pa1ntbru5h's 300+ Gallon Build Thread

2nd I will address Stephen aka pa1ntbru5h on reefcentral. This is another case of someone claiming not to want to ruin a reputation while simultaneously ruining a reputation. Stephen came to me with the understanding that his “established” fish would always be a risk to his tank. He understood that he would not be maintaining a disease free tank but rather introducing disease free fish into an environment where disease most likely lay dormant. He chose to purchase fish from me despite these warnings.
The first group of fish he purchased from me were 3 sunburst anthias. The three fish were quarantined alongside three other sunburst anthias and those three anthias are still thriving to this day in another customer's tank. My other customer is extremely diligent with the proper QT process and has great success. When I deliver fish to a new environment I have no control over whether that environment is suitable for the fish to thrive. Despite knowing this and having a no refund policy I still gave Stephen credit toward another fish because I was attempting to build a good relationship with him as a customer.
I sold him a personally owned fish, a gem tang, that had been fully QT and in my medication free display for an entire month. In that time it never showed any signs of velvet. My entire display tank would have been wiped out in that time if the gem tang did have velvet yet my display tank continued to thrive with no signs of disease.
Stephen then waited until the last minute to contact me about the gem tang. He then asked me to pick up all of his fish from his display tank to re QT while he did a 76 day fallow period. I even offered this service to him at a discounted rate. During this entire situation I took the time and was in regular contact with Stephen giving him advice and listening to his concerns. When he asked me to drive out to him and pick up his fish I again took the time(without charging him a pick up fee) to drive over an hour to his home. He waited until I was 15 minutes away to call and tell me he no longer wanted my help because he couldn’t catch all his fish and was overwhelmed by the entire situation. Despite the frustration of being flaked on I didn’t hold it against him. Stephen calls me “unreasonable” and unwilling to work with him yet I have continued to work with him, help him, give him free advice and give credits for fish even when I didn’t have to. He demanded a full refund on Jan 4th at 9:53pm. This conversation continued until 12:53am with no resolution because he refused to accept facts and a no refund policy. I did not get “aggressive” or “snap” at him. I simply didn’t bend to his will. I understand that being told no can sometimes make people emotional but I was straight forward in my conversation with him.

As far as the achilles and the hybrid they were both healthy upon delivery. I had 2 achilles and 1 hybrid QTing in one tank separated by dividers. One of those achilles is still very much alive and in another customer's tank. The hybrid and other achilles went to Stephen and are now apparently dead from velvet while the other achilles is still disease free.
I dropped them off December 4th to Stephens home and he claims that they died within the first several days of being in his care. He waited to contact me until January 4th about the death of these two fish. On top of that he had nothing but good things to say about my business on January 3rd when he posted about me in the forums.
He claims to not want to destroy a small business yet his argument for why TSM Aquatics couldn’t be responsible for the velvet is because of how large their facility is and how many employees they have. I am simply a small business running out of my home with just my wife and I running it so he automatically targeted me. The size of the business does not determine how legitimate it is. He was more likely to get a small business to comply with his demand for a refund from purchases made over a month ago than to go after a large business that would laugh at him for even trying. He even threatened me with “escalating” the situation if I didn't provide him with a refund. I would never point my finger at TSM Aquatics. Stephen and I have had conversations about their stellar reputation. I’m trying to help Stephen understand that I can not take responsibility for his fish when he’s introducing multiple livestock sources at once.
My take away from this is that some customers need to be properly educated on disease processes and proper environments for fish to thrive and to maintain a disease free tank.

One thing that really bothered me about Stephen is he told the community he is only writing this review to protect the community from people like me yet in the same breath admits he wouldn’t even be writing this review if I would have given him his refund. So he is telling everyone here that if he had contracted a disease from my business, he would not tell anyone as long as he got his money back. It seems to me this is less about protecting a community and more about money. I get that times are tough for everyone financially, but wrongfully demanding refunds from small businesses is not the way to go about things.
 
Next I’d like to address Yosafi aka reeftron5000 on reefctentral. Yosafi first came to me and disclosed that he had dealt with ich in his tank. He pulled his existing fish out of his display and used the tank transfer method and placed them back into his display without any fallow period. Anyone with a basic knowledge of disease processes would know that this an ineffective way to rid your tank of ich. I explained this to Yosafi in great detail. He still insisted on following through with buying fish from me. Three of the small fish he received from me ended up going down his overflow into the sump 3 to 4 times each resulting in their death. We discussed in length solutions to covering the overflow however Yosafi was negligent and didn’t fix the problem. In an effort to build a good customer relationship with Yosafi I offered him discounted fish to replace the ones that died due to the overflow situation. Something I didn’t need to do at all. I offered him a Male Lineatus Wrasse(retailing at $432 without QT) and a Male Flame Wrasse(retailing at $464 without QT) for $500 total. It is also worth mentioning they were both QTed. This was not because I felt guilty in any way. This was because I knew he was struggling with losing his fish and I wanted to give him a great deal and help build our business relationship. This is contrary to his statement that I “was looking to make some quick money and exploited some peoples trust to get there”.

