I just wanted to post some helpful hints for any problems that my occur while I am gone. Tomorrow Aug 21, 2007 is my last day here until I return September 10th.
First off, it was not my intention to shut down for two weeks. I have hired a new employee who was in sales at Marine Depot and is a long time hobbyist. Unfortunately, his move to Texas was delayed and we both felt it was unwise for him to start without sufficient training. Anyway, Rodney "wartskin" will be checking in here periodically as will the guys from AquaDepot. My vacation is one week work, one week play. For the first half I will be working at the factory and will have email contact and I will also check in when I can, for the second half I will have almost no contact. If you have something to send in, my warehouse guy will still be here recieving shipments and he may periodically answer the phone but he is not a hobbyist and doesn't do repairs. He is an old friend and basically he fell on hard times after getting out of the military some years back so I hired him to do shipping and recieving. That is all he does, so please be kind if he tries to help but he really doesn't know the products and much besides signing for the box and putting stuff away there is not much he can do.
Second, if something breaks, stay calm. I realize as hobbyists we invest a lot of time and money in our aquariums but nothing can be fixed by any amount of screaming and crying so just deal with the situation the best you can. If your pump breaks, certainly most hobbyists have closets full of old equipment they upgraded from, if you have no such stockpile certainly a friend or the LFS likely does, just borrow a pump to get you buy and I will get you pump repaired ASAP. Likely I will come back to at least a weeks worth of repairs and spare parts requests so I will not be able to keep to the 48hr turnaround though I will do my best to work as quickly as possible.
Some simple fixes and common misconceptions.
"My skimmer broke, everything is going to die!" Nonsense, run some carbon or better yet a polyfilter, a couple weeks without a skimmer is not a life or death situation.
"The clip on my nano stream is broken." When I get back I will send a clip, for the time being if the tabs on the back broke use hot glue or silicon to adhere it to the magnet, these peel off easily when the new clip arrives. If the arms broke, zip tie the pump to the magnet. I will actually be spending a fair amount of my time in Germany working to get this problem resolved permanently with a new clip.
"My pump is broken, everything is going to die!" This is true if you don't act, as I said, most hobbyists have spares, while your old powerheads may not be as strong they are better than nothing. If you don't have spares likely your LFS or a friend does. Get some flow going to get you by until I get back. If you have no spares, consider buying some, for something so critical it is foolish to not have a spare. They don't have to be anything fancy, a couple $20 pumps will do the job in a pinch.
"I need a spare part!" - Please contact one of our dealers, between Marine Depot, Premium Aquatics and Reef Exotics you can likely find most commonly needed spare parts in stock. Many of our LFS's also stock spare parts.
If you must reach me, you can call the factory in Penzberg, keep in mind that they are 7 hours ahead of CDT as they are in the Central Europe Daylight Savings Time. Basically, you have to call by 9:30 AM from US Central time zone. Phone is 011-49-8856-2022. Such a call can be rather expensive if you do not have international calling so please do so only if it is critical. You can also email the factory off of the tunze.com web page and they will contact me. Yes, they speak English.
Our shipping address-
Tunze USA
305 Victor St
Austin, TX 78753
Please do not call in my absence as the machine can only hold 30 messages and no one will get them until I get back.
First off, it was not my intention to shut down for two weeks. I have hired a new employee who was in sales at Marine Depot and is a long time hobbyist. Unfortunately, his move to Texas was delayed and we both felt it was unwise for him to start without sufficient training. Anyway, Rodney "wartskin" will be checking in here periodically as will the guys from AquaDepot. My vacation is one week work, one week play. For the first half I will be working at the factory and will have email contact and I will also check in when I can, for the second half I will have almost no contact. If you have something to send in, my warehouse guy will still be here recieving shipments and he may periodically answer the phone but he is not a hobbyist and doesn't do repairs. He is an old friend and basically he fell on hard times after getting out of the military some years back so I hired him to do shipping and recieving. That is all he does, so please be kind if he tries to help but he really doesn't know the products and much besides signing for the box and putting stuff away there is not much he can do.
Second, if something breaks, stay calm. I realize as hobbyists we invest a lot of time and money in our aquariums but nothing can be fixed by any amount of screaming and crying so just deal with the situation the best you can. If your pump breaks, certainly most hobbyists have closets full of old equipment they upgraded from, if you have no such stockpile certainly a friend or the LFS likely does, just borrow a pump to get you buy and I will get you pump repaired ASAP. Likely I will come back to at least a weeks worth of repairs and spare parts requests so I will not be able to keep to the 48hr turnaround though I will do my best to work as quickly as possible.
Some simple fixes and common misconceptions.
"My skimmer broke, everything is going to die!" Nonsense, run some carbon or better yet a polyfilter, a couple weeks without a skimmer is not a life or death situation.
"The clip on my nano stream is broken." When I get back I will send a clip, for the time being if the tabs on the back broke use hot glue or silicon to adhere it to the magnet, these peel off easily when the new clip arrives. If the arms broke, zip tie the pump to the magnet. I will actually be spending a fair amount of my time in Germany working to get this problem resolved permanently with a new clip.
"My pump is broken, everything is going to die!" This is true if you don't act, as I said, most hobbyists have spares, while your old powerheads may not be as strong they are better than nothing. If you don't have spares likely your LFS or a friend does. Get some flow going to get you by until I get back. If you have no spares, consider buying some, for something so critical it is foolish to not have a spare. They don't have to be anything fancy, a couple $20 pumps will do the job in a pinch.
"I need a spare part!" - Please contact one of our dealers, between Marine Depot, Premium Aquatics and Reef Exotics you can likely find most commonly needed spare parts in stock. Many of our LFS's also stock spare parts.
If you must reach me, you can call the factory in Penzberg, keep in mind that they are 7 hours ahead of CDT as they are in the Central Europe Daylight Savings Time. Basically, you have to call by 9:30 AM from US Central time zone. Phone is 011-49-8856-2022. Such a call can be rather expensive if you do not have international calling so please do so only if it is critical. You can also email the factory off of the tunze.com web page and they will contact me. Yes, they speak English.
Our shipping address-
Tunze USA
305 Victor St
Austin, TX 78753
Please do not call in my absence as the machine can only hold 30 messages and no one will get them until I get back.
