Hey back, Rhonda.
Yes, Bowluvr is me wherever I go. :-) Just easier to keep the same
web-monniker all the time. Yes, I do sell stuff on ABid sometimes as well. I
use USPS exclusively and have pretty decent luck. I have limits on my refund
policies, but try to be lenient if I feel it is "safe" to do so. Depends
upon the situation.
My policies/methods are as follows...
1) Any guarantees are for the fish only. The buyer must pay all costs to
re-ship. If I don't have replacement fish, I refund cost of fish only. This
is all stated up front, and I do keep in very good email contact with all
buyers throughtout the transaction process. I find this helps a lot with
having things turn out well for both parties. I do not give negative
feedback, but I do ban folks from my auctions who have not followed through
or have otherwise been real pains to deal with. My retail background really
helps me here, as I probably have more patience than many folks who sell
online. ;-)
2) I am one of those who states that a photo of the unopened bag is needed
for proof of DOA. I don't always enforce this, but I do state it. I know
others will give a second option of sending the dried, salted (preserved)
dead fish back at their own cost before refunds are made. I think 99% of
folks are honest when there are problems, so I haven't had trouble that I
know of. Also, too, I try to send extras to cover a loss or two. FWIW I have
had very good luck, and most problems are due to postal delays or mess-ups.
If fish are late, I usually get an email telling me so, so the customer has
already made me aware there is a potential problem.
3) I preferably use Express Mail service and this I do guarantee live
arrival on. I will use Priority but I do NOT guarantee with this service and
I make this very clear. Here in Portland we have some real issues w/ FedEx
and how they mess up things for us w/ USPS. FedEx here will not allow live
fish on their planes, PLUS they are the main air carriers for USPS here. I
can receive fish via FedEx but cannot send them. Stupid. All live fish sent
via USPS from here must therefore be sent via common carriers, and this
often causes some delays. I pack for the idea that the fish will be in the
bags at least 3 to 4 days. I have had them survive a week on many occaisions
(once 2 weeks!), so I know I pack well. Most times they are only in the bag
about 2 days tho. The PO does what it can, but anything marked live fish
does often get delayed and the risk using Priority is quite high for me
unless I "stealth" ship it (hide the fact there are live fish in the box).
This is illegal and also can be dangerous for the fish so I try not to do it
very often. If Express mail is late, the PO refunds the money. The form is
easy to fill out, very short, and no real hassle, and if there are losses
then the customer basically gets the re-ship postage costs free as well as
the fish. I have to pay for my boxes, so I do charge for boxes if I have to
re-ship. If it is late and the customer does not ask me to get them their
refund, I keep the money. ;-) Also, FWIW, Express Mail is delivered 7
days/week and holidays, so is safer to use in this respect too. I NEVER send
any shipments between Thanksgiving and about the 15th of January, as with
all the Holiday mail it is just asking for trouble!
4) I ONLY use the AIRPORT branch of my PO to ship fish. Luckily right now I
live close, but to me there is no better place to send from. I am
anticipating having to move to the West Side here soon, and I will still
make the trip accross town (and traffic) to use the airport PO whenever I
ship fish. I believe it makes all the difference in the world. FWIW these
branches usually are open 7 days/week and are open extended hours (ours used
to be open 24/7 but now are only open 7 am to midnight, which is still great
IMO). At this point, they all know me there, so I get excellent service,
even from the Postmaster there.
5) I believe strongly that packing is the key to success. I starve the fish
24 hours minimum to purge their systems. I use a small piece of polyfilter
in each bag, and in 98% of the packages the fish are individually bagged so
if one does die it does not take others with it. Unless they are expensive
or rare, fry are not individually bagged, nor are killi eggs. Yes, more
expensive in supplies, but totally worth it to me. I also do not ship large
or spiny fish as they are a real hassle since they tend to puncture even
triple bags. I lable all boxes well on all sides except the bottom, use
styro-lined cardboard boxes only, and further insulate with styro packing
peanuts. I use breather bags for eggs, but in most cases I just use regular
fish bags, either 3" x 10" or 4" x 12" and then two of those go into one
larger bag to make a double bag for all. Be sure to leave the bags "squishy"
as they will expand at the altitudes airplanes fly and will burst if they
are too tight/full when you seal them. With all livebearers (or other fish
that cannot tolerate a pH crash in the bag), I use buffered water from one
of my Tanganyika tanks as the shipping water, but in your case this will be
totally unnecessary. ;-) You get that out of your tap already.
Yes, it is work, but I have had weeks where I have made $200.00 or more on 4
or 5 auctions (one week it was over $300!), so to me it is worth it. Pays
the darn electric bill for the fishroom once in awhile. ;-) That helps a
lot some months.
Let me know if you have further questions on this. :-)
Julie <'><
PS: Peter's rack of tanks looks good now that it has lights and plants and
you seem to have removed all those ugly tub-UGs. ;-) Nice fishroom! FWIW,
I use plants in a lot of my tanks, tho not to the extent you do. My room is
lit from lights at ceiling-level, and I don't have the ability here to have
a light on each tank. I have very few bare tanks and mostly those are for
fry or things like guppies that are too dumb to care where they live. ;-)
As for snails, they rarely are a bother for me, and easy enough to keep in
check if I need to do so.
