Extremely bad experience with AtlanticReef

Al G Blenny · #1 02/12/2005, 05:01 AM

I am having a lot of problems with AtlanticReef. I have been dealing with him for a while now and I will post all of the previous PMs that we have sent to each other if he doesn't hold up his part of our agreement. I gave him a bunch of my corals and he shipped me some dead frags. The frags weren't even the ones he was supposed to send me. The reason the corals arrived dead is because of his terrible packing job. He agreed to reimburse me but now he is not. I really hate to do this but I am very frustrated and I don't know what else to do.

Leviathan · #2 02/12/2005, 06:01 AM

I can understand your being upset TRUST ME. But may I suggest not posting PM's. Reguardless of how angry you are about the matter, PM's by definition are " Private " messages. I dont see how posting them can come to any good. I do think that if he is in fact in the wrong you should be compensated in one way or another. And at the very least knowing the person who has done wrong by you is enough to make people leary of dealing with them later on. A bad seller/buyer/trader Rep. gets around quickly here on RC with a simple name and situation mentioned.

Just my .02, but you will of course do as you seem fit!
Just trying to help.

AtlanticReef · #3 02/12/2005, 11:13 AM

You keep told me to sent you dead corals. When I asked to have pctures to prove it but you do not have...i'm agreed with you unless you need to provide me some evident that My two polyps ofacan lords and pink yumas are dead...
What happend with all corls that I bought from you in the morning I picked up from your house (more than 250 bucks). They all have red bugs and couple dead after couple days and messed up my whole tank, then I asked your help and you told me that i need to talk to your friend but I didn't ever see your friend only I picked up from you...I mentioned that to you in pm that I need some of picture to provide the corals dead, I have picture that corals I received from you have red bugs and dead...but you do not have any picture to provide me, then you want me to send you more...

Tony B

Al G Blenny · #4 02/12/2005, 12:57 PM

O.K. here's the situation. AtlanticReef(Tony) wanted to stop by my house to pick up some corals for a trade. He also wanted a couple of corals from my friend. My friend wasn't around so I was asked to take the corals and sell them to Tony. Basically I was the middle man. So Tony came over and he wanted my whole Tort colony and about 5 other frags. I agreed to trade him for two DIFFERENT Acan lord polyps and a pink yuma. He paid my friend $200 for two colonies of some type of Acro. He also agreed to send my friend and I a couple frags of purple bonsai. He was supposed to have his brother bring them back up to us from So Cal. After about a month and a half of my PMing him trying to get my corals, he finally sent them. His brother was supposed to meet me around 5:00pm. Because of traffic he didn't get here until around 9:00. For most corals that should have been fine. The problem was that he packed them in deli cups that weren't even secured properly. The ONE Acan cup was dry. Obviously it was dead. The pink yuma cup still had some water in it but all that was left was mush. He put three TINY heat packs in the cooler. I have never seen heat packs this small. They were probably 1.5" by 2". The water was freezing because these heat packs obiously didn't work. There were no purple bonsai. So aside from the fact that the corals were all dead, they weren't even the right ones. Not even the right amount of corals. Any way you look at it he ripped me off. So I contacted him about this and offered to send him pictures. He said he didn't owe my anything because the corals he got from my friend died. NOT MINE! MY FRIENDS! I told him to contact my friend about it because that was a matter to take up with the seller. In fact I have been telling him that for the past month now. He finally agreed to send me ONE polyp of an Acan to make up for the dead ones. He also agreed to send me the purple bonsai for not sending me any. I waited another month and never heard from him. I recently contacted him again to ask about the corals he owed me and he said he doesn't owe me because he got red bugs from either my friend or me. Neither of us has red bugs. I know for a fact that he buys a lot of corals here on RC so he probably got them from someone here. He might have gotten them from a store. I don't know. He sould actually be dipping his corals before putting them in his tank anyway. That's what I do. Either way he still owes me those corals. He agreed to send them and now he backs out. I don't know where he gets that I don't have pics. He only asked for them yesterday. I think I do still have the pics. I will post them if I can find them. They are on a memory card somewhere.

Al G Blenny · #5 02/12/2005, 01:01 PM

Not that this is a big deal but he also stole my friends picture of a rainbow monti frag that he got from me. That's one of the frags that I traded to him. As some of you might know, that is an expensive frag. I usually sell them for $80-$100 depending on the size. We saw it in his gallery a while ago and didn't say anything to him. I think he took it out since.

