Live Arrival Guarantee

Guarantee

By finalizng an order with Seahorse Savvy you are accepting our guarantee policy and all policies listed on our website. Seahorse Savvy takes great pride in ensuring our livestock are packaged in the best possible manner and arrive happy and healthy to you. Rest assured, we have been shipping our livestock for 10+ years and have very high success rates. It is extremely uncommon for livestock to not arrive well.

We have a Live Arrival Guarantee

Please unpack and acclimate your new fish, corals and livestock as soon as you receive your order. In the unlikely event you receive your livestock DOA (Dead On Arrival) or you have concerns with how something arrived please do the following:

  1. Contact us right away via email orders@seahorsesavvy.com. We must hear from you and receive a clear photo of the deceased animal or plant within two hours of delivery of your order. Two hours is two hours from the time UPS tracking says your order was delivered.
  2. Please email us a photo of deceased animal or plant to orders@seahorsesavvy.com. We need a photo inside the unopened bag and a photo of the animal or plant outside of the bag within two hours of delivery of your order to have a record of when the order was opened and acclimated. We do not receive text messages or calls after hours, email only please.

If you qualify for our Live Arrival Guarantee we will either put a replacement credit on file or put a livestock credit on file for the livestock that arrived DOA to be used on a future order. No refunds. You are responsible for the shipping cost of your replacement. Shipping costs are nonrefundable. Livestock credits expire one year from when they were issued.

No livestock credits or refunds will be provided without photos of deceased animal within guarantee time.

Sorry, no returns. This is for Bio-security reasons at our hatchery and to ensure the well-being of the livestock since most individuals are not setup for proper shipping for livestock.

If there are concerns with how an item arrives it is very important to still acclimate it to the aquarium rigth away even if it appears deceased. The darkness in the shipping box can cause livestock to be lathargic or "asleep" but after acclimation they can wake up and quickly be fine. Some livestock like a lot of crabs will often "play dead" when handled so it can sometimes be hard to tell how an item is doing prior to acclimation. Contact us with these concerns and send us a photo right away so we have a timeframe and record of concerns and can help offer advice with the new arrival. If you are concerned about clean-up crew or other tank mates consuming a stressed new arrival, please place it in an isolated quarantine tank.

Unpacking and acclimating your new livestock right away is important. They can not be left out in the weather. Please make sure someone will be home to receive and acclimate your livestock upon arrival. Shipments typically arrive early in the day with the shipping service we use but this depends on your area. It is not acceptable for livestock orders to be delivered and left outside or not unpacked and acclimated until you return home from work for the day. For our gurantee the order must be unpacked and we must be contacted with any DOA reports within two hours of delivery from the time UPS tracking information says the order was delivered to you. No exceptions to this.

Orders can be held for up to a week from the time they are placed. If you need a certain delivery date please reach out to us and we can help arrange this for you. Orders ship out Monday-Thusday via UPS Priority Overnight service or Saturday with UPS Saturday delivery option at check out. When your order will ship depends on when the order is placed and how quickly our team can process the order. Placing your order at least a day ahead of when you want your order to ship is recommended. Animals need to be fasted before shipping. Sometimes orders will ship out the same day the order is placed. If no prior request are made, our team will ship your order out as soon as possible. Keep an eye out in your email for all shipping and order updates. 

When ordering, please make sure your schedule allows for flexibility with recieving your livestock. Shipping delays are very uncommon but they can occur and livestock needs to be able to be received and acclimated as soon as they arrive, especially when uncommon shipping delays occur. We package our livestock considering shipping delays are possible and most of the time this does not cause any issues with livestock not arriving well with our packaging. We recommend following our same acclimation instructions even if there were a shipping delay with the order. 

Scheduling or placing an order for delivery before going on a vacation or work trip is not recommended. We recommend you plan to be home the first 7 days after new arrivals to make sure they are fed, monitored and cared for properly while they are acclimating and settling into their new home with you.

Our team is full of experienced, kind people who want to supply you healthy aquarium specimens and help you be sucessful in keeping them. We will not tolerate unkind communication in anyway. We will not serve anyone who speaks to any of our staff unkindly or disrepectfully.

Exceptions that void our Guarantee:

-Seahorse Savvy is not responsible if there is an error in the provided shipping address. Changing your shipping address with UPS or any shipper can cause additional delays.

-Package must be delivered on the first delivery attempt. Please make sure you are home to receive your order. If delivery is not made on the first attempt this voids our guarantee.

-Please follow our acclimation guide. Failure to do so voids our guarantee.

-Seahorse Savvy is not responsible for weather related shipping delays or UPS shipping malfunctions.

-If you refuse or do not pickup a shipment within two hours of delivery for any reason our guarantee is void and you are not eligible for a refund or livestock credit. You are responsible for the return shipping cost if an order is refused and returned to us. If you refuse a shipment for any reason we will not ship to you again.

Picking up shipments at a UPS Hold Facility.

We are happy to ship your order as a "hold for pickup" at a UPS authorized UPS Store. This is a great option for those who live in areas with end of day delivery guarantee, extreme weather, apartments, areas where theft of packages is a concern, ect. This also often lessens handling since your livestock does not have to ride on a delivery truck to arrive to you. UPS Stores often have early morning deliveries so the package is often available early in the day. Your tracking information will update when the package is at the UPS Store and ready for you to pick it up. Do not wait for a call from UPS to pick up your package.

*When picking up your order at a UPS Store you must pickup your order within two hours of it being made available for pickup and before noon. Failure to do so voids our live arrive guarantee.  It is very important to pickup your livestock right away and acclimate them as soon as you receive your order. Any extra time in the box is unnecessary stress for the animals. 

Shipping your livestock as a hold for pickup needs to be setup with us before your order is placed. Please do not call UPS or a shipper after we generate the label and ship. This automatically causes a day delay with delivery and voids our guarantee. We need to make sure the shipping label is setup correctly before your order is shipped for this option. We are happy to help set this up for you ahead of time.

**UPS Update. In the past we use to ship to UPS Customer Centers as a hold for pick-up. Most of these have closed their customer counters and this is no longer an option. We can ship to a UPS Store but we recommend checking with your local UPS Store before having an order held at their location. Some UPS Stores charge a fee for this, do not allow for live animal pick-ups ect and we are not responsible for this. Most of our customers are shipping directly to their home or work address.

We do not guarantee the sex, color or markings of a seahorse, fish, invert or any livestock.

Seahorses: We try our very best to send you the requested sexes. It can take a year or longer to be able to sex a seahorse and is not something we can guarantee. The color of a seahorse is not fixed and can change based on surroundings, diet, lighting, stress, mood, and other unknown factors. Markings can also change with age. We are happy to help make some suggestions on how to encourage your seahorses to display their best colors.

*Please make sure your saltwater aquarium is cycled before adding your seahorses.  If you have any questions about cycling your aquarium please contact us. Please also make sure your water chemistry is within the recommended parameters before adding your seahorses. See our Seahorse Care page for recommended parameters.

Livestock: We do not guarantee the sex, color or markings of fish, corals or livestock. We do not guarantee fish and corals will be compatible with each other. Please ask questions if you are unsure of compatibility. Coral and fish color vary based on lighting and other factors, they may look different in your aquarium compared to our photos. These are live animals or plants and please allow for variations in size which may deviate from the listed size. Sizes are approximate and not exact. These individual living animals or plants often have shape, color, size, behavioral, and other differences.