A word of caution. (1 Viewer)

[ReefMaster32787]

I thought I would share my experience with you while I have a moment here at work waiting for a job. So iam checking out craigslist one day and find an advertisement for a new local aquarium store(saltwater), the best part it is that it's fifteen minutes away. So I load up with the family and we head out. My initial thoughts when I walked in was this is a very new place. A few tanks were up and running but this place wasn't even close to being ready. There's nothing wrong with that, In fact I wanted to support them, a brother and sister turned a tank maintenance company into a store front. I had started having issue's with them. I would call ahead of time saying I need thirty gallons of RO. They would tell me we don't have any ready but come by in 3 hours, and when I would get there the store front was locked at 2:30 with no one around. I would call them back and have to wait for them. I went 5 different times each time I went I lost more and more respect. Never would I get the full 30 gallons 23,27 usually. Corals with ZERO flow on them, LEDs from candy land, aggressive fish with peaceful, he didn't know what type of test kits he used, and the list goes on. But I was trying... Until I did my weekly water change and things were different. My skimmer stopped working there were soapy looking bubbles in my filter sock. The only variable that changed was my water source after a few questions to the owner's I caught him in a lie. And it made me furious. I would tell you the whole story but it would take to long to type on this kindle. The best I could come up with was that he didn't have any ro available after he told me he would, so he opted to fill my jugs with facet water and chlorine remover and something else. There was also a salt, sugar almost sand looking substance in the bottom of my jugs. It would not dissolve and I still don't know what it was. Look out for ----- Aqua Addicted-to fish! ---- Use with caution don't wind up like me my skimmer was 100 percent shut down for week.

 

[Houston99]

Drove there also expecting a store. Opened late. Looked liked he slept there.
Not much to see. Saw a cool idea of selling a rock for a small tank with several coral frags already on it. No reason for me to go back. Thanks for the heads up on water.

 

[OceansX]

Whaaaaat?

I recommend buying a handheld meter ~$20. Look to one of our sponsors: Air, Water, & Ice or Buckeye Hydro.
You can use it to quickly check your source water. Even a Kroger RODI machine, LFS machine, or your RODI machine
(in the future), maybe may be close to its service date and this meter is a quick way to check the water quality
There couldn't be an easier measurement device: Turn on, submerge the end into the water, read, wipe, turn off.

FYI: faucet water in Houston is ~400 ppm, going from RODI to that quickly will result in coral rapid coral losses.
That happened to me when I didn't catch that my RO membrane was bad.

 

[dayton]

Drove there also expecting a store. Opened late. Looked liked he slept there.
Not much to see. Saw a cool idea of selling a rock for a small tank with several coral frags already on it. No reason for me to go back. Thanks for the heads up on water.

Because he does sleep there


Now, generally I am not a fan of bashing a LFS. HOWEVER, I do have personal experience with him. As some of you may know, I had about 10 pairs of breeding clowns at one point and some of the individuals/pairs came from Aqua Addicted. After spending a few hundred dollars in there he called me to let me know he just got a large female in and that he wanted to give me a head up that he was going to place it in an auction on one of the facebook pages. I said great, ill bid on it....So I did and I won (I was very prepaired to out bid anyone in sight). I went that weekend to go pick up the fish; while this was going on a friend of mine who is on this page let me know that he had lost about 4 fish that week and his buddy had lost about 8 clowns and that he had sent one of the fish off to have it tested for a cause (12 fish dead in a matter of days? hmmm). I picked up the large female clown from the store and went home, on the way my buddy called and said he had the results back and it was brooks. The only common link was fish were purchased from the same store, I was lucky enough to get the call on the way home and I stuck that fish in to QT and not the breeder system! I called the store and he had no idea what I was talking about, later to find out he was flushing his system and running hypo salinity and meds to kill the brooks. After keeping an eye on facebook (where he loves to post) I saw where LOTS of other people had their fish die too and were wanting refunds. He has also approached others ( a member and a sponsor) on here wanting to sell a portion of his business to gain a partner who could help. Long story short, he is horrible with finances and gets people to "pre pay" for their products so that he can float money.

 

[ReefMaster32787]

I usually go to the Kroger stores or Dennis for my ro but 15 minutes away was a good excuse to check out a new store. Oh I didn't tell you the worst part. The man tried to sell me a 40 gallon breeder set up with stand for 60 bucks but didn't bother to tell me it was cracked at the bulk head I noticed that even before he said anything at all. I tested him to see if he would say anything about it, not a word.

 

[steveb]

Moved to vendor/sponsor feedback.

 

[dayton]

Your post has been removed due a violation of the MARSH General Rules. Threats are not appropriate on this board. Please review the rules and regulations here , specifically #4.

 

[James Lynch]

I had my experience with them also. I will leave it at I got a refund.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[mariedanielle]

Hi, I would like to chime in and take initiative to address the problems stated. We apologize for the odd hours of the store. Trying to juggle our maintenance side and the store front is a little difficult, but we hope to soon find a better solution to provide better customer service. As far as the ro water we apologize for the malfunction it caused your skimmer. From what I recall we discussed this situation after you guys talked one night. you did come once a week for 3 weeks and reassured the first two times that you had no problem, except for that 3rd time. We were also puzzled because no one else had any problems but we decided to change the cartridges anyways. I also had some water conditioner you asked for and said your wife was going to pick up the following day. Regardless, we would like to fix the problem by providing you with a refund for your last purchase and free refill. We greatly appreciate your support and would want nothing more than to make things right. We will triple check from now on and show customers the meter readings when they purchase any water. We will have a commercial unit up and running after our plumbing is done. We will be happy to show you our equipment/qt tanks in the back if you have any questions or doubts.

