Recently got my first online fish order from Bluegrass Aquatics and was very pleased with the experience.. Admittedly I was apprehensive since I am used to picking out my own fish but due the amazing selection of cichlids and plecos on this site’ I decided to try.. I talked with Eddie (owner I think) on the selection and sizes. He was very informative and help with selections and expectations as well as acclimation procedures.. I later talked with David at the Shipping Department over a change in the requested ship date and my concern on the cold weather. David is an very experienced and willing to spent time in coordinating the shipment for success. The shipment arrived early in the morning with all the fish alive and well. I am anxious to see these guys grow out since these are species I would have never found in my local fish stores. I will never settle for what is available locally again when it is so easy to order from Bluegrass Aquatics.. Now I find out that I get a 10% discount by being a member of cichlid forum I will be ordering again soon!!

Positives, the website, and communication.
Negatives: Upon arrival, the box was completely soaked. At this point I should have videod the rest of experience. I open the box and I almost all Demasoni look dead. They are suffocating because theres not much water left in their bag. This place actually ties knots in their bags, I was stunned. After a while, most of the Demasoni came back from near death, because they shipped without heatpacks when the destination was in the 30's. Water was freezing ! and the low temps probably saved the suffocating Dems. Overall 3 fish DOA, and one Acei came with a deformed mouth, and another Acei was sent as a white tail instead of yellow. When I emailed about this ridiculous shipment, they were very defensive and gave me the history of their company and how everyone else doesnt have problems. I dont think this experience could have been any worse. They gladly give store credit for lost fish, but Id be a complete imbecile to order from here again.

First time ordering fish online and well worth it. I informed Mr. Estes about my concerns with my current stock and also emphasized how important a large male O.Z.Rock was for my stocking. He was able to put me at ease as well as assure me of what would be available.

I informed him that I would not be able to place an order until after midnight on Wed (technically Thurs morning) He was able to work with me and assured me delivery by friday to avoid weekend delivery fees. I also specifically requested "the largest, most handsome Lithobates availabe". This is exactly what I recieved and they even labeled the bag with my exact quote! lol. All-in-all, in this day and age, one could not be more pleased with the promptness of service, dedication, knowledge, and superior product provided by Bluegrass.

All fish arrived healthy, beautifully colored, and exactly (to within 5 minutes) of when he said they would be at my frontdoor.

Instead of sending an email, I called him directly today and informed him how pleased I am with his product and that it was recieved exactly as advertised.

Thank you Mr. Estes for being a man of honesty and integrity. You will definately recieve more of my money in the future lol.
Also thank you for restoring my faith in the "idea" of GREAT customer service.
Also thank you to this forum, for if it wasn't for the reviews I read here, I may have chosen differently.

My 125 gallon hap/peacock tank is now offically a d

It is my 1st time ordering on-line fish. I was concerned and Mr. Estes took time to explain what I had to do and my fish made it just when he said they would. I was so surprised because I am wasn't ordering a very large quantity and thought they would just send me average looking fish. My cichlids are beautiful and all arrived well. In my tank and have already claimed their spots. I would recommend you take a look at Bluegrass Aquatics before doing business with anyone else online.
I know I'll be back they have fish local stores don't ever carry.

Placed my order last week for 34 of the Peacock Assortment to be delivered this week. All fish arrived 21 hours after they were sent out, all alive plus two extras.

Three things to remember when you order from Bluegrass, the more you order the cheaper the fish. Free ship with orders over $250 and use promo code CF10% for a 10% discount on your order for forum users.

Fish for my lot were advertised as 1.25" to 2.25", fish received were as small as .75" to as large as 2.5", more tended to be on the smallish size. A few of the the fish appeared to be a bit fin nipped but overall the rest are in great shape.

Another small drawback was I have no idea what species I received although I was told by David (ship manager) that they did send 11 different species. But I guess that's what assortment means. The fish I received also appear to be a good mix that I would normally not find in my local fish store. Preliminary quick check of the fish looks to be a 50/50 split of male/female, although it is tough to sex fish this young.

Will definitely buy from Bluegrass again. A great bang for the buck.

This was my first time ordering aquarium fish online and I was extremely nervous about the whole transaction. Bluegrass Aquatics was awesome. It was cheaper to buy my large, over$250, order through them than through my local fish store. They had the exact fish I was looking for to complete my upgraded Lake Tanganyikag aquarium. The fish all arrived healthy and are all doing great in their new home. Bluegrass Aquatics will definitely being receiving more orders from me and I would recommend them to everyone.

Placed my order last week for 34 of the Peacock Assortment to be delivered this week. All fish arrived 21 hours after they were sent out, all alive plus two extras.

Three things to remember when you order from Bluegrass, the more you order the cheaper the fish. Free ship with orders over $250 and use promo code CF10% for a 10% discount on your order for forum users.

Fish for my lot were advertised as 1.25" to 2.25", fish received were as small as .75" to as large as 2.5", more tended to be on the smallish size. A few of the the fish appeared to be a bit fin nipped but overall the rest are in great shape.

Another small drawback was I have no idea what species I received although I was told by David (ship manager) that they did send 11 different species. But I guess that's what assortment means. The fish I received also appear to be a good mix that I would normally not find in my local fish store. Preliminary quick check of the fish looks to be a 50/50 split of male/female, although it is tough to sex fish this young.

Will definitely buy from Bluegrass again. A great bang for the buck.

I just want to thank Mr. Eddie for all his help. I purchase 24 cichlids from Blue Aquatics, and all are doing well. Mr. Eddie was able tell me everything I needed to know about the cichlids I purchase. I will buy from Bluegrass Aquatics again.

