You can email us at support@firstaquatics.com for general lengthy inquiries, business discussions and such.

For local pickup customers or for those with quick transactions or questions, you can text us at 718-570-7059. Note that we generally are unavailable for calls unless by appointment.

Please note that we do not operate full time. Thus, please expect email responses within 24 hours, and direct messages via text or Facebook within 12 hours.

We ship Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays depending on weather conditions.

Local pickup is generally available from 12:00 PM EST - 3:00 PM EST, or 6:30 PM - 11:00 PM, but must be agreed upon in advance so that we can prepare for your arrival. There may be exceptions depending on our life schedule.

We operate out of Elmhurst, Queens, New York City. Pick up is available and the address will be provided upon an established communication or payment.

Yes, we ship throughout the U.S., but some products such as fish are only available for local pick up during extreme weather conditions.

All of our animals are homebred by us and well established, we list their history in further detail in their respective page. A few of our products are from other local breeders that we have an agreement with, but those will be specified as such on their respective page as well.

Due to our extensive schedule, we require orders of least $20 minimum for time efficiency.

Our water parameters are New York City tap water at 7.4 pH, remineralized to around 200-350 TDS, 7-12 gH, 4-7 kH for shrimp tanks, reduced TDS/gH/kH for the fish tanks.

Due to CoVID and general safety, customers are not allowed in unfortunately as we have elderly in the premises. Please rely on the photos on our site as we feel they are an accurate representation of what you should expect to receive.

Larger orders over $100 can be provided a photo of the actual stock pre-packaging upon request as we understand the concern one may have.

We only carry what is listed in our website, no secret “menu” unfortunately.

As of 2/21/2022, the majority of our tanks have been established for a considerable amount of time and rarely introduce new stock or plants.

There is no risk of shrimp or fish related diseases, all our fish and shrimp are homebred.

There is no risk of hydra or planaria for shrimp, we have not seen these since we first started in 2017. Pest snails have been wiped out for years as all our tanks have assassin snails. The only “pests” we have are those that are unavoidable and safe for shrimp tanks such as freshwater limpets, detritus worms, and other small harmless critters.

We have finally gotten rid of all traces of duckweed, we have not seen these since mid 2021.

There is a small chance of hair algae or stowaway moss in some plants/moss, but rare.

The only new potential risk we bring in are emersed Bucephalandra, but these are checked for issues by the source farmer, U.S. Customs, and our distributor before we acquire it and submerge in isolated tanks for a few weeks before sale.

Dead on Arrival – In the event of an unfortunate death with your newly arrived critters out of the shipping box, you are entitled to a full refund no questions asked under the following conditions.

• High quality photos/video of dead animal(s) in unopened bag.
• Email/text must be sent within 2 hours of receiving the package.
• We typically provide 1 free as service for every set of 10 shrimp or critters, thus you are only entitled for a refund excluding any freebies.
• We do not refund in the event of customer negligence. This includes, but not limited to, deaths of critters from exposure to extreme weather being left outside and not taken in when USPS arrived at your place, providing us with the incorrect shipping address, etc. We highly recommend that you utilizing the shipment tracking number we provide to prepare for it’s arrival.
• USPS priority shipping is received typically within 2-3 days. We have no control over USPS shipping delays, your best chance to obtain more information is to speak with USPS customer service. If you purchased shrimp, we are confident they will be fine even with a few more days of delay. Shrimp have been known to get to their new owners safely even with 1-2 weeks of shipping delays. We will still honor DOA refunds for USPS delays up to 7 days from the initial shipped date.
• Try not to request shipping during the weeks of Black Friday, Christmas, etc as the chances of shipping delays are high.