The iFISH Store provides one of the widest selections of freshwater aquarium and pond fish available online today. We have been providing freshwater fish to aquarium and pond enthusiasts for over 20 years. Here's what you can expect from The iFISH Store: High Quality Fish / Low Pricing / Fast, Low Cost Shipping / Superior Customer ServiceFollowing quarantine, all shipments are sent via FedEx Overnight at a flat rate on all orders regardless of size. Interested in something you don't see in our store? Contact us at [email protected] or 516.524.6423 and just ask!
The iFISH Store (theifishstore.com) has 4,236 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5.
Also known as
theifishstore.com
Website
theifishstore.com
Category
Pet Stores
Location
Richmond Hill, New York
Listed on Five Star Index
2026
About these reviews
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The company replied to 28% of reviews.
Latest
Most recent review: October 2026.
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Shipping and everything was fine, but my lobster died within a week. I was definitely sold a sick lobster, as there was a crack in his shell, and his antenna were really short. I couldn't get a refund either, so I payed $70 in total to have the lobster for only a week.
Response from The iFISH StoreAug 23, 2022
Hello Ean;
We’re sorry to hear that you lost your crayfish. We wish that you would have contacted us as soon as you observed any problems with him and we could have worked with you to turn things around. You state that shipping was ok so we assume that he looked ok when you transferred him to your tank. We really encourage our customers to contact us if they spot any issues at that point. We’re also wondering if your crayfish was beginning his molting process when you noticed is shorter antenna and shell crack. Nevertheless, something wasn’t agreeing with him and we would have liked to work with you to address that when you first spotted a problem. Again, we’re sorry this was your experience with us. We would highly recommend that you contact any supplier you use as soon as possible to at least assess any acclimation, tank parameter and feeding concerns along with general health issues.
CH
Casey H.
One of the fish I purchased only lasted…
One of the fish I purchased only lasted a day. I followed your instructions to a t, and as soon as I put the fish in it was swimming sideways and upside down. I knew it wouldn’t last. It didn’t even look right in the bag.
Response from The iFISH StoreAug 24, 2022
Hi Casey;
It sounds like you noticed a problem with the health of your fish when you first received it or during acclimation. We respectfully ask all of our customers to immediately contact us at this early stage at first observation of an issue. We are always happy to work with you to check acclimation steps, tank parameters, feeding, tankmates and any other potential sources of stress on the fish. If it appears that they did not fair well due to the stress of shipping, when notified within 2 hours of receiving your order, we typically will provide a credit or refund. In any case, we work through the situation with the customer. However, you never contacted us about a problem when you received your fish so we didn’t have the opportunity to address it.
We’re sorry your fish perished and wish we could have worked with you on this.
JW
John W.
9 fish of 18 passed away
9 fish of 18 passed away. Communication back has been slow and non-existent. I am very frustrated. I purchased from store because of guarantee. I am not a happy customer.
Response from The iFISH StoreAug 24, 2022
Hello John;
We’re very sorry to hear that 9 out of 18 of your Koi perished. When you first notified us, we communicated that when we receive a report of so many perishing, we immediately check our tanks and look back to orders shipped from the same batch. In your case, no other issues were reported and the ones in our tanks were still thriving. We always like to try and better understand what could have happened and to assist you, we asked for water parameters, pond size, other pond inhabitants and the acclimation process you followed.
Unfortunately, you do not test your pond parameters and that being the case, it was difficult for us to confidently identify the root cause of the problem. We highly recommend that you regularly check your water parameters; it is critical for the fish to thrive. The pH, Nitrite, Nitrate and Ammonia levels need to be maintained at a certain level. We keep the pH for our Koi at a neutral 7.0 and the Ammonia level should always be as close to 0 as possible.
When you stated for the acclimation process that you kept them in the bag and floated them in your water, that is only acclimating them to your water temperature and not your parameters which could be why they were unable to survive.
We hoped you understand that because they perished so far outside our policy timeframe we were unable to offer any refunds or credits. We are certainly sorry this was your experience with us and hope the information we provided in our communications will be helpful in the future.
CY
Curt Y.
ordered my fish waited amost 2 1/2…
ordered my fish waited amost 2 1/2 weeks they never shipped customer service was good got my order refunded
Response from The iFISH StoreMay 23, 2022
Hello Curt,
Thanks for the feedback. We apologize again for the inconvenience you experienced with your order. Our usual processing time is 7-10 business days but recently, the flight from our last shipment of inventory from our overseas supplier was cancelled putting us behind schedule with our orders. Thank you for your understanding and we do hope you will consider giving us another try again in the future.
