who do this as a second job.
We do our best to take care of people.
