AquaLife......hmmmmmmmm......

I called and asked if they still had them - They said they didnt keep them... I complained, but a fat lot of good it did me.

I just dont have time to pursue it further... If I had more time I wouldn not have brought the frags to the LFS in the first place.
 
Just to back what Pico1 said, Matt has always been an upstanding and educated employee.

I have known Matt for about three years. He worked at AquaLife and then moved to Tahoe/Truckee and worked at a LFS to ski/snowboard a winter and then returned to AquaLife. He is one to set his customers in the right direction.

I personally would think that Matt had absolutely nothing to gain from your SPS's.
 
Just because you know someone at a LFS, does not mean you KNOW them or how they are with there personal life and personality.

Many people think think they know there neighbors, but when they go and kill or do something along that line, whats the first thing out of the persons mouth. "Oh they were so nice", OH Inever thought", "Oh they always kept to themselves"

What did he have to gain from it.. Hmm lets see over $100 in frags, that means free frags for him and profit from fraggin in the future.

PLenty to gain.

AND I got a good looking frag of rasberry zoo's from TK and she drove them down and waited for me, and after that I went out to eat and then took them home, which was about a 2 hour total and they are still alive in my tank

Im sorry TK, Want me to get some Muscle invovled.... Im just kiddin :-)
 
Maybe I am naive, but I trust RasRobre's assessment of Matt's character. RasRobre has years of experience in dealing with people in this hobby, and he has very good judgment of people. Unless we have proof otherwise, I would rather give the Matt the benefit of the doubt. It appears that Matt had previous positive reputation. Why would he risk it over $100 worth of frags? If he wanted corals, he could have gotten them at wholesale.

Did Matt prematurely concluded the coral was "dead." Maybe. Should have have kept the frags after talking to TK and TK not asking it back? Well, if I was in that situation, I would have gotten rid of it right after the phone call. Having a "dead" coral in your frag tank is not a good way to attract customers.

I am not questioning TK's motive or character either. I am friend with TK. I just think there may have been some miscommunication or mistakes, but I don't think there were any intentional fraud going on.

Minh
 
Actually, most employees cannot buy stuff at wholesale prices. Atleast when I worked for a LFS I did not have that luxury. I paid the same discounted price as many other customers received. A store has to make money regardless. Anyway... beside the point... but misunderstandings do happen.
 
I don't know either person personally, but IMO if Matt made the call to say they were dead, when in reality it would take longer for those corals to really look and be dead, perhaps he isn't as knowlegable as he seems....? Not siding with anyone, but like NU2SW said, people aren't always what and who they seem.
Just my 2 cents.
 
Without divulging too much information about RasRobre - I can tell you that he probably knows more about this hobby than the majority of the people on RC. So for a LFS employee to trick RasRobre into thinking that the employee is an expert is unlikely. It's like me going to a computer store, and having a sales person trick me into thinking he's an expert when he isn't. Highly unlikely - but possible.

Let's assume Matt is an expert - but even expert make mistakes. (I once spent three hours rebuilding a machine because the sound wouldn't work, only to realize later that the speakers weren't plugged into a computer.)

Tristan - you're probably right. But he might get them at a pretty good discounted price. :D
 
Just a couple points... and then I will let this be.

I bagged the frags personally, and knew them to be alive. Maybe not exactly happy, but certainly alive. The water was dirty after the departure of the rock and sand. As for myself I have to claim at least partial responsibility for not running them down to a LFS I am familiar with before I sold my Rock - Unfortunately there were a few things going on last weekend that prevented me from doing the correct thing.

There is also the fact that I sent them with my husband and he cant tell me one way or the other, they all just look like pretty sticks to him. :lol:

Anyway, I have nothing against Matt, I can recall a few people mentioning him being a nice educated LFS employee they trust in the past. Fair Enough, I am certainly not trying to defame a person I have not met even once.

The real thing that burned me was acclimation time. From Yourreefs website:

2. Again we have found proper acclimation to be the single most important step in insuring that your new animals survive the transition into there new environment. Most deaths can be attributed to rushing this procedure and introducing your new arrivals to your tank to quickly. Follow this procedure
even if an item look to be dead or dieing. Often they are just severely stressed and will recover if acclimated correctly).

1 hour after frags were dropped off I recieved the "Cant Give you any credit, the frags are all dead" call.

...Anyway, I dont want to accuse anyone of doing something unethical, esspecially when they are not here to discuss the matter and defend themselves. I will However venture a guess that a mistake was made. Having Matt's character defended by members that I respect and trust certainly makes me think a simple mistake is likely the culprit.

