Marine Tech

[Riona]

Well, it isn't exactly an online company, but I wanted to mention their "customer service"(move the thread if it can't be here maybe?). They're in Grand Junction, CO. I've been a loyal customer of theirs for close to a year and was repaid by being ripped off by them.

A month or so ago my 20 gallon crashed, which to the best of my knowledge came from something in the rocks dying and poisoning the rest of it before I realised it. I asked one of the guys who works there if I could get credit on my stuff since I was downgrading and he told me that was okay. I took it in the following monday in Great shape and the other employee was there, and was a d*** He told me that they do NOT usually take in trade ins, and essentially told me he needed to leave the store right at that moment to get somewhere, and that I'd have to wait until the other guy got back into town(he was out of the country on a planned trip) to get any credit. That was fine with me.

I went back in a couple weeks ago(I really couldn't stand the first guy already, he's moderately sexually harassed me one time, and I didn't want to take the chance of being alone there with him) and stupidly realised that I didn't get a reciept before(oh, also will mention that he took in around 500 majano anemones AND another 50+ aiptasias in that time. Someone else broke down a tank and he took in all of the "cool stuff" that the guy was giving up). I asked the guy I had originally talked to about any credit on my account, knowing it would not be much since I'd been told that it would only be what they could buy it from their suppliers for. I was told I did not have any. So I asked him if he'd been able to look over my stuff yet. He said he hadn't even known I brought anything in. He said he'd ask the guy I took it to to show him the stuff I'd brought in and give me credit accordingly. I went back in a few days later, after he had been able to talk with him and he had been shown NONE of my rock and a LOT of $2-4 frags. So I mentioned what I'd taken in and when he asked again he was shown the exact same stuff again. I thought about it a few days and then went back in to ask for the owner's number. He was there when I went in and he took down a list of what I'd taken in. He said he'd get it straightened out.

Now, for the list of stuff I took in: 15# of LR(sells for $10/lb here) a $70 tri-colour trachyphylia brain, a fox coral, a couple zoa colonies, a blasto merletti frag, a neon green candy cane frag, and around a dozen zoa frags. Not including the zoa frags I paid around $300 for all of what I took in, which is more than I make on a paycheck, and a LOT of money for me. I knew I wasn't getting much in return, but I figured the credit would be good so I could get some stuff for my 5 gallon(like rocks that would FIT in it) Yep. The dumbs*** sold my brain, which I had gotten from them, and was perfectly healthy, for $25, the rocks were lost until recently, when I literally dug every bit of rock out of their LR bins to find it AND besides the zoa frags I am being told everything else(ALL IN GOOD SHAPE WHEN I TOOK IT IN) has died. The owner doesn't seem to care and basically told me they were doing me a favour by giving me any credit at all. So basically $300 that I spent with them turned into a little less than $40. And the only time the rude employee even admitted that I took anything other than frags in was when the owner grilled him about it. And though the guy didn't log my "dead corals" in on the log sheet, they must have died since I didn't have the proof that I had brought them in. Some bloody compromise.

And to make it sound less vindictive, I did give them around 2 weeks of me going in there to check on it to figure out what happened to my stuff, but without that receipt that the guy I gave my stuff over to shoved me out the door without I'm SOL when it comes to proving that I actually did take any of it in. And best yet, they have refused to give me credit until they sell all of what I took in(most of which is going to die soon since they've got it under a regular fluorescent light in their fuge.) So yea, 1/3rd of the people who run the store being decent with customer service? I think I'll take my business elsewhere, and recommend that others do the same.

[Riona]

Sorry for the bump, just wanted to let the board know how things turned out:

Spent $300, got the crappy service from before PLUS a grand total of $10 in credit. That's right, 3% of what I spent. Plus since I said the brain was $70(I'd thought I paid $60, which would have meant with Ben's $10 discount on it that it was worth $70 originally, instead it was worth $60 at first. My freaking bad.) instead of the $60 it was originally priced at I got called a liar by the owner and had him tell me I was trying to rip them off. And, as it turns out, one of the effing morons that works there never credited my account the extra $25 I spent for the brain when I took it home, since I had it credited to me at first while my tank was cycling so it wouldn't be sold to someone else before I could get it. So where I would have gotten $35 I got $10 since I am such a g******** liar and was just out to take them.

