PRINT THIS PAGE AND REFER TO IT WHEN YOUR NEW ORDER ARRIVES!

Lead Weights on your bunched plants:  Leave them on or take them off. It really doesn’t matter one bit. They are actually made of a zinc/magnesium metal that is completely harmless to fish and other plants. If you have the time, you can individually plant EACH stem or if you want our opinion just plant the whole BUNCH as a group. Please note that you should snip just the end of the bottom of the stem, about a quarter inch of the base of the plant before installing your bunch, kind of like if you just got fresh roses, you would snip the ends before placing them in a vase. You can then rewrap the weight around the bundle.

Potted plants:  Typically if you got aquarium plants in pots, yes, you will take them out of the pots and try to pull off the main part of the wool substrate from the roots. If you got Pond Plants in a pot, just snip the pot in several places with a sharp scissor and leave the plant alone and plant it in a 1 gallon or larger container.

Bulbs:  Good rule of thumb on any bulb: Aponogetons, Dwarf Lilys, Lotus, Barclaya.  If you squeeze them and they are hard, that is good, if they squish and or smell bad, they are no good.  Drop them in the water, and let them sink, if they float for a day, no worries. Once they sink, they will eventually send out leaves, usually within a week (Apons) or as fast as overnight (Dwarf Lilies).  Barclayas are the slowest.  Leave your bulbs alone and don’t actually push them into your substrate until they’ve germinated.  The first poking protrusions are the leaves, they will grow roots later. So, now that they have their first leaves starting to grow, you can push them gently into the substrate and into the location you really want them to grow and allowing just the tip, or crown of the bulb to be exposed.  If no growth in 3 weeks, call us, we’ll give you an in-house credit, and hook you up on your next order.

Is azgardens Earth friendly?  Of course we are.  We NEVER EVER use pesticides or algaecides, and we sell as many products as we can that are all natural or organic whenever possible!  Our company is also Pro-America!   Our employees are legal, American citizens,  ALL of our fish are captive bred, or farm raised, with the exception of a few species like our Koi and Ranchu which are imports from Japan.  Our plants are grown right here in the USA unlike most of our competitors, so remember when you buy from us, you  are buying from AMERICA, you are supporting America's economy, and to us, we think that should be important to everyone! 

Are there Snails or Larvae with plants - Possibly.  Our nursery does NOT use pesticides with any of our plant/fish/shrimp pools, as we control ALL of our pests naturally by using fish as natural predators to control these critters.  With this in mind, it is your responsibility to inspect or quarantine your plants (if needed).

Are AAG's Fish Healthy?  Of course they are, and we definitely don't ship out sick fish, but it is a good idea to quarantine your new arrivals as shipping can be stressful to new fish and they can be susceptible to sickness from the long trip.  Shrimp, however are not a typical carrier of any common fish disease.  You should refrain from using any kind of medications on your fish, Aquarium or Pond Salt is one of the best remedies for an injured or sick fish.   The strong will live, the weak will die.  DID YOU KNOW that Kosher Rock Salt is the same as Aquarium/Pond Salt?  Yep, it sure is!  Read on to the next paragraph!

How Important is washing my hands?  SO IMPORTANT! We can't stress enough the importance of being clean.  All too often we get customers telling us about needing remedies or medications for fish.  Our philosophy is this:  NEVER ever put your hands in your tank unless needed, ALWAYS wash thoroughly with soap, rinse well, never use a cloth towel (it's usually loaded with germs and bad bacteria) use paper towels instead, and DO NOT touch door handles in your home prior to gettin' down and dirty with your aquarium, your door handles are riddled with germs!  Avoid using colognes, lotions or perfumes on your body prior to handling your tank.  I know we're starting to sound like a company that has OCD, but we are very serious about being clean!  If we have a death in one of our aquariums at azgardens, it is taken very seriously, and becomes our top priority to resolve!  Diseases can occur in any aquarium but it is more likely for us to see a fish talk on a cell phone than to see a sick fish at azgardens.

Use Salt in my Aquarium or Pond?  YES, but not just any salt, Aquarium Salt or Pond Salt is an incredible preventative for all aquatic life.  It replaces the slime coat naturally on fish, it promotes healthy gill function, and salinity is good for ALL crustaceans, and if you are the owner of a pond turtle, it will help prevent skin infections and kill bad bacteria.   Salt can help curb certain algaes, and of course it kills bad bacteria in your water.  It's an all-around good elixir for most any issue.

