Beldt's hit hard by power failure

[gantnege]

I went to Beldt's after work yesterday, and they were hit hard by the power outage. They lost ALL their coral, probably 90% of their saltwater fish, and 75% of their inverts. It was a very sad sight. The freshwater stock looked depleted as well, though not hit nearly as hard.

Anyway, there's a sign posted inside the door saying that through Wednesday, everything in the store is 20% off. Might be a good time to pick up dry goods. And any livestock which is still alive has proven its hardiness.

 

[Dert42]

thats sad to hear.
thx for the headsup

 

[beapeams]

I dropped them of some macro yesterday. Saltwater was hit pretty hard. But, for any one starting a tank. They have some pretty hardy fish left. The saltwater fish in the tanks survived almost a week with out any flow or temp control.

 

[chadfarmer]

THEY DIDNT USE A GENERATOR or generators

 

[Dert42]

i like hardy fish...
might swing up there tommarow and give em a look.

 

[jcjstl]

i went there last night only thing that scarred me was some of them seem to still be dropping off .. seen a couple tanks with what looked to be freshly dead. a small angel and an eel

 

[eahkmh]

I hate to see all that die off, and i dont like to see any business struggle, but imo i think that they could have done much more to try and save the livestock. A store of that magnatude should have been prepared, or gotten prepared real fast and limited the damage. Just my opinion.

 

[levon15]

I asked before and i assume for insurance reasons giving animals away or at a highly discounted rate would be worse than everything ding and then getting insurance to cover it but I think saving them would look better than this. We helped each other and I know this group would have helped any store that asked for it.....arent we trying to build better relationships with the stores....wouldn't this have been a good time.....anyone just needs to ask and it seems they were helped in every case

 

[saltyunderground]

Beldts was kind enough to host a SEASL event for us recently. Let's not kick them when they are down.

 

[levon15]

Was not meant as a kick, I love going to the store and buying things. Its one of the two shops I frequent in the area. I just wanted to express the frustration of watching that much livestock pass when I know people in this forum would have helped.

 

[dynamitedj]

What is more important, keeping animals alive for moral reasons OR Killing them for financial reasons? Actions ALWAYS speak louder than words. BTW These stores host these meetings for profitible reasons. I'm not saying poo on them for hosting meetings. I'm just saying lets not ignore the obvious. It makes me sick to think about how many animals died because of ignorance & selfishness.

 

[MayoBoy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7864084#post7864084 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dynamitedj
What is more important, keeping animals alive for moral reasons OR Killing them for financial reasons?

How about finding out all the facts before you go off half-cocked? That's pretty important.

 

[beapeams]

I'm not defending anyone but if it came down to you and your families lively hood or your tank biting it which would you chose. Weather it made you sick or not. I love my tank and get upset when I loose a fish, but it would not be much of a choice for me. Now that equation changes if I just have to worry about me and not my wife, 2yr old and soon to be newborn. Also, after talking with the guys up at Beldts they did try several people to hold livestock before it was lost, but they ran into the problem a lot of us did, the people they contacted were out of power as well.

So lets try and hold down the harsher comments, when you own a buisness you some times have to make descisions that aren't always what you would like to do personally, but makes good buisness since.

 

[gantnege]

GEEZ, people. I didn't start this thread to get people to criticize Beldt's.

Maybe they could have gotten generators to power SOME of their store. Maybe they tried to get some and failed. Keep in mind, though, that's a big store, maybe even the most total tank volume in town. It probably would have taken multiple generators to keep things up and running. And they're in North County, which was the area hardest hit by the storm and power outages. You don't know what the owners' personal situations were, either. Perhaps they had to choose family over business.

I just don't believe that it was a cold-hearted business decision to let everything die. The guy who waited on me Monday (possibly one of the owners?) seemed heartbroken by the loss of all their coral, talking wistfully of some neat new SPS's they had just gotten in, all dead now. And of his additional sadness as he went through invoices in helping to put the insurance claim together.

Also, as saltyunderground pointed out, they DID just host a SEASL event.

I just joined SEASL a couple of weeks ago, and have been mostly impressed with the helpful attitude and offers of help on this forum during the outages. I wanted to pass on the word of the sale and express my sadness at the impact of the power outage on one of our longest standing marine resources in town.

I, for one, intend to continue to support Beldt's for both fresh and saltwater purchases. And I hope to meet a bunch of you at the Marine Solutions event on the 22nd.

 

[beapeams]

Your right gantnege, They did really care about the loss of life. Marty had been talking for a while about getting in a black hawaiian tang to be a show fish for the store. He got it in earlier that week and it did not make it through the inital power outage on Wednesday. That really hit him. As I stated in my previous post, they did try and get help from people they knew had space for larger amounts of fish and corals, and the people they called were out of power as well. I just wanted to point out that there are also other factors to think about when you run a buisness that we do not have to deal with since we are hobbist and not buisness owners in the field. Beldts has been a great place since Marty, Tim, and Chris took over.

I will continue to give them my support, and bug them with my questions, and everyone should go to pick up something (ie supplies) from them this week to show support. They also just got in an Oceanic 29 gallon nano style cube. I plan on picking one up later this month from them for upstairs.

 

[Shooter7]

I can vouch for the above. I work with Marty's wife and she had passed on to me from him prior to the storm that he had gotten this tang in and to come down and check it out. As far as selfishness, I also agree with the above statements regarding priorities. Large amounts of people were involved in this huge mess and I think they did what they could, but had to admit that there were extenuating circumstances here that they simply couldn't combat. And they continue to lose money on it as they have had to commit to a clean up and restocking process - they're continuing to lose money as they don't have a complete stock to work with. I think for one to assume to know all the conditions involved and make presumptive statements like the one a few posts up is what is truly ignorant.

 

[Turf]

Belt's is great and they've been great to me... Best of luck pulling through.

 

[jcjstl]

I meant no ill will by my post .. i love beldts and have enjoyed going there since i was a kid and now taking my son there ...

 

[violaceous]

Even with generators it would have been next to impossible to keep everything alive and cooled in the heat wave for 7 days. I have enough trouble keeping my 2nd floor apartment below 85 with power, let alone with no power. I see no reason to believe they did anything wrong, but were in a hard hit area and victims of very unfortunate circumstances.

I am 100% behind Beldt's and will continue to support them. Noone would want to lose everything and I certainly don't think now is the time to be pointing fingers and accusing anyone of wrong-doing.

Thanks for the heads up, gantnege!

 

[chadscamaro]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7867066#post7867066 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by violaceous
Even with generators it would have been next to impossible to keep everything alive and cooled in the heat wave for 7 days.

They would of had to get a generator or generators to run the a/c . Thats what I had to do to keep my tanks cool,otherwise the heat is a loosing battle .