Pains me to admit it... But There is that possibility (however improbable :lol: ) That I maybe just flat wrong. :eek2:
 
I phoned AquaLife today to speak directly with Matt about this incident.

Guess what? There are two Matt's that work at AquaLife and the one I know was not involved with this.

He did say however that he had heard of the story and according to the other Matt the corals all lost their zooxanthellae while still in TK's bags and acclimation was a moot point.
 
hold hold up there is two matts at aqua life youre talking about the young one iam the older matt and i wasnt even there Iam ****ed i don't know who said that you could bring them in but know one should say that so iam not buying it i came in the next day the storie i was told is that the water in the bag was at least 90 so what did you expect to get i stand buy my customer service and work hard to help alot of people in this hobbie and do it with a smile so please watch what you say this is hurting my reputation
 
sorry about youre losses

sorry about youre losses

Iam sorry about youre frags it would bumb me out too, but if it makes you feel better about aqualife i personally will give you some frags from my tank i have 240 sps and ill be moving soon. I just hope you relize that most of us at aqua lifetry very hard to remember and help create the aquascape youre looking for heck i have many customers that call me at home for advice and i dont mind a bit i just want people to enjoy the hobbie as much as i do so if you need frags let me know but theres notthing i cant do about the credit its out of my hands
 
the truth

the truth

first of all there was nothing to gain the frags were not in shape to sell but they should have never took them in young matts defence hes a noob i wish i was there to say not to take them aqualife is a upstanding lfs and we work very hard to keep it that way
 
:rolleye1:

this is going to be interesting.

Please dont say you can go defend him because hes a noob, Yes we all make mistakes, but If he does not know what they look like dead, then he should not be stating that they are dead.

Also, TK would NOT have her husband drive down from 45 minutes north of roseville, with out calling first and asking "hey Id like to bring these in". As you said you were not there, so you cant say that someone didnt tell her to come in. But as you said hes a noob and maybe he did. Point is, She wouldnt have them drive down that for if they said NO.

Again, How can you state the frags were not in the state or shape to sell. You were not there. the water was at 90, 90 what trites/trates?

So the Young matt claims they are dead, Did anyone second that?

Anyone think, "Hey well lets give them 3-4 hours and QT them and see if they come back and look ok." In the Event that they were totaly defunk and dead, then They should have been bagged, put aside and the owner should have been called and informed, "Yes the frags dont look to good, I dont think they are going to make it. Please come pick them up." So she could have "Proof that they were "dead".

so the question yet to be answered
So where are the corals?

Trashed- You should not have trashed them, They were not yours to trash.

Taken- Well someone has some explaining to do.

But the sad thing is we are never going to find out, what the truth really is.
 
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Lesson to be learned.......

Keep all your frag trade and sales within the club....
That way, everyone will be the most statisfied all around.....

IMO, I would have rather given them away than deal with the hassle of trying to get store credit.......No mattter what it is you are trying to trade in,or what store, be it a car or a coral, you NEVER get a fair trade in......it just business.

At least by giving them away you have cut out the middle man, and have possiblly in the end made a point to the LFS that there are other options for us as customers, and for them to rise to the level that you expect. That is the whole point of these threads all of the time CORRECT? There needs to be some reason in the big picture for all of these complaints.....Is there a club mission statement, that has been adopted....for example: To improve the quality of LFS for the large voice MARS represents? Maybe there should be.

My point would be because, without a clear reason for all of these threads, we would look like a bunch of cheapo, whinners, rather than a passonate group that represents a large customer base. I believe the first example in the past is the one most LFS are under the impression of us being.

I would expect, that trades for credit would be handled differently now, or taken more seriously, because you as a customer do so.

Food for though, I just would like to see all of these complaints to add up to something, and accomplish something greater for all rather than create friction and animosity between the club and LFS.
 
the water was at 90, 90 what trites/trates?

I assumed that 90 was referring to the temp of the water, 90 degrees f. That would kill a coral pretty quickly, especially in a bag.

It's really sad that these corals ended up with this fate after being cared for in Total's tank. There were mistakes on both sides of this and they died as a result.

I agree that trading within the club is great, we can share frags and spread our colonies as we do at swaps and meetings. If working with the LFS though, we need to come up with a standard way of practice with the owners, not one of the employees that may not be authorized or qualified to make a deal. Perhaps the club can help in setting up standard rules of engagement for members with the LFS to avoid this kind of bad feelings, flaming and loss of livestock.
I don't expect to get retail or even close when trading in frags for store credit. When I took some frags in to John he gave me a fair estimate of what he could sell them for and gave me a fair percentage in store credit. I gained room in my tank and a Phosban reactor. He didn't make a killing on that deal, but ensured a happy and returning customer.
 
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