bad tank builder

Gen,

I am no attorney, but I would think that you would have to honor the warranty on the first tank. The first tank had nothing to do with the second/third tank. I bet if it went to small claims court, he'd win. Not trying to defend the other guy, but I can see where he's coming from. I can also see why you don't want to honor his warranty.

Koden - I think that if the other party does not show up for court, the judge will usually rule in favor of the party that did show up. Like I said - I am no attorney - I just watch a lot of Judge Judy. :lol:

BTW - from everything that I have heard, I would not hestitate to order from him at all.

Minh
 
Last edited:
Well.

Well.

I've ben involved in a couple, one related to a non-smogable vehicle. Most times, the party who does not shows up is ruled against.

While the OP may have been a slow/non-payer on the later tanks, if he payed for the first one he could most likely sue in small claims and win if that tank actualy fails.
Being a slow payer on later transactions does not giver a seller the right to unilaterally rescind a warranty on the first. Unless its clear to the judge he got over on the seller, and even then its kind of iffy.
Guess the moral of the story is don't trade in the now for something in the future unless you really know someone.
 
What's the dimesions and thickness of your acrylic?

Gen built a custom overflow tank for me about a year ago. I initally wanted to save some money and go with thinner acrylic but upon review of Gen's advice about tank bowing, I decided to go with the thicker acrylic. The tank is something out of the norm and Gen was very helpful in it's design and build. He took time out of his busy schedule to make sure the tank was done correctly.

I wouldn't hesitate either in buying a tank from him.
 
I hate to do this to you Gen but I have to post about my experience. I had a profesional relationship with Gen and I won't buy from him EVER again. I had one of my biggest customers order a sump. I was told it would be ready in a couple of weeks. I called about three weeks later and it wasn't ready. I called a couple more weeks later. It wasn't ready. This went on for like 3 months. Finally when it was ready I had lost the customer. I was making about $1000 a month on this customer and they were about to have me set up 2x2000 gal tanks for them. I would have pocketed about $100,000 on these tanks. I lost out big time. I probably should have just canceled the order and gone with TruVu but he kept telling me that it would be ready and I wanted to believe him. Now another local store has the account and I hear about it all the time.

I am glad to hear other people had better experiences. He wouldn't be in business if it was always like this.
 
I decided to add a couple of things.

First is that if you know that it might take a while Gen does do very nice work. A few of my customers have Kritter tanks and they have lasted a long time while looking as good as any TruVu tank. I have to give him that.

Another thing is that his prices are great when it comes to custom. Since everything from him is custom (every tank is built to order unlike TruVu) he doesn't charge twice the price to add an inch to the length. Bigger companies have to stop production and spend a lot more time on custom tanks. Thats why they cost more.

All in all if you don't mind risking the project taking a LONG time it might be worth ordering from him.
 
nothing agaist Gen....but the stuff with the small claim court was not even about my tank. he build two tanks for family member and both time each member try to pay him(when he deliver the tank) and he would delcine it for exchange for my serivce. i was invole cause i help him close the deals on those tanks. as for one of the tank, the family member even give him more money then his ask for it. And as for my tank, i didn't ask gen to replace it but ask him how to stop the marks and what can we do to fix the hair line crack on top. i email him and he say he can't fix it cause of the problems over the other two tanks that's not even mine. my tank is still under the Limited 5 Year Warranty, but it's over with and both side will move on . just needed to clear up some Pm i got from other reefer.
 
Last edited:
2x210g
You used this forum to attacked Krittertanks directly. I guess he had enough friends to tell him about it so that he could rebuttle the attacks. You didn't need to start a separate thread just to attack him, that's not what Reef Central is about. It's about information exchange. Like I mentioned in my earlier post on this thread, I have the same stretch marks on 2 TruVu tanks that I bought about 15 years ago from Nippon's and after 3 years the stretch marks showed up. There was no warranty, it was tuff luck.

Sounds like your hairline cracks might be crazing which is a by product of flame polished acrylic overtime, not sure. I would say that it is not a defect in workmanship.
 
i'm not attacked Krittertanks directly.....i ask him to help me about my problems with his product(still under Limited 5 Year Warranty) and he decline to help cause over other problems. but like i say it's over with.
 
