USBetta packages every fish with the same care and equipment regardless of which shipping option you chose. We ship fish out Monday through Wednesday. We will NOT ship out on Thursday or Friday because UPS does not deliver on weekends without a large up charge. All items needed to safely ship the fish are included in the standard price including, as needed, heat packs and cool packs. The safe temperature range fish is between 40 F and 90 F for doorstep delivery, outside of these ranges it is much safer to chose hold for pickup.
Shipping anything always involves risk and that is more true with live shipments as we cannot dictate how boxes are handled once the leave our care and custody. In most cases your fish will arrive perfectly fine. But with shipping there is always the chance of rough handling, delays, and weather. We maintain a high live arrival rate of 98.7%. But customers asking for their fish to be shipped must be willing to understand that we are shipping living breathing animals that may not react well to shipping even if everything is perfect and may arrive stressed or dead. We strongly advise against doing live videos of opening live packages or opening in front of children. We cannot be blamed if you ignore this advice.
We ship ALL shipments with UPS.
Standard shipping is available February – November which uses either UPS 2/3 Day/Ground depending on your location.
For shipments to Hawaii/Alaska/Protectorates there will be a surcharge.
Live Arrival Guarantee Terms
We warranty fish to arrive alive when the following conditions are met:
- The fish must arrive within the 72 hour period following the acceptance scan at the carrier. Currently UPS does not have a guarantee on any service outside of overnight shipments.
- The temperature on the day of arrival should NOT be over 90 F or under 40F.
- The temp requirement does NOT apply to orders where customer has selected Hold for Pickup option EXCEPT if daytime temperature on the day of delivery is UNDER 32 degrees.
- Customer must notify of DOA within 2 hours of the fish’s arrival..
- Notification of DOA should be done either through our Facebook page or email admin@usbetta.com
- Customer MUST include either a video showing the fish is not moving and both sides of the unopened bag or at least two photos of form different sides of the bag clearly showing the bag markings of the unopened bag and the dead fish within it.
- The temperature on the day of arrival should NOT be over 90 F or under 40F.
- If customer has upgraded to Next Day the 72 hour time limit is suspended.
- All refunds will be done via store credit only.
- Shipping fees cannot be refunded unless UPS returns the shipping fee due to late arrival. At this moment UPS only has delivery time guarantees on Next Day shipments.
- NO GUARANTEE WILL APPLY IF THE DAYTIME TEMP IS 32 DEGREES OR LESS ON THE DAY OF DELIVERY!!!
Please note that your fish will likely be stressed on arrival and their color will likely appear different than when you purchased them. Please allow 48 hours for your fish to acclimate and calm down before making any claims that we sent the wrong fish. We will not consider any such claims until the fish has had 48 hours in their new home. Fish that are stressed will drop color and patterns, a black fish might even appear white, a koi pattern might appear to be lighter or even plain colored. Give them 48 hours and if they are still not looking like the fish you ordered please contact us with photos so we can figure out if there was a mistake.