Dinkins Aquatic Gardens
Platinum Sponsor
Hey everybody! We're so excited to be a sponsor of this awesome reef club, and I wanted to introduce our company to you.
We are a husband-and-wife team based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I (David) do the production side and part of the marketing, but for the most part, my wife (Ashley) runs everything. In fact, while I'm a middle school teacher, she stays home and runs the business full-time. She's the one that you'll probably be talking to if you reach out to us on Messenger (@dinkinsaquaticgardens) or by email, and she usually responds within minutes. (She loves talking to customers and potential customers!)
So why is a Dallas-based company in the MARSH forums? It's because we are different than our competitors. There are plenty of places to buy phyto and pods, but we focus on doing three things really well:
1) Community - The reefing world is small, and we're all tied together by this amazing and challenging hobby. My wife and I are in this for the long haul, and we're looking to build relationships. So we've been seeking out communities where we can interact with other hobbyists and share our love for reefing in addition to offering our products for sale. We really do care about your fish, corals, and other inverts! We've even been known to make an emergency shipment once in awhile to save a fish or seahorse that's not eating!
2) Customer service - We are a small company, and we want to give you that small company, boutique-y feel while producing professional-quality products. My wife hand-writes a "thank you" card for every order, and personally packs stickers and other trinkets in each box as an additional thanks. I caught her sending a whole pack of stickers to a customer the other day. When I asked why, my wife explained that the customer was using them as a reward to potty train her daughter! When you email or message us, you'll get a response in an hour or so, not in two days when somebody gets around to your customer service ticket! We love chatting, giving advice and suggestions, and generally sharing our love for saltwater aquariums.
3) Quality - Without this, nothing else matters. We have numerous reviews on our Facebook page and on Reef2Reef, and if you ask anybody who has ever bought from us, I'm confident they'll tell you our quality is spot-on. A gentleman in Maine recently purchased five gallons of pods from us. I put twenty gallons of pods into five gallons of water and sent them to him. That's what you can expect from our products - an absolute obsession with quality. I used to say we tried for "several thousand" pods in each bottle, but I'd say we're probably closer to 10k+ at this point. We grow plenty of pods, and we don't see any reason to just keep them in our culturing tanks. We might as well pack them into our customers' orders! The same goes for shipping - in the hot months, all products go out in 1.5" thick styrofoam shipping boxes packed with ice. The same goes in the winter, but with heat packs. Many have said that we pack our products to "coral standards," which isn't something they expected. All orders come with a live delivery guarantee!
Please feel free to message us any time (@dinkinsaquaticgardens on Facebook, or sales@dinkinsaquaticgardens, or PM/post here!). Drop into our forum and say hello if you have a chance - we'd love to get to know y'all!
David & Ashley Dinkins
We are a husband-and-wife team based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I (David) do the production side and part of the marketing, but for the most part, my wife (Ashley) runs everything. In fact, while I'm a middle school teacher, she stays home and runs the business full-time. She's the one that you'll probably be talking to if you reach out to us on Messenger (@dinkinsaquaticgardens) or by email, and she usually responds within minutes. (She loves talking to customers and potential customers!)
So why is a Dallas-based company in the MARSH forums? It's because we are different than our competitors. There are plenty of places to buy phyto and pods, but we focus on doing three things really well:
1) Community - The reefing world is small, and we're all tied together by this amazing and challenging hobby. My wife and I are in this for the long haul, and we're looking to build relationships. So we've been seeking out communities where we can interact with other hobbyists and share our love for reefing in addition to offering our products for sale. We really do care about your fish, corals, and other inverts! We've even been known to make an emergency shipment once in awhile to save a fish or seahorse that's not eating!
2) Customer service - We are a small company, and we want to give you that small company, boutique-y feel while producing professional-quality products. My wife hand-writes a "thank you" card for every order, and personally packs stickers and other trinkets in each box as an additional thanks. I caught her sending a whole pack of stickers to a customer the other day. When I asked why, my wife explained that the customer was using them as a reward to potty train her daughter! When you email or message us, you'll get a response in an hour or so, not in two days when somebody gets around to your customer service ticket! We love chatting, giving advice and suggestions, and generally sharing our love for saltwater aquariums.
3) Quality - Without this, nothing else matters. We have numerous reviews on our Facebook page and on Reef2Reef, and if you ask anybody who has ever bought from us, I'm confident they'll tell you our quality is spot-on. A gentleman in Maine recently purchased five gallons of pods from us. I put twenty gallons of pods into five gallons of water and sent them to him. That's what you can expect from our products - an absolute obsession with quality. I used to say we tried for "several thousand" pods in each bottle, but I'd say we're probably closer to 10k+ at this point. We grow plenty of pods, and we don't see any reason to just keep them in our culturing tanks. We might as well pack them into our customers' orders! The same goes for shipping - in the hot months, all products go out in 1.5" thick styrofoam shipping boxes packed with ice. The same goes in the winter, but with heat packs. Many have said that we pack our products to "coral standards," which isn't something they expected. All orders come with a live delivery guarantee!
Please feel free to message us any time (@dinkinsaquaticgardens on Facebook, or sales@dinkinsaquaticgardens, or PM/post here!). Drop into our forum and say hello if you have a chance - we'd love to get to know y'all!
David & Ashley Dinkins
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