Koden, you're probably right. Since your in the law field. :D Maybe you better draw up a contractual agreement with Krittertanks before they finish your custom tank. :D :rollface:

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7280976#post7280976 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by koden
i think there was a miscommunication. that's all. =)
Click to expand...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7280915#post7280915 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 2x210g
And as for my tank, i didn't ask gen to replace it but ask him how to stop the marks and what can we do to fix the hair line crack on top.
Click to expand...
Ok, not going to get into personal business of the two parties, but here's a suggestion on how to deal with the crack on the top of the tank.

If it were my tank, I'd cut the whole top off of the tank, going around the front, sides, and back. Then I'd take a router to the cut edge to get it flat and smooth for gluing. Then I'd glue a new top onto the fresh cut surface. Use thick pieces around the perimeter for eurobrace style, or thinner piece with cutouts for old-school look.

Flush trim the new top to size, then buff the edges to finish it all off.

If you're careful, the tank will be almost the same height as when you started.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7280182#post7280182 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Al G Blenny
I hate to do this to you Gen but I have to post about my experience. I had a profesional relationship with Gen and I won't buy from him EVER again. I had one of my biggest customers order a sump. I was told it would be ready in a couple of weeks. I called about three weeks later and it wasn't ready. I called a couple more weeks later. It wasn't ready. This went on for like 3 months. Finally when it was ready I had lost the customer. I was making about $1000 a month on this customer and they were about to have me set up 2x2000 gal tanks for them. I would have pocketed about $100,000 on these tanks. I lost out big time. I probably should have just canceled the order and gone with TruVu but he kept telling me that it would be ready and I wanted to believe him. Now another local store has the account and I hear about it all the time.

I am glad to hear other people had better experiences. He wouldn't be in business if it was always like this.
Click to expand...

After thinking about your comments and your dollar amounts, they don't make much sense. First, if someone really likes your service, you couldn't have lost them over a $150 sump. Your customer was probably thinking of leaving you already and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. :rolleyes: :rolleye1: Customers are typically very loyal if you have been making $1,000/month on them. I wouldn't atttribute the reason to Krittertanks delay on making the sump, although lengthy delays are definitely unprofessional. As for making $100,000 profit on 2 tank setups, we all must be in the wrong business. My aquarium tech just setup a custom 900g system for a very wealthy businessman. The tank is maintained 3x weekly and their monthly costs, including supplies is about $3,000/month. The project total was $50,000 and that's not the profit, that's just what the project total was. To make $100,000 on 2x custom tank setups, wow!!! We are in the wrong field of work, we all should be in aquarium installation business. :eek2:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7307821#post7307821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by UCanDoIt
After thinking about your comments and your dollar amounts, they don't make much sense. First, if someone really likes your service, you couldn't have lost them over a $150 sump. Your customer was probably thinking of leaving you already and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. :rolleyes: :rolleye1: Customers are typically very loyal if you have been making $1,000/month on them. I wouldn't atttribute the reason to Krittertanks delay on making the sump, although lengthy delays are definitely unprofessional. As for making $100,000 profit on 2 tank setups, we all must be in the wrong business. My aquarium tech just setup a custom 900g system for a very wealthy businessman. The tank is maintained 3x weekly and their monthly costs, including supplies is about $3,000/month. The project total was $50,000 and that's not the profit, that's just what the project total was. To make $100,000 on 2x custom tank setups, wow!!! We are in the wrong field of work, we all should be in aquarium installation business. :eek2: [/QUOTE

maybe the $100k includes all the rare exotic frags and coral you can ever think of and custom sculpted rock. its difficult to put a price tag on art as the value is in the eyes of the beholder. lol:smokin:
Click to expand...
 
My aquarium tech just setup a custom 900g system for a very wealthy businessman. The tank is maintained 3x weekly and their monthly costs, including supplies is about $3,000/month. The project total was $50,000 and that's not the profit, that's just what the project total was. To make $100,000 on 2x custom tank setups, wow!!! We are in the wrong field of work, we all should be in aquarium installation business. :eek2: [/B]
Click to expand...

On a $50K new tank sale I can easily imagine $15K-20K going into the pocket of the owner between profit margin and his own labor. I also think the number is fairly low. Mermaid quoted me $16K on a 210 setup. so $50K on a full-blown setup 900g setup is a very good price.