AtlanticReef · #6 02/12/2005, 01:07 PM

I already asked you couple time for the pictures...If I bought the corals from the fish store thru website, incase they dead due to shipping, then I need to provide them pictures of dead corals. People always want more stuff...special are lords....

Al G Blenny · #7 02/12/2005, 01:14 PM

You didn't ask me a couple of times. You asked me once yesterday. Don't worry. I will try to find them today. Notice that is the only topic he tries to dispute.

AtlanticReef · #8 02/12/2005, 01:18 PM

I will ask a reefer in RC to post in this forum that he helped me couple days to remove all the red bugs on your corals. we were working until might night couple days to save my other corals in my tank....Please see later from his post about the red bugs on you guy corals....

jero1 · #9 02/12/2005, 02:16 PM

I'm the friend and I DID NOT GIVE RED BUGS! I sell a lot of corals and never heard such a thing!I sold him one of my prized corals!A purple humilus with bright green poyps."It's DEAD!" I have been groing that coral for over TWO years! I would get $60 per frag.there was at least 20 frags on it if you wanted to frag it up!Atlantic reef negociated $150 dollors plus trade of purple bonsai.
I did not recieve the coral!If you want a list of people who bought that frag from me I can provide....No complaint so far!I was willing to forget about it,since that was the first time I was ripped off by a fellow reefer, but say I don't know that I have red bugs and spead them around carelessly then We've got a problem!

derek · #10 02/12/2005, 03:20 PM

I would have to concur with Matt and Jeromy about the red bugs. I picked up 5 or 6 frags from both of their tanks in early December and have no evidence of red bugs. If one of the tanks was so infested that they almost wiped out Tony B's tank I would think that I would be seeing them in my tank by now.

I also talk to a couple of other folks who have gotten frags from them and haven't heard anything about red bugs.

Not saying who's right here, just sharing my experience with corals from these fellows.

Derek

AtlanticReef · #11 02/12/2005, 03:47 PM

Hello,

A purple humilus with bright green poyps."It's DEAD!" I have been groing that coral for over TWO years.
This colony is the aquaculture colony, you can tell on the rock that attach on the bottom is not the growing coral in the tank....I have red bugs on this green hullimie, purple valida, blue and green coral that I got from you guy (aquaculture)....Actually I didn't find it, but my fellow reefer his swing name in RC "Machava" found it when he came to my house and he helped me to treat my tank with interceptor...

AtlanticReef · #12 02/12/2005, 04:12 PM

Hey,

I was not ripped off anybody, but you guy sold to me corals with reb bugs on it. It took a lot of time for me and cost more money to treat my tank. I paid almost 300 bucks to get all the red bugs corals....I did tell you guy that I need to solve my problem first, then I can discusse about your...a couple frags of bonsai or lords are not problem with me, but I feel......

Mchava · #13 02/13/2005, 01:15 AM

Okay this is what happend as far as I can tell from Tonys side. I went to Tonys house the day afther he came back from SJ. Now he did not know anyting about redbugs but afther inspection I noticed that all of the sps the tony got were infested with red bugs. I had never seen so much bugs in an sps before. I could see them all over the sps. I went back home and brought some interceptor so that we could treat all of th sps that were infested. We were up almost till 12am just dipping corals all night. I had to used 1/2 pill for all the corals. When I first saw tonys tank he did not have any bugs then afther he came back from SJ he had all kinds of bugs all over even to this day he still has some since we could not get them all. Now I dont know what realy happened between Tony and you folks from SJ but all I know is that we got some realy infested corals from you and if the coral did indead die then you should post a picture of the coral and it should have been done right away. Just like any other person in this forum when you trade or ship corals there is a risk of the sps not making it. I know i've had that happened to me but i was able to produce pics and contacted the person the same day.

Jeff Littlefield · #14 02/13/2005, 01:44 AM

I have been trading and buying from both of these guys for months now and have never seen Red bugs on any of their stuff, I also have a frag of the hummilis from Jero and it is healthy and growing great, Matt and Jeromy are both great stand up guys, Jeff

Mchava · #15 02/13/2005, 02:03 AM

like I said all I know is that all the sps that Tony got from SJ were all infested with red bugs. Now you might not seen them in the pieces that you got from them but the ones that Tony got were all covered in it.