Acclimating Your New Shrimp or Fish Arrivals    If a fish clearly looks dead, then it probably is.  DO NOT save your DOA’s, it is not needed.   Simply call or email us and we will give you an in-house credit for a future purchase.  INSTRUCTIONS:  We suggest cutting the bag open and dumping your new arrival(s) into a separate bucket that has an air stone running.  Take up to an hour (usually 15 minutes is enough) to drip water (from your tank) into the bucket until you have just exceeded 100% of the water they came in with your water.  Dump them into a net and place them into the tank without adding any of the water they came in.  Keep lights off the aquarium for the rest of the day, no food until tomorrow, and avoid staring into the tank.  Also, NO: tapping on glass, speaking loudly or even having loud music on in the background.  Your new arrivals are "stressed-out", and need a day to check out their new home, in peace!  FEEDING NOTE:  You may want to feed your old fish a 'last supper' while you are acclimating your new arrivals.  This may help your old fish from becoming too territorial when your new additions are placed in the tank. Good Luck.

Back Orders - If you are missing something you ordered, look at the bottom of your order invoice, there should be a memo that indicates that you have a “back order”, honestly, if we have the plants in stock, we’d love to sell them and ship them to you, but if they’re not available, that is something that is out of our control.  The Big Man upstairs handles that, you’ll need to send your complaints to him.  These are living things that we do not manufacture, we only can sell you what grows naturally.  But if you did get back-ordered on a plant, please accept our sincere apology as we have every intention to get everyone what they ordered in one shot!  If we sold plastic plants and you didn’t get what you wanted, then you would have every right to be mad at us.  Back orders generally stay in our system for 4 weeks automatically, after that they are cancelled.   You will have to order them at a later date when they become available.   Keep watching the site for availability.   Back orders on plants have a minimal shipping fee, and NO box fees.  If you are missing something like Fertilizers or Gravel, they are probably on the way in a separate box.

Two charges on your credit card from us?  All too often we are asked this question.  Yes, our company charges separately for your product invoice and your shipping.  We charge for shipping after your order is packed because these charges are based on the ACTUAL weight of your package, as we do not try to guess your shipping fee or base your shipping fees on the dollar amount you spend.   Monday is our usual day to charge for product, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the days we charge for shipping.  We charge FedEx list rates for the day your shipment goes out, as rates can vary from day to day. 

Never clean my glass?  No, you should never have to.  If you are building a natural aquarium the azgardens way, you should never need to scrape algae from your glass, not with all the great janitors we offer, especially the Algae Eating Olive Nerite Snails, they really do work and  they won't reproduce in freshwater or eat your plants.  You just can't go wrong.

CLOSING COMMENTS:  Our company is family-owned and operated.  This is important for us to tell you as we are run by real living human beings who care about what they’re doing.  We only want you to be happy with your purchase!  All orders are packed with tender loving care we assure you, as our company would have nothing to gain by sending you rotting or dead plants, so if there are some casualties or you think there are some dead plants in your package please don’t panic, go ahead and plant them anyway (unless they are spinach-like) they should bounce back, most aquatic plants are very resilient.  Bent or broken stems will require simple cutting with SHARP scissors.  If you got your package via FEDEX NEXT DAY, you doubtfully will have any losses, and a couple of dead fish/shrimp are typical, an entire dead bag of fish/shrimp is not.  Keep a tally of DOA's, we will correct any issues. 

If you feel that there are some problems or casualties with your order initially upon opening, please don’t fret, we are happy to be of service to you, and as you may already know this, we are very generous to all of our customers and we will treat you like you are a member of our own family, so you won’t need to be defensive when you call or email us a problem, we WILL take care of you!  Many plants can look droopy upon arrival, but just one night in a healthy aquarium can perk them right up.   If you can’t quite figure out what certain plants are, try using the simple “process of elimination” methods with the quantities of plants.  If you’re still stumped, try calling our nursery on Monday and based on description of something and the help of your order number, we could probably figure it out for you.

Our main nursery number is 520-742-3777.  We are CLOSED on weekends and 3 major holidays only.  We open around 10am and close around 4pm MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE.  Monday is absolutely the best day to talk to a live person because this is our main day in the office until 8pm.  Faxing us is also a great means of communication; we walk past our fax machine a hundred times a day!    Fax us at 520-575-7220.  

If you want to email us to inform us of a problem, send it to:

o n l i n e o r d e r s @ a z g a r d e n s . c o m

of course remove all of the spaces (this is our attempt at fighting spam), and make sure you put some sort of "read receipt" attachment as we get so much SPAM and Junk emails that your important email could get deleted by accident.  We will send you the receipt back, and this way you will know we got your email.   Keep your Subject line simple: example: "Order #19801" will suffice. Complex Subject lines like: "Order error problem/issue with DOA"  will probably get SPAMMED out and deleted.

Remember, we never really close because we are a plant nursery, plants don’t recognize holidays or weekends.   They are a 24/7 business. Again, thank you for becoming part of our extended family, we look forward to serving you again real soon!

Best Regards,

Arizona Aquatic Gardens