Ideas for group buys...

I had a chance to stop at rod's reef in dekalb this weekend and picked up some food (along with way too much other stuff). If anyone wants to try the food I can cut off a piece from my block, as it will probably die of freezer burn well before I use the whole thing.

I talked to rod about picking up a bunch of food for the group and he said that the $23 price was for people willing to drive all the way out to his store, otherwise its $30. He did give me his card and said that he would definitely be willing to sell to a store around us if we were interested.

If anyone is heading south the store is worth checking out, lots and lots of neat corals and thousands of baby clownfish. I went in expecting to spend $20 on food and got out at around $200.
 
About 3.5-4 hours south in the far western suburbs of chicago. I do head down there about once or twice a month if you want anything picked up.
 
basicsafty, What is this food anyway? I mean, what's in it? I'd try some if you wanna sell a 5$-10$ chunk...

Jason
 
here are the ingredients:

Shrimp, scallop, oyster, clam, Squid, octopus, enriched brine, krill, mysis, grouper, Red Plankton, broccoli, carrots, colliflower, Red Nori, green nori, selco, garlic, Golden pearls (all sizes) DTs oyster eggs, nutra rose powder, fresh rotifers, fresh baby brine.

My clowns seem to like it, but they get equally excited about flake food. I think it would take a few months to really see a difference in coral growth. I'll try target feeding some of my more stubborn corals tonight. If you want a chunk I can break one off for you, send me a pm and we can figure it out.
 
If there's enough interest in it, I can always talk to Rob and bring a bunch in here as well. I've got a nice-sized chest freezer I bought simply for frozen food (fish food, not people food) and will have plenty of space. Work on the fish room continues...
 
What about a group sea salt buy? Just an idea that I had. If you look here. Thats $1000 for 38 200gal buckets.:eek2: That comes out to $26.32 per (200gal)bucket.
It is red sea though. I know that it did well in Eric B's salt trial, whatever that means:confused: I have never used it. I know that alot of you like to use IO. I think someone said somthing about red sea not mixing well, not sure.

Anyway I could go and get it (where ever that is). And I would just buy it all up front. But thats a lot of salt. Is there any interest in $27 buckets of salt. If I could unload, say.... 15 buckets, right away. It would be doable. I like the idea of half price salt. Who's in?

Ant
 
Tempting... we should pitch that at the WI group as well. wonder if that's doable, I'd be in for 100$... definetly not 104+$ thought (JK)


only 900$ to go...

GO ANT! WHOOOOOO!

Great Idea... you win my left over turkey!

J
 
Could have it dropped at the brickyard, we have the lifts to unload it.... and it's in southern GB that would be more convienient for dispersal... let me know it you want me to check on this...

What about one of those BIG bins, and we could divide it up by the dry gallon....


Don't know how the 2x happened, but... I was able to add something useful.


J
 
and it's in southern GB that would be more convienient for dispersal...

Mabe for you lol. It would be on my truck. (I'm a t driver) So it would be in little chute (where I live:p )

What about one of those BIG bins, and we could divide it up by the dry gallon....

this
thread makes me think that it would come in 200gal buckets. I would have to double check though.

I would like some input from someone that has used this salt in the past. It would suck if I got a bum batch from a bum lot #. But half price....... :smokin:
 
If all they have done is redesign the graphics on the bucket, and change to the round bucket instead of that dang inconvient square style one, it's the same stuf I have used in the past.

10-4 on the Appleton thing...

I do a fair amount of purchasing, for the company, and it's been my experience that the packaging is 1/3 or slightly more the cost. For this reason, if cost is the concern, what about going to one of the drums that F+S has in the photo of their new prop fascility... I can't seem to find a pic, but these were about 5' in diameter and about 4-5' high drums... the druM was on a pallet for easy move with a fork lift.


Now, I'm not proposing trying to buy one from f+s - mostly because I would be afraid of the markup%, and I wouldn't dream of saying every bucket is the same size, but what if... the price could be dropped below 20$ for 200 g. If it were me, I would buy a 40 gallon drum, and buy 1600 gallons or so worth of salt this way. Like 160$. Fast math. But I thought there were like 12,000 gallons worth in those things... but at that rate, I could suggest a few people that may want to jump in to take the sting out if we could find them.

To help those following along: 38 pails X 200 gallons = 7600 gal

And just 4 people buying 1600 gallons is 6400 gallons worth, and I don't know why anyone with a 150 gallon and larger system wouldn't do this... and of course there is the problen with getting an actual price...and shipping.

Anyone else interested? Should this be persued. I'd be willing to make some calls next week, but we need to have more than 2 people interested. I think we'll set the magic number at 4 more people chime in, and I'll call and start a new thread. We can explore it both ways...

J
 
I would buy a 40 gallon drum, and buy 1600 gallons or so worth of salt this way.