If you take the mermaid number of $16K for 210g and extrapolate it to $320K for 4000g. on a straight line I can easily imagine it being much much more because of the materials that are required for such tanks. Plus you're looking at 2 very large-scale stands in this situation. I can easily see someone dumping $600K on such a setup with a huge portion of that being in labor and high margin livestock/LR.

Now, losing the whole customer over a sump is a bit more difficult to understand. I'd think that with so much on the line something could have been done to keep the customer from bailing out. That said, customers are strange kritters at times and have been known to be incredibly unpredictable.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7307821#post7307821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by UCanDoIt
After thinking about your comments and your dollar amounts, they don't make much sense. First, if someone really likes your service, you couldn't have lost them over a $150 sump. Your customer was probably thinking of leaving you already and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. :rolleyes: :rolleye1: Customers are typically very loyal if you have been making $1,000/month on them. I wouldn't atttribute the reason to Krittertanks delay on making the sump, although lengthy delays are definitely unprofessional. As for making $100,000 profit on 2 tank setups, we all must be in the wrong business. My aquarium tech just setup a custom 900g system for a very wealthy businessman. The tank is maintained 3x weekly and their monthly costs, including supplies is about $3,000/month. The project total was $50,000 and that's not the profit, that's just what the project total was. To make $100,000 on 2x custom tank setups, wow!!! We are in the wrong field of work, we all should be in aquarium installation business. :eek2:
Click to expand...

You obviously don't know what you are talking about. You can't compare your quote for a 900g system to 2x2000g systems. First thing is you don't even know what the maximum size for a normal sheet of acrylic is. These tanks go over that size so that adds a lot more to the cost. Plus have you ever compared prices of different thicknesses of acrylic? The bigger the tank, the thicker the acrylic. Plus have you thought that there might be a lot of different equip?

As far as losing the customer, I said that I should have gone with TruVu. That part was my fault. If you have a multi-million dollar house and the giant tank in the entrance, you wouldn't want it sitting there for three months looking like garbage simply because your servicing company says they are waiting on a sump. It is my fault that I didn't just cancel my order and go with someone else. The main reason I didn't is because Gen kept telling me it would be ready in a week. You thinking that you know how a customer would react is rediculous. I'm not sure where you get that "customers are typically very loyal." I had worked in aquarium stores for over ten years and I have owned my servicing company for over five years. I have had to deal with customers many times and I'll tell you that some are just simply difficult to please. I just lost a customer because they went against my advise and fully stocked their two brand new tanks with fish and corals. The tank were less than a month old and for example they put a shark, snowflake moray, stingray, bird wrasse, lunare wrasse, puffer, clown trigger, etc.. into a 100 gal tank. The tank crashed and they would not believe it was because the added too many fish. They insist I used bad water (I used catalina).
As for my reputation, I have plenty of customers that have been with me from the beginning. In fact there are a few here on RC (I usually send reef customers here.) Most of my customers are very happy with my service.
 
After about a week and a half, my tank is done! Gen is test filling the tank tomorrow and delivering it too!

He's going to come over with his tools and he will be drilling the tank for me when he gets here so that it will fit the bulkheads I have for it.

I'll probably ask him to drill a hole for my sump as well =) I'll take pictures and start a new thread! So far Gen has been very helpful.
 
Now that's customer service. Yes, let us know how it works out. My aquarium tech just order a custom sump and a custom tank from Krittertanks and he tells me that the sump was finished within 10 days from order date and the tank will be ready within 21 days from order date.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Guygettnby
If not for bad luck...
2
Replies
21
Views
806
leebca
L
R
Harlequin Tuskfish, tank mates
Replies
7
Views
487
brookeee
B
Reef Kinetics
An Offer You Don't Want to Miss!
Replies
0
Views
332
Reef Kinetics
Reef Kinetics
Reef Kinetics
Grab The ReefBot ReefKeeper Bundle at a Steal!
Replies
0
Views
378
Reef Kinetics
Reef Kinetics
Brian60077
Be patient, wait, and do not rush to add things ???
Replies
11
Views
611
Brian60077
Brian60077
Back
Top