Violet Aquarium LLC — Attraction in San Jose

Negligent owner, inhumane shipping practices. They are not fish people nor business people at that.

As a first time customer this will be my last & should have read more reviews.

I placed an order for saltwater fish with their blackfriday sale.

To sum things up they called the night prior to shipment & i made them aware there would be a storm with 20-30 degree temps and to postpone if needed for safety of livestock. They assured me they would be fine, they do it all the time!

I received the box right out of UPS's hands. Upon opening said box, they cut thin pieces of styrofoam to line the box with broken pieces/cracks throughout. I.e no insulation. 8 fish were in a black bag with one small heat pack. The heat pack and all bags were ice cold. Every single fish was on deaths door & spazzing about. Two DOA. The opening was recorded and will be uploaded to youtube to make enthusiasts aware.

When i reached out and included videos/photos per policy and explained how dissapointed I was at the lack of care the owner insisted only credit be given and to buy MORE fish and pay more shipping from this place.

Here is the professional response:

' You have two doa out of all the fish and we understand. We shipped out 50 boxes yes, one ot two had one or two doas? Fish that are live will be fine and we import fish and after they are callmated they come back. Yes recently thew weather is severe. At the time you bought from us you agreed to our store policy and as per our store policy we have issued a full store credit for those two fish. Give it a day or two and get back to us. '

All the negative reviews are spot on. Shady business owner. First and last time customer. Credit card company will handle this. All i wanted was a refund on the DOA fish and to cut business ties. Couldnt even do that to make it right. Now i'll be making everyone in the reef community aware of the terrible practices.

Edit:

Emotional? Look at your response to make a resolution. You are a piece of work!!!! I could care less. You deserve no ones business little man. Have a nice day!! You will need luck and should have gone to school for an MBA because you are a terrible owner 😊

Go cry yourself to sleep now.

Edit #2: All fish shipped have since died of shock/sickness apart from the firefish. This is an extremely low grade shop. Run away. Owner only cares about money not the fish/customers. The two things you need to run a business in the aquarium industry. Unreal experience. Waste of life/money would give negative...

Every fish that I got from violet are healthy and eat well, high quality fish. I’ve decided to risk it and get a blue tang here, hopeful it doesn’t get sick like online says they are prone to disease. Hope my luck doesn’t change.

Update October 2021 I bought a marine betta from the shop at 7-8 pm and acclimated it for 1 hour through temp/drip method because the salinity was high. The next morning the fish was found dead. So I took out the camera and record that it had died within 24 hours. This is not the first time I bought fish or corals from them. I bought from them many times and spent a lot of money over my 2 year reefing. I was deeply disappointed this time around so I try to contact them to see if I could get some store credit. I was told that the marine betta's tail at shop look great the tail was not like the video I sent and It was healthy at the shop. The tail is due to the hermit crab cleaning up the dead fish. The marine betta wasn't fully healthy it wasn't swimming around the tank. I saw it laying and swimming near the sand. There was bruises at the bottom of the fish when I inspected it taking home. At the time i didn't pay much attention to it because I bought many fishes from the shop and high expectations. I didn't expect the fish to die within a night.I bought the fish to cheer myself because this couple week, life have been harsh on me. I was overjoyed when buying the marine betta. I've been scoping at the site forever to get one so I was excited to get it. With this I became deeply disappointed and sad with the sale.

Lesson learned to not expect the shop to give you healthy fishes even if you brought from them many times. Inspect for bruises and always ask if they can eat by showing you their feeding. Don't pick fishes that lay on sand bed pick fishes that swimming about and active. Overall I'm deeply disappointed from this experience.

May 2022 Update- Violet Sea shop has a lot of variety of fish, I am still disappointed with the previous experience with marine betta but this shop is still good with lots of fish. I think the best place to get fish that are rare. Only shop in San Jose that has saltwater fish that other saltwater fish store don’t have. I still came back cus they only store that have fish...

Bought a fish from here the price 8 dollars more expensive than petco. Owner of this store said fish from petco not good. Guess what, the fish i bought from him did not eat anything. I told him the fish did not eat i want to exchange different one. He said no exchange. now the fish is dead. I wish i bought the fish from petco so i can return it. I swear, i never come here to buy anything from this guy. 11:00 PM 2/22/2019 I can’t believe the owner texted me said that i abused the fish, how can i abuse the fish? by hitting the fish? yelling, cursing at them?. I bought 3 fish from him at time same time but i told him only one did not eat. I can’t believe he texted me and said i will not allow you to come to my store. Is he out of his mind now? did he really think that i will come back to buy sick fish from him? He gets mad because this bad feedback. I have to block his number to prevent him to text and bother me. Fore sure this is not american way of service.

For sure i did not know if i can’t exchange. i get exchanged one time when he still sold fish at his home. That’s why i think he would do the same when he moved to store. Let me tell you this. It’s super duper funny when u texted me and said im not allow to your store. Sorry, even u give me money and beg me to come to your store, do you really think i will come to your store?. Sorry just a fish u make me feel like i can’t live without fish or something. It’s so funny when u texted ur customer and argue with them. Please DO NOT bother me. You deserved my feedback. You should learn from it and serve others well instead of arguing with me.

For anyone who wants to buy fish from this guy. Make sure you tell him to test to feed them first before buying. That’s...