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
Thanks Julie, I tried it your way. I know at least the worms are still alive
and this one didn't get stinky yet. I used baby cereal before but maybe it
was the type. They had rice on sale so that's what I bought, maybe I had oat
before. The other ones I had done this time were really fermenting badly and
not in a good smelling way. I kind of like some of those smells but these
were truly not pleasant in any way. haha. Hopefully this will work better.
This are micro mini worms from Germany which apparently were then dubbed
Walter worms after they got to the states. Anyway I'd like to keep them
going and pass some around. They are supposed to be smaller than normal
micro worms.
Have you been selling livebearers on aquabid? I thought I saw what looked
like your handle and right location selling one recently. I've been wanting
to put some fish up but I hate shipping. I was wondering about putting them
at like $15 Priority, No refunds. I have mixed feelings. I have had troubles
with times in the past where I think people took advantage of refund offers,
but on the other hand I don't want to not get people fish, but then I can't
afford to re-ship multiple boxes each time. I saw another one that gave a
refund with a photo of the dead fish still in the bag, which would work, but
not every one has digital cameras and then it all can get complicated too I
saw comments that express was problematical now and honestly I hate going
through the trouble of filling out the stupid forms. I must be getting old I
don't want to do new unfamiliar things. :) What do you, and of course others
on the list think about shipping/refund policies for fish?
Thanks, Rhonda
------=_NextPart_000_3034_6d7b_573a
Content-Type: message/rfc822
X-Message-Info: JGTYoYF78jEHjJx36Oi8+Z3TmmkSEdPtfpLB7P/ybN8=
Received: from n12a.bulk.scd.yahoo.com ([66.94.237.20]) by MC6-F36.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.211);
Fri, 13 May 2005 21:03:11 -0700
Comment: DomainKeys? See http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=lima; d=yahoogroups.com;
b=YvkbIvDFkXDy582ulshJeYj1v8aqLJwuhUqjAQcWXr4iYRytY7Q9/FMxUNta71DK6qoFK4iP8gz/Lr4TFZZRpSPaFWkGPq4zDmNNmvYpAFCSKl4YKYJdUnlEojZ8BBCJ;
Received: from [66.218.66.58] by n12.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 14 May 2005 04:02:58 -0000
Received: from [66.218.66.28] by mailer7.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 14 May 2005 04:02:58 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: groups-email
X-Sender: rhonda at naturalaquariums.com
X-Apparently-To: r_m_l at yahoogroups.com
Received: (qmail 68396 invoked from network); 14 May 2005 04:02:53 -0000
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172)
by m22.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 14 May 2005 04:02:53 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO lmg17.affinity.com) (207.150.192.20)
by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 May 2005 04:02:53 -0000
Received: from naturalaquariums.com ([67.3.223.103]) by lmg17.affinity.com with ESMTP id <461546-18404>; Fri, 13 May 2005 21:02:23 -0700
Message-ID: <42857870.6000805 at naturalaquariums.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
To: r_m_l at yahoogroups.com
References: <BAY104-F271E408376943E1EBA61DBA8190 at phx.gbl>
X-Originating-IP: 207.150.192.20
X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0
From: Rhonda Wilson <rhonda at naturalaquariums.com>
X-Yahoo-Profile: guppgirl
Sender: r_m_l at yahoogroups.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Mailing-List: list r_m_l at yahoogroups.com; contact r_m_l-owner at yahoogroups.com
Delivered-To: mailing list r_m_l at yahoogroups.com
List-Id: <r_m_l.yahoogroups.com>
Precedence: bulk
List-Unsubscribe: <r_m_l-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com>
Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 21:02:56 -0700
Subject: Re: [RML] micro worm medium
Reply-To: r_m_l at yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Return-Path: sentto-13895473-457-1116043377-bowluvr=hotmail.com at returns.groups.yahoo.com
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 May 2005 04:03:11.0970 (UTC) FILETIME=[D8912C20:01C55839]
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
Hey Gupp,
I do this:
Get a container with lid. Poke small holes in the lid OR one larger one and
then stuff in a bit of floss or a sponge. Add some quick oats and wet until
very damp, but not soggy. This does not need to be thick in there, as they
live on the top of it. If too wet, you can always add a few more oats. I do
not nuke or cook in any way. I add a smear of microworms **from the side or
top of the culture** not the actual muck in the bottom. I add a few grains
of yeast (not many -- maybe 6 to 8). Close up tight and wait. If I am a good
girl (and I so often am not) I re-start every two weeks to avoid problems.
They do get smelly if you wait much longer and at two weeks there is a nice
overlap. I never use sugar. Makes things go blewey. ;-)
I tried mashed potatoe flakes and baby ceral, but I have found oats work
best for me. Do not omit the yeast. It is very important. It is their food.
Hope this helps??
Bowluvr <'><
-- http://naturalaquariums.com/
------=_NextPart_000_3034_6d7b_573a--