FAQ
WHY ARE YOU SO MUCH MORE AFFORDABLE THAN OTHER ONLINE RETAILERS?
We've heard countless times from many customers and even some angry competitors, that our prices are much more affordable than our competition. The reason for this you ask?
At Austin Aqua Farms, we import or grow out at our farm, around 95% of what we sell, ourselves.There are only a few select items which we cannot get from our divers ourselves that we have to get from a wholesaler here in the US.
We don't have to go through the big wholesalers out in Los Angeles or in South Florida to get the products that we sell direct to the public. We cut out the "middle men" and sell straight from our divers in Australia and Indonesia, to you(the consumer) the home aquarist. We are able to cut out about 30% of our costs on corals by dealing with our divers directly and bringing the shipments straight in to Austin Texas. At the end of the day, you get the a higher quality product, that has passed through fewer hands and tanks(which ultimately cuts down on pests) and thus is marked up by fewer people.
HOW DO YOU SHIP?
A flat fee of $29 per box will cover shipping to anywhere in the continental United States for boxes delivered Tuesday thru Friday. All shipments are handled via UPS Next Day Air shipping services which guarantees delivery by 12:00PM in most cities. Areas outside normal delivery areas of the courier are guaranteed by end of day. Arrangements can also be made to have packages delivered to a holding facility so that the package is not in the back of a Hot/Cold delivery vehicle until it makes its way to your door. Packages can be picked up as early as 9AM if sent to a holding facility in most cases. Please ask to have your package held at a hold location if at all possible.
Saturday delivery is also an option(Shipped out from us on Friday, delivered to you on Saturday). UPS charges us an extra $16 for any package delivered on Saturday, which we then pass along to the customer. If you’d like Saturday delivery, please put a note in the comments section during checkout and we will call you for Saturday delivery payment($16).
Information such as whether the final location is a Business or Residential location must be forwarded to Austin Aqua Farms before the shipment goes out or you will be charged for any extra charges incurred by us from UPS. Also if the package does not make it to its final destination because information was not received, no guarantees made by Austin Aqua Farms will be honored.
Any package MUST be accepted even if the shipment arrives late or damaged. If a shipment is refused for delivery by the customer , no guarantees will be honored by Austin Aqua Farms.
Unless specifically stated, all livestock comes with a “Live Arrival” guarantee. However if a DOA does show up, a claim must be filed with Austin Aqua Farms within 2 hours of package delivery and a photo identification will be needed. DOA’s will be fully credited minus any shipping charges. We will not ship anything unless it is 100% healthy but DOA’s do occur from time to time and will be handled accordingly.
Shipping can add stress to coral which can cause them to change or lose color. It may take a few days to several weeks and even longer for different corals to color back up after shipping.
Before shipping any packages out, we check weather inLouisville (the distribution hub for UPS) and the final destination(your home/business address). If the weather looks to impede delivery times, we may elect to hold off shipping. We will also contact you prior to rescheduling a shipping time so that the box is not unexpectedly shipped out when you're unable to receive it.
ARE THE CORALS PRICED PER POLYP OR PER CORAL
We have had a lot of people asking if our corals are priced per polyp or per coral. All corals on our website are priced per coral and are WYSIWYG. That means the coral in the featured image is exactly the coral that you will get.
WHAT IS THE SIZE OF THE CORAL?
The easiest way to determine the size of the individual corals is by looking at the egg crate the corals are sitting on. Every square in the egg crate is 5/8″. If the coral is 2 squares across, it’s roughly 1.25″. If it’s 4 squares across, the coral is around 2.5″ across.