The iFISH StoreReviews of theifishstore.com

Response from The iFISH Store· Sep 26, 2019

Hello Van; We wish your experience could have been a better one. You had ordered three Discus from us and a Bamboo Shrimp. Two of the Discus were our 2" juveniles. Discus often don't show their full colors until they reach adulthood so they often appear somewhat faded at that stage. Also, black peppering on Discus is normal. Usually discus fish that have a pigeon blood gene in them are prone to black peppering spots. Black peppering spots are a natural way for discus to adapt and camouflage themselves into their environment. If your aquarium has a dark colored background with dark colored gravel your discus fish will adapt to the colors. In order to reduce the amount of black spots on discus fish you need to change the colors inside your aquarium. With discus the best color gravel or sand should be bright white. Stay away from dark gravel and dark backgrounds. Usually white gravel with light blue background is the best colors to make your fish look really bright and reduces the black peppering. Not sure what the remainder of the "wack" look of the discus involves that you are referring to so we can't really address it! You also ordered a 4 inch Gold Pigeon Blood Discus which was priced on sale at $59.99 and not the original price of $79.99. We did make a mistake in not shipping it and would have immediately shipped it without any added shipping cost the day you notified us but you requested a refund instead. Overall, we're sorry you were displeased with your experience with us and wish you the best in your aquarium hobby.

Response from The iFISH Store· Sep 5, 2019

Hello Nick; You had several ordered African Cichlids, Catfish and Plecos. It’s very alarming to us that ALL of the fish (multiple species) died in such a short period of time. Many fish can be stressed after shipment but pick up within 24 hours after proper acclimation. We really don’t like the outcome here as much as you do and would like more detail on what you observed in the first 24 hours after receiving the fish in addition to tank conditions and tankmates. That would help us understand the cause greatly. Would you be willing to share that information by emailing us at [email protected]? We always do our best to pursue less than desirable outcomes and can only do so with communication from the customer. Please consider contacting us. Thank you.

Response from The iFISH Store· Aug 28, 2019

Hello Nate; We really have to state that your comment that the Owner of The iFISH Store "blew" you off is highly inaccurate and doesn't reflect the communication that took place between you and our business. First, when we prep our fish for shipment and they are quarantined, they are not fed so as to reduce the level of soiled packing water during shipment. Quite often, the shipped fish will have what appears to be a sunken stomach which goes away quickly once they acclimate and begin eating. Second, you had a telephone conversation with the Store Owner about feeding your fish and he recommended that you feed your Arowana what we feed them here. We aren't sure if you switched food. A second phone conversation took place with the Store Owner where tank parameters were discussed and he suggested that your Nitrates were too high and to get them adjusted through several different proven methods. Again, we are not sure if you attempted to adjust your Nitrate levels. It's unfortunate that your Arowana perished. We don't like to see this as a result in any situation. We have to say though that we take exception to your implying that we blew you off. We provided recommendations each time you called. We aren't sure at this point what else you needed from us since we tried to provide as much assistance as possible. We are sorry your experience with us did not meet your expectations. We can see you’re quite agitated and at the same time we feel strongly that we sent you a healthy fish and we’re sorry, but we don’t accept returned fish which in any case would have cost you at least $40 to ship back. We wish we could have come to a more reasonable outcome and communication.

Response from The iFISH Store· Aug 14, 2019

Hello Lyndsey; Thank you for your feedback. We understand your frustration with our situation with the Koi you ordered. Frank had communicated to you that we were out of the Gold and Platinum Ogon Koi and held back sending the entire order which included in stock Butterfly Koi to save on shipping costs. We will be receiving a shipment of the Gold and Platinum Ogon’s next week and will ship your entire order. Once we ship your fish, you will receive an automated Shipping Confirmation email with UPS Tracking Information. Again, we apologize if our communication wasn’t as frequent as you would have liked. But we do hope you are pleased with the Koi. We value your business and will be looking into improved methods to communicate to our customers on any orders that are held up and the specific reason for the delay.

