I can only give reviews of ones I have personally experienced. Hope some may find helpful.
****Note that shipping time listed is not their promised ship time, it is the time I personally experienced.****
Aquarium Co-Op: Never been to the retail store, but I have ordered online and I cannot recommend their plants enough. They are the gold standard in plants and plants from them typically come at greater maturity than other aquatic retailers. By far my favorite in health and size of any place I have gotten plants. They also have fantastic advice channels on YouTube and partnerships. They have some of the best educational information that I have found out there. My LFS also sources some plants and food from Aquarium Co-Op as well and has nothing but good to say.
Plants: YES, Fish: NO, Invertebrates: NO
Aquarium Co-Op has a recommended page for fish and invertebrates
Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
Aquatic Arts: I have placed a couple orders from Aquatic Arts. On the last order, I either missed the sale or it went on before they shipped my plants. I contacted them and asked them if they would consider price matching the B2G1 on my Hornwort I ordered and they kindly did. Every fish and plant I have gotten from them has been in phenomenal condition and this experience let me know that if I ever did have a problem, I can be confident that they'd back up their guarantees.
Plants: YES, Fish: YES, Invertebrates: YES
Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
AquaHuna: My fish all arrived in good condition and larger than I expected. Unfortunately one of the fish did pass within their return period, probably from stress. They honored their DOA within 72 hour refund policy with no hassle. They did sub out on my Oranda red and black and I received two tricolor instead, but I instantly fell in love with them. Unfortunately a weeks after when I was transitioning them to a bigger tank (using the same water and plants and additional temperature controlled conditioned water from same water source), one passed away within 24 hours of the move. A week later, the other has signs of fin rot and fungus. No other fish in the tank showing signs of illness. He has been quarantined back to hospital tank. All the other fish I got from AquaHuna whether in the same tank or a different tank are doing well. And my two other goldfish I had from elsewhere are doing fine. It is possible the stress of the shipping followed later by the move could have been the cause, but it is strange they are the only effected two. Shipping is very inexpensive compared to other aquatics dealers. AquaHuna focuses on more bulk shipping and so many fish and invertebrates will have a minimum order requirement usually between 3-8. However, there are some that are 1-2.
Plants: YES, Fish: YES, Invertebrates: YES
Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
MoonlightAquatics: I ordered 6 fish from them that I couldn't find elsewhere, but they arrived healthy, happy, and are doing very well. Two separate orders and ship time varied. Moonlight Aquatics has some prices that may be higher than other aquatics dealers, but they also have some fish that are much harder to find.
Plants: NO, Fish: YES, Invertebrates: YES
Shipping time – 1-7 days including weekends.
AquariumFish.com: My order was ordered, shipped, and delivered in less than 24 hours which is an insane turnaround. They must give their employees free coffee! But at any rate, everything fish and plants alike I received seems very healthy. I was missing my 3 hornwort bunches. I asked for a refund as I was placing a new plant order anyway. They did indeed refund me for the missing hornwort, and quickly. My new plant order arrived super fast as well, Tuesday when I ordered later on a Friday. It's not that I need my fish and plants super fast or anything, but this company is my new gold standard on fish and plant health and speed. Fish are all packed in medicated water, no foul smells, their free shipping threshold is lower than other companies, and when there are live fish, they mail with an entirely enclosed Styrofoam container and not just sides. Every plant is healthy and packed with care same as the fish. I have now ordered from several different online companies including some of the big names, but I have to say AquariumFish.com is right up there and will likely be a regular go to for me in the future when I need something. The only complaint I have is their website search sometimes includes too many things unrelated to my search, making it more difficult to find what I am looking for.
Plants: YES, Fish: YES, Invertebrates: YES
Shipping time – typically next business day depending what time order was placed.
Marcus Fishtanks: I only ordered Elodea Densa from here, but it arrived in good condition. I still have bits of pieces here and there trying to grow and survive that my goldfish haven't eaten yet…lol. It is striving to be resilient after over 2 months. But the goldfish unfortunately/fortunately love it.
Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
MicroLobsters (previously GotShrimp (ebay)): Made two Amano shrimp orders here. No complaints. Good prices for some hard little workers.
Shipping time – 6 days including weekends.
Stones Nano Fish (previously Gerst-9198 (ebay)): Good prices on snails. I started my feeder culture from the snails I bought from him and they are doing well and keeping my puffer fat and happy.
Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
FairandFrugal1 (ebay): got some floating plants here. Unfortunately I seem to stink at any floating plants other than duckweed or salvinia minima, so only the duckweed ultimately survived, unless the fish ate the Azolla before it could reproduce. Regardless, the plants came plentiful and healthy!
Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
Canton Aquatics (ebay): They were missing a plant on first order, but reshipped the missing one to me. One of the plants in the bundle never did acclimate despite that I had another of the same plant in the tank, which was a shame. But the other two are doing ok and have new growth. Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
QualityKilli (ebay)/First Coast Tropical Fish (Facebook): Fantastic price on floaters and other plants. Great quantity for a great price.
Shipping time – 11 days including weekends.
Downstream Aquatics (ebay): I only tried the java moss from them, but it is growing insanely well and faster than java moss I have gotten from other aquatic dealers.
Shipping time – 3 business days.
Starlight Aquarium Shop (Previously BrandNameOutlet (ebay)): A store that promotes WYSIWYG betta fish sales. However, users complain about fish being swapped and the store complaining it is pattern change, but the patterns have changed drastically since the time of photo. I got two betta from them and one looked like the photo, but I believe was an entirely different fish. I have had him 2 months and his pattern shift is minimal and what would be expected. Fortunately, he is my most social betta and is everything you could hope a betta would be.
Shipping time – 7 days including weekends.
AZ Gardens (aka Arizona Aquatic Gardens): Their shipping rate is insanely expensive compared to competitors. However, they have a bigger variety listed than almost any other aquatic dealer all in one place, so the offset of not having to pay shipping from multiple places may be attractive to some people. READ EVERYTHING CAREFULLY. They have a LOT of things they require people agree to that are easy to miss embedded in hyperlinks. Things in the agreements include that they don't give cash refunds for fish, only store credit, so you must pay $100+ for shipping again. They don't reship at their expense. You must pay the more expensive shipping option, or you waive DOA guarantee (this they are pretty up front about). However, another thing embedded in expandable text and links is that you accept that they my substituted anything for anything, unless you put NOSUBS in the order notes. This company has a lot of bad reviews for live fish. They attribute this to people not leaving reviews when things went well and only when they went poorly. They state they ship over 300 orders per week and have had many satisfied customers for nearly 40 years. Placed order 4/6/26, which was a Monday. Their site indicates orders such as this usually ship same week, however, it is Tuesday the following week and no update about shipping yet. Will update when there is anything to share.
Plants: YES, Fish: YES, Invertebrates: YES
Shipping time – TBD
Posted by skatardrummer