I had zero problems here, so my review may not reflect much about what might happen if things go wrong. I ordered several Tanganyikan Cichlids (Very delicate fish) and all arrived alive and healthy. I've used aquabid (4 sellers) and a few other people. Bluegrass shipped me the healthiest looking fish I've ever seen inside of a box. Packaging is more important than any other aspect when dealing with Mail Order fish and Bluegrass has their stuff down. Super professional. No dead fish either, which apparently, is hard to do for a LOT OF PEOPLE who sell fish. So if you want fish to arrive healthy and happy, order here. All the fish I ordered from here were eating within minutes of being put in a quarantine tank. That's remarkable.

I ordered 6 Julie dickfeldi blue, sent Eddie my Paypal info, money, and address, with the instructions to call me if anything went amiss. I used my Fedex account and paid for overnight shipping. The box should have arrived by 10am...10 am came and went.

I had to get to work, so I figured the local Fedex, that was holding the box for me, would call when it arrived. Noon came and went. I started getting worried as temps were climbing. I finally got a chance to the computer, tracked the package and found it had been delivered...and was 5 miles away from where I had addressed the box.

I skipped lunch, zoomed over to that store, and got my box; when I confronted Eddie about it, he offered no apologizes and instead snippily told me that the box had been delivered and was signed for, so why was I angry at him? He then went into some long email about how he has 40 employees working under him now and one of them made a mistake.

At no time did he admit a fault or offer an apology. The store the fish were sent to closes a good 4 hours before any other Fedex, and had I had to stay late at work, the fish would have cooked.

I will never do business with this company again. I get better customer service at freaking Petco!

So i just made a big order from bluegrass aquatics and i must say it was not an enjoyable transaction. First of all it was a huge order, it was almost 300$. It consisted of almost 30 fish.

So the package came on time which was good, and all the fish were alive upon arrival. But it was only a little over half the fish i ordered. They are set to be refunded and i believe they will be. But they didn't even tell me that some of the fish were not going to be shipped, i had to call them and ask. Had i known they weren't all coming i would have waited on the order until they were back in stock.

Then i ordered two Ctenochromis horei and was charged for two but i only received one of them. And i ordered one Nimbochromis Polystigma and they gave me two, so that was also a mistake on there part. Lastly i ordered an Altolamprologus Compressiceps that was supposed to be 2 inches, but instead he was far smaller and was only half that. Because of this he was too small to go into the tank he was planned to go in, so i had to put him in the tank with some of my other fry.

I recently ordered some absolutely gorgeous Long Finned Blue Rams and Electric Blue Rams from Bluegrass Aquatics, and I must admit I was a bit worried since this was my first time ordering fish online and having them shipped overnight to me. My order was processed very quickly,and the fish came exactly when they were supposed to.
Upon opening my little box of goodies, I discovered they were warm and packaged just like when I used to work in an aquatics store, and would get the fish in from our distributors.
I will most def be ordering more fish from BGA, it just makes more sense to me since A: the prices are waaaay lower than any fish stores here in Chicagoland
and
B: the fish are way less stressed because their not being dumped in a store tank and chased around with a net for days before coming home to me.

If you're on the fence, I totally recommend ordering from BGA- you will be happy that you did :)

This was my first time buying from Bluegrass Aquatics, but certainly not my last. I have dealt with many mail order fish companies over the years, some with great results, others with not so good results. Here is my experience with Bluegrass Aquatics.
If your interested in cichlids, particularly African cichlids. then this is the company for you. In addition, they offer a wide range of catfish, tetras, swordtails and others odd and ends. Ordering from their website was straight forward, and they offer you the opportunity to pick your delivery day as you check out. The only shipping option I saw offered is Fed Ex overnight. I got my fish shipped for free, but I think you have to buy over $250.00 worth of fish to get that. Otherwise, it's $39.95 shipping.
I received my Tracking number from Fed Ex on Tuesday and my fish arrived at 9:10AM on Wednesday. I was a little worried because it was colder outside that I thought it was going to be, so I was glad to see Fed Ex deliver early. The box was as professionally packed as I've ever seen. Nice Styrofoam box with double bagged fish inside. They had used two heat packs inside the box and the fish we're nice and warm. I released the fish, left for awhile, and by the time I came home that afternoon everyone was happy and ready to eat. I never heard from anyone at Bluegrass Aquatics the whole time but I got everything I ordered and they did a amazing job with the handling. I will try them again the next time I start a

This was my first time ordering from Bluegrass aquatics. I had read good reviews so I thought I would give it a try. I ordered 6 Jalo Reefs, 7 Yellow Labs, 2 Synondontis Multipunctatus, and 3 Bristlenose plecos. All fish arrived alive and healthy. The quality was great. I was short one yellow lab and received all males of the Jalo reefs, which was disappointing at first. However, I was then told they would replace the missing fish and ship extra females free of charge. I followed up with the deal and actually bought a few more fish to ship with them. The quality of stock is great! I have had a hard time finding quality Yellow Labs, but these are incredible. No vertical bars, a deep rich yellow with beautiful black markings. This is my first experience with Jalo reefs, but the dominate male has already colored up great!

The customer service was great, the quality of fish was great. I would recommend Bluegrass to anyone else looking to get quality African Cichlids!

Never ordered fish on line choose Bluegrass Aquatics for its large selection.Very happy with my order fish arrived in good condition. Had one issue talk to Eddie he went out of his to make sure I was taken care of very happy with there customer service I give them five out of five stars. I highly recommend them.