JA
Jeffrey A H.
False advertising
I ordered albino cories, requesting that they be med-lg! I received fish less then an inch in size.
When they came one died the same day!
I complained but was just given excuses and weak explanations.
Even the invoice mentioned my preference!
I WON'T BE DOING ANY FURTHER BUSINESS WITH YOU AND WILL RATE YOU ON THE MANY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS!
HAVE A NICE DAY!
Response from The iFISH StoreApr 25, 2022
Hello Jeffrey;
We’re sorry that one of your Albino Cory Catfish perished during shipment and we immediately issued a refund for it when you notified us.
We’re also sorry that you were not pleased with the size of these catfish. We do not receive a wide variety of sizes for these cories from our supplier and therefore, do not list different sizes available on our online store. We list them for $3.99 on the site. Although you requested medium-large on your order, we picked the largest sizes we had in our entire stock. We wish you had been more specific with your request stating that if we did not have the size (in inches) that you were hoping for that we contact you and determine if you want the order canceled. We often get requests to “choose the largest sizes” which we accommodate as best as we can, but we rely on the customer’s communication to let us know what the specific terms are, such as “please cancel if you don’t have them” or they give us a call in advance to ask what we do have available.
Again, we’re sorry you were not pleased with your experience with us, but hope you understand as a business we filled your order based on what was ordered from our website.
FI
FishGirl
Two of six cichlids from iFish died, two are dying
One of six cichlids arrived dead. Another died the night it arrived. This shipment was from an adjacent state & FedEx was unable to execute the overnight delivery I paid for. The flat, small heat pack was ice cold, as was the water. iFish should have anticipated the possibility of a late arrival & used longer activated heat packs.
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EDIT! There were no “misconceptions” in my post. Among the falsehoods listed by iFish is that I am frustrated because FedEx did not refund the shipping fee. I never requested FedEx to do so. Nor did I ask the same of iFish. I did initially request replacements of the dead fish, iFish launched into a childish tirade about about how “every single solitary penny went to FedEx.” I quickly withdrew my request for replacements, based upon further research into iFish, none of it positive. I would not accept 1001 free fish from them, given 2 died and 2 are near death.
All responses from iFish have been inaccurate and verbose. I strongly suspect these hundreds of words were not scripted for me. IFish has them “in the can,” and simply cuts and pastes from one dissatisfied customer to another,
The box contained ONE very small depleted heating pack. To argue that 4 fish made it past the first day is invalid. Six kids could run across a freeway and if only two die, that does not make the action safe given that four survived.
Two of the four cichlids are near death in QT. I never have and never will endure such an experience before. I have found trustworthy vendors.
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FROM ORIGINAL POST
An order from another online fish company arrived overnight from a west coast company. These were replacements of the dead fish from iFish. To test the heating pad, I kept it in a cold room. It remained warm for over 72 hours. Had iFish taken this care, perhaps the fish may have lived.
I suspect other factors were involved. IFish takes an average of 10 days to get orders out. All my other online orders were shipped within a day or so of payment and arrived within 2-3 days. IFish says they quarantine fish 2 days to insure viability. The unheard of turnaround time should have been a huge red flag. I strongly suspect iFish does not stock any or most varieties and orders on demand. This likely contributed to the deaths, along with the shoddy packaging.
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EDIT: I was given a token refund that did not compensate for my costs.
I AM DONE REPLYING TO iFISH. THIS IS ABOUT THE NEEDLESS DEATH OF LIVING ANIMALS, NOT MONEY
Response from The iFISH StoreApr 12, 2022
Hello Kathy;
We're sorry this was your experience with us and we also feel the need to clear up some of the misconceptions you have mentioned here.
(1) Since we source our Cichlids from a number of dealers in Asia, it would be impossible from a business perspective to operate as an on-demand business. Like most other tropical fish retailers, we receive a weekly shipment of the varieties we list online and restock our total inventory.