As far as the clownfish go, that was months ago. a problem set by one of our wholesale breeders. When this problem occurred. We publicly announced it and allowed everyone that bought fish to come in and claim a replacement sent by the breeder. We ve since then taken extra precaution with new fish shipments with "safety stop".

We will try our best in making your experiences with us better. We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences in the present and past. We hope you will give us a second chance and reconsider us in the future. If you have any further questions or concerns please feel free to contact us at 832-610-8110

Sincerely

A2F Crew

 

[mariedanielle]

I would also like to add that we by all means have not asked for anyones help with finances for part or a portion of the store which was stated above. The company/store/warehouse is owned and leased by my brother, his best friend and I. The fish store is actually a second form of income which started from our office in warehouse where we sell industrial pressure washing equipment, generators and light towers. We would be more than happy to take you on a little tour of both facilities if you havent seen them. We dont keep any livestock at the warehouse anymore. But we do keep bigger tanks for customers, used equipment/tanks and material there. Again if there's anything we can do, make right or clarify please contact us anytime. My apologies for having to repost another comment

 

[dayton]

I whole heartedly disagree with your statements. You Didnt have a problem with your wholesaler, you tried to blame it on "sustainable aquatics" oddly enough they also sent shipments to other retailers and none of them had issues? You also mentioned you have not asked to partner with anyone; this statement is also false but I thank you for your efforts. Was the brooks out break a couple months ago yes.. Your brother was told before I got there by another customer that he needed to tell me there was an outbreak because the female I was coming to get was going to be part of my broodstock and what did your brother say when I came? Not a word! Thank you for your concern though.

 

[mariedanielle]

Chase this is mike now. Two months? Try more than 7 months ago sir. I can have a few people that know you and the situation back that up. And before you start posting what you think are the facts, you might want to check them and cross reference them. I did not blame SA, I actually stated that the ones from SA were the only ones that survived. Another fact, your batch of clowns along with another snowonyx from a person we mutually know which he actually just traded two days ago was after the whole brooks batch. If you want the receipts ill be happy to show you them. Those particular fish were hand picked from the breeder as a bonded pair numbered in tanks from SA. The rep probably still has videos of the fish before they were sent here and dates. With the help of the other breeder we replaced all the clowns that were lost. I announced all this on facebook and told everyone about this when it happened and wiped out the complete system which was also stated on there, even a couple of people whom you well know showed up to the shop to see the tanks empty. Its all on there with just go back and look through it. All the people you and I know that bought clowns know about that so how can you say i didn't tell anyone or denied it? I told people flat out and we made things right since then those same people with the exception of a couple have bought numerous things from us. And no I I never asked anyone to be a part of our company, hmmm... I dont remember asking you or are you going to say "well so and so told me" thats how rumors start, and im assuming this all happened around the same time, am I correct? When rudy was going to town? But lets be real and practical Even if I did ask someone to invest, that would be none of your concern, business is business. With my other company I do have an investor. Is that something to be ashamed of, I wonder if any other company would be stupid to have one right? One reason why we re taking so long to build up the store is that we re using our own funds, marie, jeremy and I. We re building it little by little. But anyways, So while we re trying to make a problem right with a customer youre here to bash us on old news almost a year old at that. Even after that snowonyx you came to buy more clowns. If you were so displeased with us why come back? This is a big reason why I didnt want to sponsor marsh. And I dont remember you threatening me once about you throwing a brick into my store, but thanks for the heads up. Amazing words to hear from a local breeder. I also hate to sound like a ************. But I havent done anything wrong to you. I always gave you a heads up if anything cool came in and always gave you great deals and even worked with you. Yea that unfortunate thing happened contrary to your belief that it didnt happen to any other store. Youre wrong, not many will announce something like that. And during that time I was bring in thousands of dollars in clowns a month it put me on the radar. I still have text from before of other people telling me their clown died from so and so and if there was something going on with designers. I just hope when you go big with your breeding business and something happens, knock on wood that you domt bash another company like youre doing. I can understand a customer but not a breeder or a fellow store owner. Anyways ive said what was on my mind. Chase you can rip me to shreds on here I dont really care. We re not perfect by all means, we ll make mistakes but we will always fix them and we ll stand by them like I have. Good luck with your endevors and and I hope you come with some cool looking clowns. So from me one of the owners of aquaddicted I want to apologize for what has happened. I will refund that person with the ro and honor the free water you can also check our system in the back just to put you at ease if you decide to come back. And I apologize for this lengthy comment and drama.

 

[ReefMaster32787]

As I said before just a word of caution to my fellow reefers. If I can help keep this from happening to their tanks I will.

 

[BigRick]

Pro Aquatix went through Brook a few months ago, seems like everyone does. I'm really wondering how I got Brook into my system. I hope it wans't the lone female I aquired that is in question? Some clowns or fish can carry an immunity to brook but still carry the protozoan and then when something like a move or anything disrupts them Brook can break out. Lost couple thousand in broadstock. Thank god I got 5 soon the be 8 separate systems to hold 30+ Broodstock (Clowns mostly, sexys, peps, and hopefully cleaeners and moyers dragonets!. Setbacks really hurt when people aren't honest. It cost someone (me) a lot of money. I'm down to 7 pairs of clowns with 3 still being treated for brook and will survive. Anyways.... since I don't have lots of broadstock laying at the moment (only 2) anyone need rotifers? I'm harvesting 10+gallons / day and that is a LOT of rotifers. The babies get to big to eat them and my 3 reef tanks at home get plenty.