Also, I find it funny that I could show them WHERE I paid off the coral, but whoever entered it didn't stick it on my account, so it was entirely MY fault that I didn't pay for the other half of it. Plus they didn't have half of what I had bought from them this year on their computer and were telling me that I had only brought in a few #s of rock and a half dead brain as a result. D***s.

So yeah, if you're near Grand Junction CO go to one of the older mom and pop stores in town. They CARE about their livestock(though the one can never seem to keep corals alive for long) AND their customers. And don't just sit there and call regulars liars and tell them that they aren't getting jack back when they need to get credit.

[BigAl010203]

I read some really negative threads about my favorite LFS, Marine Tech Aquatic Center. I've been doing reef tanks for over six years and have never found a LFS or internet provider that were as good as Marine Tech.

So i decided to do some research on Riona, and check out some of the other things they had to say about Marine Tech. First, we find contradictions in this story in a post dated 6/18/07: Quote

"Ugh. For the second time I have a crash, this time with no good explanation. Tank was fine that morning, by the next day i'd lost both fish...my blue leg hermit crabs, my emerald crab, my fox coral was/is half dead and around half of the little "Rock Critters" were gone"

Dosn't sound quite like the "Perfectly Heathly Specimens" of this thread dose it? I've been doing reef tanks for a long time and if the environment isn't stable enough for Blue Leg Hermits, than it is no place to put any type of coral in!!! Later in the 6/18/07 post Riona describes after a water change the water looking "Milky," which is a classic sign of a bacteria bloom caused by excess Ammonium and/or Chloramines.

Next contradicting post came on 6/20/07 and is as follows:
"My Trachy had one of those on it and it never harmed the coral. That brain was the happiest piece in my tank. When the tank when down and the crab died the coral started to degrade from that spot outwards."
Is this the same brain from the 7/17/07 post that "I took in the following Monday in Great shape..." that the quote "Dumb*** sold... perfectly healthy, for $25." the posts just do not match!!

Being a loyal customer of the Greatest LFS in my valley, Marine Tech Aquatic Center I was upset at this thread. Here are some threads from the same Riona about the Marine Tech I know and love. On 3/03/07 Riona posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have the besr lfs near me. they are nothing but quality. They have the best staff also. As for their prices I think they are fair. He tries his best to stay within the same range as online stores. I buy everything from them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ditto My local store will frag a big colony(if it is possible) for you if you can't afford the entire piece. Plus they KNOW what they are talking about. The guy there will cut you a bit of a deal if the coral isn't doing well(after mentioning that fact) or if it has been sitting there for a while. He'll hold stuff for you, and he'll make sure you know how to take care of a piece. They have a Treated QT system in the back of the store where they will move sick fish and treat them. Also, when my tank crashed(not my fault. No matter WHAT the boyfriend says[/bitter-for now]) he let me bring in all of my coral so he could hold it in his tanks until mine stabilized a bit and could safely house corals again. I didn't ask the other local stores, but I'm betting that there would be a big NO WAY at the end of it. I'll gladly pay a wee bit more there when I can afford new stuff instead of Just getting it offline and not being able to see what I'm getting or know if it is healthy, if it will arrive alive etc."

As for harassment, the is COMPLETELY out of character of all the Marine Tech Staff. I have only seen them conduct themselves in the most professional manner through my year and a half working with them. I would venture to say if this harassment truely happened then why the heck to you wait until you were **** @ them to bring it up. This kind of thing is very, very serious and throwing accusations like these just to farther degrade a good business that seems to have done anything you wanted.

So people please go to Marine Tech Aquatic Center and meet the knowledgable caring staff, and you be the judge if this is the greatest LFS in the Grand Valley or not!! My experience time and time again has been pleasent, and I always get healthy, happy specimens.

[Hop]

BigAl010203: I hate to argue and bring negatives against your thread. I'm not sure if you work there or whether you are just into the hobby.