Response from The iFISH Store· Aug 13, 2019

Hello Paul; Thank you for your detailed feedback. We'd like the opportunity here to address your comments. YOUR FIRST ORDER: Your first order included a 4 inch Rose Red Discus. Three issues you pointed out on this fish: (1) the coloring, (2) the lack of a stress bar and (3) the general health of the fish. Just a few general comments on the stress bar. Only wilds will have a permanent stripe on their body. Also, with captive/bred Discus, the eye stripe can also fade over time if the fish is very happy and healthy. The coloring you observed and general health of the fish was obviously an indication that the fish did not ship well and was going to perish. This does happen on occasion. We gladly issued a refund which we are always happy to do in this situation. The fish was not "old" as you suggested. Our 4 inch Discus are adults that are only several months old and when properly cared for will grow to 6+ inches and live up to ten years. You also ordered 3 other 2 inch juvenile Discus in that first order which we assume were acceptable to you because you do not mention them at all. YOUR SECOND ORDER: Your second order was for four 2" juvenile Discus. You did not contact us at all about any error in the Discus you received. If you had as many issues as you suggested with this second order, we would certainly expect a phone call or email with some photos of the fish. It sounded disastrous! Since this is the only forum we're left to address your issues on, we'd like to take the opportunity to respond to some of the statements you made on this second order: (1) If the incorrect fish were sent, which is atypical for us, we would have liked to have been notified immediately. We have always corrected this situation on the few occasions it has happened and on some occasions, the customer misidentified the fish once we saw the photo sent to us. (2) The black peppering you saw on the Pigeon Blood Discus is quite normal and usually discus fish that have a pigeon blood gene in them are prone to black peppering spots either when stressed as a natural way to adapt and camouflage themselves into their environment. If your aquarium has dark colored background and gravel, your discus fish will adapt to the colors. In order to reduce the amount of black peppering on discus fish you need to change the colors inside your aquarium. With discus, the best color gravel or sand should be bright white. The black peppering may eventually fade as the discus gets older with brighter aquarium surroundings. Feeding your discus a high quality food and giving them time to destress after shipping will help to reduce the black peppering. (3) We take exception to your statement that you believe we got someone to write our reviews. We work with a trusted third party service (TrustPilot) that solicits reviews from our customers and calculates our overall rating. We have no control whatsoever over what feedback the customers provide and it is all accepted into TrustPilot's system once they verify that the review was in fact from a person that made a purchase by independently checking our system. Your statement is categorically untrue. (4) You state " I wish I read the reviews before I bought the fish because everyone is complaining about the discus". Well, we wish you had read the reviews as well. Because stating that "everyone" is complaining about our Discus is simply untrue. Please take the time to read our reviews. We have over 970 reviews with a 9.1 out of 10 ranking. We are not stating that we have not had some issues but when we do, we address them immediately with customers who are open in their communication with us which gives us the opportunity to rectify the situation. We take Customer Service very seriously and again, take exception to your statement that "everyone is complaining about the discus". (5) All of our fish are ALWAYS quarantined for 24-48 hours prior to shipment, we have quality control checks in place, treat our tanks for common fish diseases and use an exceptional packing procedure. You wonder why with all this in place our fish are not healthy and ugly. We just have not received such sweeping commentary about the quality of our fish and our operations. You are obviously upset and we really wish we could have had a more open line of communication before you felt the need to write your review. In the end, we are sincerely sorry you had such a bad experience with The iFISH Store. We would have preferred working directly with you on your issues with both orders.

Response from The iFISH Store· Jun 24, 2019

Hello Brandie; We can see you're quite frustrated over your situation. First, we are sorry you had such a bad experience and all six of your Discus perished within 2 weeks of receiving them. We've never quite had a chain of perished Discus like this and without a doubt would have liked the opportunity to talk to you further about how the fish were behaving and how they appeared. Nevertheless, we always stand by what is best for our customers and without fail, offer a credit on a future order or a refund. You have documented the dates that you emailed us. But we have to say that it simply is not true that we did not try to contact you to rectify the situation. We also emailed you and called you at the number you provided and have not heard back. We think it's fair to say that this is a situation of crossed communication because we genuinely tried to contact you. And once we did, we would have been quite happy to offer you a credit on a future order or a refund. Saying that our fish don't last, that we don't respond to our customers concerns and avoid them is a bit of a broad set of accusations that anyone can see is typically not the case for us if you read all of our reviews. We genuinely try our best to meet every customers needs. We see through this feedback that you would like a refund and we are happy to issue it. We will be sending you an email indicating that we will be processing the refund. We truly wish this could have been handled differently and are regretful of the ire this seems to have raised on your end.

Response from The iFISH Store· Jun 20, 2019

Hello Ryan; We're sorry we could not complete your order because we do not ship to Hawaii. We made this decision to not serve Hawaii because of the efforts and extended processing time our customers and The iFISH Store would need to go through and we have found that in the end customers we have worked with are not comfortable with the process. We state that we only serve the Continental U.S. on our website. Just to give you an idea of the process that would have to be followed, the Hawaii State Dept of Agriculture has in place laws regulating the importation of fish and invertebrates.. They strictly regulate what fish can and can not be imported. If the fish you are requesting is allowed and on their approved list, you would need to obtain a permit from the Hawaii State Dept. of Agriculture. This permit costs $20.00 and takes about 1-2 weeks to receive and would then have to be emailed or faxed back to us. If a fish you want is NOT on their approved list, you would need to contact the Hawaii State Dept of Agriculture to see if an exception can be made. The Hawaii State Dept of Agriculture inspector instructs that shipping boxes are marked "Live Fish" and "For Dept of Agriculture to Inspect". They monitor the post office twice a day to inspect parcels. They will open the box to see if what is in the box is what the permit is for. The penalties for getting caught importing either prohibited live fish and invertebrates or falsely identifying a shipment into Hawaii involve hefty fines for both the customer and The iFISH Store. This being the case, we have chosen not to ship to Hawaii. Again, we are sorry we could not accommodate you.

Response from The iFISH Store· May 24, 2019

Hello Albert; Unfortunately, the issue was with UPS and out of our hands but we understand your disappointment and want to rectify the situation immediately. We have issued you a refund and hope that you will consider giving The iFISH Store a try again. Thank you for your feedback...it's how we can track down these issues when they happen and make changes to improve on our end.