I follow your thinking, and I can see how this could work, but I would be concerned about settling. High in calcium this time..... high in alkility the next.....For folks that make up less than 100gal at a time...... I would be looking for the smaller amount packaging.

So you have used red sea in the past? Will it mix up OK? Did you like it or no?

@ Aquatic ecosystems.com It says that the 7600gal order will come directly from the plant. I figured that I could find out where that is, and ship the stuff on the back of my trailer.:D That would save shipping costs. It seems to me that shipping is the one factor that really drives up the cost on salt.
 
I would use the drum only to transport and store. To mix, I would add it to my rubbermaid brute.

For those ith under 100 gallons, bringing a salt bucket to the pickup, a brand new bucket of salt could be weighted to determine the weight, then after that, each bucket could be scaled off to 200 gallons worth of mix...

I also read what your saying about the back haul. That would save a bundle.

I have never had problems with Red Sea... I have been getting a weird slime in my Reef Crystals though. I change salt mixes frequently to offer the most in diversity of elements to my system, sometimes I exen mix between them. Dan likes Red Sea, I'm sure he'll weigh in on their quality.

I have never heard that the calcium or alk settles out of the mix, thought it was blended in crystaline form. do you know something I don't?

J
 
I've had good luck with the Red Sea salt in the past. Using the Reef Crystals right now, mainly because of price (and they seem to dissolve a lot faster/nicer than the RS). I'd be interested in what you guys come up with, especially considering that I'll be running 500+ gallons worth of salt within the next few weeks.
 
500+ gallons worth of salt within the next few weeks.
Well I am kinda broke this month. (darn holidays) So I wouldn't be able to do anything untill jan-feb.

seem to dissolve a lot faster/nicer than the RS
Yup, this is what I have read before. But at $27 per bucket I prob could deal with it just fine.


I have never heard that the calcium or alk settles out of the mix, thought it was blended in crystaline form. do you know something I don't?

No, I don't know anything special. Just what I have read

"and that reminds me similarly of a problem that was a bigger issue some years ago, but still is current (worse by folks that do not seal salt bags tightly after reuse), but...

It is possible to get some settling and separation of ingredients in salt mixes (especially the cheaper brands/lower QC). As such, you'll be OK as long as you mix up the whole batch at once... but when splitting bags/boxes and revisiting... you may have differences in the composition of the seawater made in separate stages.

Its best to mix up whole batches (as per bag/box portion) and store the seawater rather than make less new SW and store the remaining salt. Buy smaller bags/boxes as needed."

More from that thread.

"yup... as Paul states. And your mileage may vary pending salt brand/batch. But its shoryt and sweet - best use if mixing the whole batch at once. After the salt leaves their plant, the concern is shaking, driving, virbrating... settling of ingredients into a skewed mix.

That said... QC and formulations really are quite good for the best brands nowadays. But still its best to hdge your bets. Get your good value for buying bulk, but mix the bacth at once and store saltwater rather than storing unused partial portions of sea salt mix."

Somthing else to keep in mind is that salt can turn into a brick if it is not sealed off from moisture. That could become an issue with such large amounts. I have heard that IO is esp prone to this. But I have had it happen to the Tropic Marin that I currently use if I don't seal the bucket up tight. Not sure I would want a bunch in a rubbermaid trash can.
 
I'm really not in any rush either...I've got about 600 gallons worth of salt mix hanging around right now...
 
I would be interested just depends where the stuff will be shipped to, i would be interested in mostly live stuff, no dry goods
 
I do a fair amount of purchasing, for the company, and it's been my experience that the packaging is 1/3 or slightly more the cost.
Click to expand...

Well you were right. The salt would come in a one ton supersac. Red Sea is a company that is based out of Israel. The pick up point would be a warehouse in houston Tx.

There hasn't been a whole heck of a lot of interest here, so right now I am not to sure about the whole thing.

I am thinking that I would have to divide the thing up into 24 pound garbage bags (100gal mix) to make it more appealing to those that don't want to buy crazy abouts of salt all at once. That would be a fair amount of work. (did i mention that I am lazy) It would also add cost because I would have to find something to put the bags in. It would take six 38 gal g buckets to hold all this stuff. The cost to me would be around $12 per bag without the cost of the gbuckets & bags. So all in all it would be less than $15 per 100gal mix I think. That is a lot cheeper than the tropic marin that I currenty buy,($50 per 200gal mix) but it gets tricky when you compare it to IO. Salt is sold by the wieght not by however many gal it mixes up to. So a 160 gal bucket of IO would be 180gal by tropic marin's standards. But to compare like that would be too easy. Different salt ingredients have varying amounts of water in them, making different salts vary in weight. So who knows.:rolleyes:

In any case, at this point I am not sure. I would welcome any thoughts or suggestions from anyone else.

Anton
 
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