First off it's the only LFS that really deals in reefs. You can't count the other few as they are pretty much a joke

As far as professional, I have to disagree. I spend a ton of money, to the tune of over 20K on this hobby. I went in there over a year a go and there were three employees hanging out around the computer laughing and carrying on. I spent a good 45 minutes in the store and they never acknowledged my presence. I got so frustrated I was going to walk out but I really liked a few things in the coral tank. When I interrupted their laughter, they were rude and short with me. It was not until I went back and they learned that I had a 450 gallon tank did they start to pay attention when I walked in. They still treated me like an idiot.

I always ask questions to scan the quality of a stores employees and well, they are about 50% on good answers.

And as far as harassment goes, why is a coral for me $75, but my wife who is blonde, petite, attractive with big breasts can go in the next day and get it for $25?

I go there just because it's the only place to go. As far as service goes, they fail, as far as knowledge goes, they are a D+ at best.

I can't testify to what happened with Riona, but I can say that from what I've seen, I'm not sure I doubt what happened.

I'll still go there and I refer people to them, but I do tell them to be very suspicious of them.

BTW: if you run in there tell them that I called three weeks ago for the price on a RR 180. I'm still waiting for a call back on the price

[Riona]

Right. I don't know what killed it, the fox was not great(because I dropped a freaking rock on top of it accidentally when I was moving my tank to a different apartment a couple of weeks before it went down), but that was the only piece I took in that was not happy at the time. I thought the brain was going downhill in my tank, but I had it in the milky water at that time. I had planned on keeping it, but realised that it would die in the smaller tank. Since at the time I only had 10 watts of PC light over it. It was happy and expanded that morning in the smaller tank. So it wasn't half dead, as I thought originally. Unless a brain coral expanding when placed into freshly made water for a couple of days means all of a sudden that it is going to explode or something?

What would you do, say, if they ripped you off? Promised credit and then did not deliver a fair amount? Sorry, but if he had actually given me the $50 to spend there as was told before he mentioned that I "never paid my account" then I'd have come back and said that I got a fair amount of credit from them and that while I was not planning on going back any time ever because of the amount of time that passed before I that at least they attempted to make it right. IF you ask them, Pat would likely tell you that I said it was okay that I get $50 for all of what I took in, though I still wouldn't be going back any time soon. If a company rips you off do you just sit there and take it? What about if the company was great to you before? If you've never done business with someone will you still sit there and ignore it and leave it alone? I thought the purpose of forums was to voice bad experiences and to let others know of them? Let them know to make sure they dot every I and cross every T if they deal with the same people they have read about before? Look at all of the negative reviews of businesses online. Look at how those are treated. People with positive experiences with the company will go to their defense, people with negative experiences mention that. Which I am not faulting you for. Though you could have dug up better "proof" as it were.

As for that wonderful glowing response, how long ago was it? I don't see any dated after I posted that they were giving me cruddy service, do you? OH, and wait a minute here: Where did I say WHICH local store that one is? Hm? You want to put that I was talking about the store I am now trying to "degrade a good business" then you may want to make sure that I had posted about it. IF I was a liar I could easily argue that it wasn't. Since when does/did that post say "marine tech" anywhere in it? Even though it was about them, when my LPS died there when my tank was cycling, I was shown PROOF of it. I was given the option of taking the skeletons home with me. I wasn't just told "they died, live with it" and would you feel a bit better about it if I had posted something asking for help here before naming them too? The only reason I didn't was that posts get too far shuffled down too quickly and I really don't like needing to search for them. I can give you links, if you'd like, to 4 forums that won't be linked here from well before I posted this asking for what I should do, and if anyone there had any ideas how to proceed with it. BEFORE I just decided to do a trash campaign since that seems to be what you think I am doing.