(2) Our turnaround time is reflective of the family-owned business that we run. And because we are a family owned business, we have dedicated our work to the quality and care of our fish, exceptional pricing and our customer service. We have purposely kept our operations at our current size so we could focus and excel at these things. It's certainly anyone's right to go elsewhere if they'd like to receive their fish sooner. We are upfront about our shipping time of 5-7 business days and many of our customers are happy with that since the individualized customer service they receive and great pricing is far more valuable to them.
(3) Our packaging, including the quantity and quality of warm or cold packs, has withstood extreme weather conditions and delayed delivery by FedEx. We rarely, if ever, get complaints on this issue. We also are confident that we put the appropriate number of warm packs in your shipment according to the size of the box, seeing as the other fish arrived safely. We have shipped to locations much colder than yours in the dead of winter using the same process without a problem. We have even had situations where delivery was delayed for a few days and the fish still survived. We certainly don't like to see these delays but are very conscientious of working with FedEx and the customer if this happens. We’re sorry to see FedEx delayed your package by 24 hours and we understand your frustration. We did refund you for two of your fish as soon as you notified us.
(4) Since you placed a claim with PayPal, even after we issued you a refund on the two fish, leads us to believe that you were still frustrated over not receiving a refund for the overnight shipping fee as you spelled out in your email to us. Unfortunately, we have no control over FedEx delays and take extra care to pack our fish so they can withstand reasonable delays. We also gave you the courtesy of sending an email to let you know we were aware of the delay. We do state on our website that we do not refund shipping fees. We think you’ll find that this is pretty much industry standard and most online fish retailers do not refund shipping fees. Also worth mentioning is that, for us, every bit of the shipping fee goes to FedEx to cover the cost of shipping and we make no profit. We do this in order to stay competitive on the cost of shipping a fairly heavy box of water. In addition, that fee paid for the fish that did arrive safely and you acclimated in your aquarium.
All this said, we really do hope the other fish you received from us are thriving and that in time, you reconsider your assessment of our business given the additional information we have provided here.
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ADDENDUM
Hello Kathy;
We can promise you that each and every review that we respond to is individualized and not canned because we take each issue very seriously and want to address the specifics. While we have certainly been called "verbose" before :), we are simply trying to present the full scope of the situation so current and potential customers can make informed decisions. Claiming that we unleashed a "childish tirade" in your response is simply untrue. Much like here, we politely explained our policies so you could understand how we came to our decision.
RW
Rob W.
Fish are good healthy livestock
Fish are good healthy livestock, but are not colors/colorful as depicted in website. Arrived alive well packaged and protected during transport well. Electric blue lab is a washed out grey with yellow/brown spot on forehead. Hoping with age he will color up. Lesson learned to not purchase fish sight unseen, as there is no return/exchange
Response from The iFISH StoreApr 4, 2022
Hello Rob:
We're sorry to hear that your Cichlid coloring was not as vibrant as you'd expected when you received them. Regardless of all the precautions we take when packaging and shipping fish, there is always the possibility that they will get stressed due to handling and arrive with very muted coloring. This is particularly the case when they are juveniles. Proper acclimation along with some time in a healthy tank with feeding should bring back their coloring.
Also worth noting is that the photos we have on our site are of adult specimens so that customers can realistically see what their selections will look like once matured. We’re sorry for the confusion.
We do hope that you’ve already seen an improvement in the coloring of your Cichlids. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].
BL
Blake
All 3 of the crayfish died within 3…
All 3 of the crayfish died within 3 days of receiving them including the one beta fish I also bought. I have never had that happen from buying fish online..They only guarantee their livestock within 3 hours of delivery. I know now why. What a waste of 110.00. Not to mention the deaths of the fish and crayfish.
Response from The iFISH StoreMar 31, 2022
Hello Blake;
We're sorry the crayfish and the betta perished! We really depend on our customers to alert us at the first sign of a problem, whether it's appearance or behavior of the fish/invertebrate, so we can perhaps turn the situation around. We would have liked the opportunity to work with you and take a closer look at the problem. We have a Live Arrival Guarantee which requires our customers to notify us within two hours after receipt of the order when there are any fish that perished in shipment. But beyond that, if the fish begin to show signs of ill health or uncharacteristic behavior, within a day or two we prefer to still be alerted by the customer so we can assess the whole problem and take a closer look at tank parameters, tankmates, feeding, potential illnesses, etc. In many cases we've been able to work with the customer to rectify the situation.
We're sorry this was your experience with us and hope you are willing to give us another try and work with us if you at all sense the fish are not adapting well.