Al G Blenny · #16 02/13/2005, 02:20 AM

Guess what I found!
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/algble...en%3as,1%3af,0

As stated, I asked Tony if he wanted me to send him pics and he never responded. So Mchava, I tried to give him pics but he didn't want to see them. Now I know that this is going to turn into a popularity contest but the simple facts of my case are that he didn't lose any of my corals. I was shipped less corals than I was supposed to receive and the wrong ones at that. The Acan was DOA because of lack of water. Bad packing. The yuma had absolutely NO hot pink color to it and it was dying when I got it. It was in a container of mush that I assume was other mushrooms like he claims. Another thing is that I only asked him to send me the corals that he never sent in the first place! Not to reimburse me for the dead ones. Him main beef this whole time was that I should give him his money back for the corals that he lost. THOSE WERE NOT MY CORALS! My corals were fine. He never addressed if my corals had red bugs on them.
Let me ask you this Mchava, did my blue tort have red bugs? Tony has not once mentioned any of my corals having red bugs. Once again, everything he got from me was fine and it lived. Why should I reimburse him? Another thing is that through the first month and a half that I was trying to get the corals that he owed me, he never mentioned getting red bugs or corals dying. When he mentioned it for the first time I asked to see pics of the dead corals. I didn't get anything. I produced pics. Let see yours.

Al G Blenny · #17 02/13/2005, 02:57 AM

You guys have to read this also!! VERY FUNNY!!
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...5&pagenumber=1

jero1 · #18 02/13/2005, 03:49 AM

Man that IS funny!So don't feel special...we're not the only ones!

Al G Blenny · #19 02/13/2005, 03:52 AM

Yeah, someone else just E-mailed me saying that they got ripped off by Tony and they want to do some trades with me. Maybe this will work out for the better.

jero1 · #20 02/13/2005, 03:59 AM

right on!

Al G Blenny · #21 02/13/2005, 04:11 AM

Just to let everyone here know Tony is now trying to blackmail me. He is trying to get me kicked off of RC by claiming that I buy wholsale corals and turn around and sell them here on RC. I have never done that. I own an aquarium servicing company and buy some corals wholsale for my customers. I have a few colonies that I have picked up for myself. The only colony that I have ever "traded" was a Cali tort colony and that was to him. I got the original frag from ROAB about three years ago. If anyone here ever sees my tank they will see mostly frags. Most of my colonies are grown from frags. What's funny is that Tony was the one when he was at my house talking about getting corals from wholesellers in his area and selling them. He doesn't even have a business license to do that! This guy is a real crook!

AtlanticReef · #22 02/13/2005, 04:15 AM

You guy have to read this thread. Some one made very good money on the RC....without paid anything.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=525861

Al G Blenny · #23 02/13/2005, 04:18 AM

HAHAHAHA! That is hilarious! Are you trying to say that all of my frags are from wild colonies? Like the Tyree LEs? Or those super rare digis? I got most of those free at SEABAY meetings. You are a funny guy Tony.

NwG · #24 02/14/2005, 03:06 AM

Ok kids... you 2 are funny... something funny to read!!!
I have a few questions for atlanticreef....
1. It seams you have traded frags before.. When you get a new frag you toss it stright in the tank? ? ? You read the sps fourm.. there are like 25 new red bug threads everyday!!! Why would you risk your system and not use a standard dip/QT method??? (not sayin the bugs came from AL..)
2. Why wouldn't you follow the treatment plan for red bugs to the T ?? Simply dipping all your corals is most likely not going to rid you of the bugs and just may stress new frags to death...
3. How fast did you say the bugs killed these frags? I have red bugs in my tank yet my acros still grow and are pretty healthy... I plan on treating next week.. I don't think I am going to loose any corals from bugs before next week... Those must have been some pretty mean bugs... If the bugs were so bad and the frags so unhealty, why did you buy them??? You were at the house!! it is not like it was a internet trade with pics...?...

From what it looks like to me nobody is going to win in this one... but at least someone will learn the powers of a good QT method...

NwG · #25 02/14/2005, 05:25 AM

I just want to add I am not tryin to put you down tony.. I just think you were a little quick to jump to the point and flame al about this and that....
tony, Go back and look at all the people you traded frags with... lots...
now look at all those red bug threads... I think you will find that a few people you traded with have them....
and why were you banned from RC around new year?