Freight and live arrival
Shipping and live arrival
Worth a read before you order rather than after something goes wrong.
What freight costs
| Where it is going | Normally | Over $150 |
|---|---|---|
| North Island | $30 | Free |
| South Island | $80 | $40 |
| Rural delivery | +$6 | +$6 |
Overnight courier and tracked, and that covers the packaging as well as the freight. You pick North Island or South Island at checkout. It is charged once per order and not per fish, so one bigger order always beats two small ones. All prices on this site include GST.
Spend $150 or more and freight is on us to the North Island and half price to the South. That same order also earns you a 25% off code for your next one, which we email out with your tracking.
Rural addresses
We do ship rural, and there is a $6 surcharge on top of the normal freight because the couriers charge us one.
One important exception
Couriers do not guarantee overnight to rural addresses. A rural parcel can take an extra day, and a fish in a bag for two days is a different proposition to one in a bag overnight. Our live arrival cover cannot apply to rural deliveries. We will still pack it as well as we possibly can, but the risk on that leg is yours. If you are not sure whether your address counts as rural, email us before you order and we will check.
When we send
Livestock leaves on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and never later in the week. That is deliberate. A fish posted on a Thursday can end up sitting in a courier depot over the weekend, and that is how fish are lost. Order on a Thursday and yours goes out on the Monday.
Your tracking code is emailed the same day the box leaves us. Keep an eye out for it, and make sure somebody can take that first delivery attempt. A missed delivery means another night in the box, and it is the single biggest cause of a fish not arriving well.
If a fish arrives dead
We cover dead on arrival for one hour from the time the courier delivers the parcel. That is a tight window and there is a reason for it: after an hour there is no telling what happened in transit and what happened once the fish was in your water. So open the box the moment it lands.
- 01
Leave the bag alone
Do not open it. Evidence taken with the bag still sealed is what we need, and once it is open we have no way of telling what happened in transit and what happened after.
- 02
Get photos and video
Clear shots of the fish in the unopened bag, with the whole fish in frame and enough light to see it properly.
- 03
Send them within one hour
Email everything to contact@aquatic-angels.co.nz inside one hour of the courier dropping the parcel off. The delivery time on your tracking is the clock we go by.
- 04
We sort it out
Either a refund for that fish, or the same fish sent again on the next dispatch day with no courier fee. Whichever you would rather.
In short
Photos and video, bag unopened, within one hour of delivery, emailed to us. Then it is a refund or a replacement with no courier fee, whichever suits you. Rural deliveries are the exception, as above.
Getting them into the tank
Float the sealed bag in your tank for about twenty minutes so the temperatures even out. Then add a little of your tank water to the bag every five minutes for another twenty. Net the fish into the tank and tip the bag water down the sink rather than into the tank. Lights off for the rest of the day, and do not feed them until the next morning.
Give them a few days before you decide anything is wrong. A fish that has just travelled will often sulk in a corner for a bit, and most of them come right on their own once they have settled.
Anything here that is not clear, email contact@aquatic-angels.co.nz and ask before you order. We would much rather answer a question up front.