Even when my tank crashed the first time, which was due to my boyfriend demanding that the tank's stand(at the time my dresser) was moved WHILE I was in class. Not after, though we would have still had time on the u-haul to do it. When I got home from class he'd decided to take a trip to wherever with our, currently, only key to the place. So I couldn't go over and set the tank back up. The blenny I had died in the 2 gallons of water I had her and ALL of my livestock in until I could get it set up, which led to the water going downhill and nearly killing the 2 clowns. Then I forgot to bring my hydrometer and just used the recommended amount of salt, forgetting that it hadn't been enough when I set up the tank the first time. Stressing/killing off nearly everything that was left. This time the closest I can figure is that something got stirred up when we were moving and killed off something in the rocks a couple of Weeks later. Kinda stretching things, but it is the only explanation that makes sense. Even though all 6 of my Current tanks are doing quite well at the moment. Even the ones that were moved with me. The corals(mostly frags) that I kept from it are all fine now. And the acro frag that I had in my 20 when it crashed waited until AFTER the water had been milky for over 24 hours before starting to die on me. Funny, I thought that they were more sensitive to water changes than LPS were, so if that was over a day to die, then how is it so impossible that the brain was in decent shape when I took it in? Oh, right. Because it was stressed at the point of another post where I thought it was doing poorly.

As for Monty harassing me: I went in one day with a skirt that was4" away from touching the floor and a halter top. The top covers me, since I haven't got a lot that needs to be covered. The top goes a couple of inches over the top line of the skirt and comes up to my shoulders in back. Plus my entire chest is fully enclosed in it, the only problem comes if I am leaning forward since it is crossed over in the front. So that side will flip out. No problem if I am standing up, but if I am leaning over something it does expose a bit.. A little while after I got there that day he made an offhanded comment about how "that barely covers you doesn't it?" to me while I was STANDING looking at the tank. A bit later I offered to pluck some algae from their freshwater tank. Some of the cyano and hair algae that grows in there. I'm sure you've seen that? I went over with a bucket and was pulling algae and my skirt was on the floor. In a small puddle of water. Monty came over and started playing with my skirt. Flipping it up and then grabbing the bottom of it and flipping it around in his hand. After a minute I asked him what he was doing and he said he was trying to keep it from getting wet. I told him that I was from a state where there is a lot of rain and that it didn't bother me. It isn't delicate, it can dry on its own. He did it a couple more times and said he could stop if it bothered me. I asked him to stop and then he got up and hovered over me watching what I was doing, though at his angle all he could see would be me and the stuff I was pulling out of the tank. If he'd wanted to watch so badly then he could have gone to the front of the tank and watched from there since he'd have been able to see exactly where my hands were and nothing below my shirt. I can take pics if you want of it. Sorry, when a shirt flips out like that one has the tendency to do you feel a bit threatened. I didn't mention it since I haven't ever had any other problems with them before and since I didn't want to get anyone in trouble. Instead I just stayed out of the store if he was the only person there until when I had to take that stuff in. If you ever met any of my friends the first thing they usually say is that I can't stick up for myself. Which is why I didn't demand a receipt for what I took in. I trusted them. I was leery of him, but I still was trusting that my frags wouldn't get stuck into their fuge in the back, or that my rock would be buried under all of the rest of the rock that was in the back room so ~I~ would have to be the one to dig it out of there to show that I actually brought in more than a lot of dead/dying corals.

BTW, if it was you that is the reason I am getting "a letter about the credit thing" in the mail from them, you may want to mention to them next time you talk to them(I see that this post was made an hour or so before I got a call from the store's owner) that the only thing saving them from a lawsuit is that I am too trusting and didn't get pics/a receipt for what I took in, since the advise on all but one of my other forums basically was "sue their a**** for it, and get all of what you paid back from them." If I'd not been so naive that I'd be getting a fair amount of credit back from them then I'd have gotten a receipt and would have court papers to document everything. In reality all I could do, and DID do was report them to the BBB over it. Would have been the night I spent my $11 worth of credit there, but the form wouldn't let me send it for some reason, so as it stands I sent it around 3-5 hours before I got that call from them. Oh well.

BTW, thanks Hop

Edit: come to mention it, I asked them for a candy cane frag a couple weeks before my tank went down this time and it still wasn't fragged. Or the GSP frag I asked for before I talked with Pat about Monty not telling Ben what I had taken in which still was never fragged for me. Hm. I found a nicer ric than the candy cane is and I think I know someone who can give me a bit of GSP without me needing to pay for anything but gas. I should give him a call later.

[Riona]

Since it won't let me edit again and you want to play the quote game:

I've been doing reef tanks for over six years and have never found a LFS or internet provider that were as good as Marine Tech.

That so? Then why does your profile say 2 years FOWLR?