Yosafi began texting me claiming the Lineatus brought the ich into his tank. But people who are experienced with disease know that wrasses have such a thick slime coat that it is rare to ever see ich on a wrasse. I am doubtful the wrasse had ich. The pictures he sent me didn’t show ich in my opinion and his description of the spots was that they didn’t look like raised grains of salt. The pictures were so blurry that any disease diagnosis would have been impossible on my end. So I was relying 100% on his word. After speaking with him(again taking time to care for him and his fish) he said he no longer believed it to be ich. As far as I know the Lineatus wrasse is still alive. Yosafi contacted me 10 days later and explained that his tangs had broken out in ich and he was sure this time. He again began to accuse me of being responsible for bringing ich into his tank even after agreeing with me the wrasse did not have ich. He told me he wanted me to QT all 16 of his fish for free because he felt that I owed it to him. He was very angry when I wouldn’t agree to doing that since I have a business to run and I can’t QT fish for free. He was demanding a 76 day free QT. He clearly had unrealistic expectations. I’m not aware of any deaths other than the ones that went down the overflow multiple times. I have no idea if his fish are alive or dead. He has not made that information public or spoken privately to me. So instead of offering evidence on the forums he just makes a post trashing me and venting his anger. I am going to point out that Yosafi recently posted asking if you can sell coral safely from a tank with ich and was told to go ahead and do it. This is just pure misinformation…...proof to me that people are out there blaming others in this community for disease when they most likely just brought it into their own tanks through sheer negligence. People that understand marine ich know that once ich is detected that all livestock is considered contaminated including inverts and corals. This clearly demonstrates that Yosafi lacks even a basic understanding of Marine Ich, and accusations from him cannot be taken seriously

I hope this clears things up. Better for the people in this community to have both sides of the story. All business operations have been put on hold in order to address these false accusations. I have seen start up businesses crushed by this community before. My personal phone number will no longer be given to anyone in this community since it has been used as a way to access me in an inappropriate way. I will only communicate through the forum DMs and only with customers I’m still currently working with. One of the strengths of my business has been my ability to respond quickly and to allow customers access to me in order to seek advice. Unfortunately due to the actions of a few irrational individuals I will no longer be able to provide contact through my personal phone.

I say this as words of warning to those of you feeling you may want to start up a business related to this hobby. Be cautious who has your personal phone number, your home address and who you allow around your family. Be aware of customers like these three that will take anything they can from you, call themselves your friend but in the end they will bleed you dry. Others have posted that I am moving. This is true and has been in the works for years now. Moving to Maine is completely irrelevant to the false accusations I’m addressing today. I would not move to Maine just to get away from these three. In the end the number of great customers strongly outweighs the number of bad ones….I can honestly say there have only been a few. I have been a part of the socal reefing community for 20+ years. Some of you here have even known me since I was 12 years old. Despite my move to the East Coast the socal reefing community will always be special to me. I’ll always be grateful for the learning experiences and opportunities this community has provided me . If you made it this far thank you for listening.
 
Well i have been off for awhile but here is my take on fish and quarantine.
1) parasites and disease are trigger by stress. The fact is your old fish can live in your tank for years and still got ich once in awhile.
2) quarantine need much longer than a couple weeks plus a true quarantine need alot of works. From fluke to internal parasite to bacteria infection you need to treat your fish through many stages to be sure. Most fish dealer will use copper and maracyn which effective on most parasites and bacteria however they only do it for 1 or 2 weeks which mean too short. The best way for me is to keep the fish by itself and observe at least more than a month and if then the fish is eating and gaining weight then i can introduce it to the main tank.
Your tank is still new therefore your fish is still conditioning to the water. Adding fish will cause stress both for old and new fish. Stress is the number one cause of parasites out break. Most of your fish u described are the delicated type which mean they are prone to diseases since they stress out easily.
 
My purple tang, tomini tang, dussermieri tang, and scopas are happy to be back in the 320!

The few tester corals I had in the tank started losing color. Hopefully now with some tang poop they'll start to bounce back!
 
My purple tang, tomini tang, dussermieri tang, and scopas are happy to be back in the 320!

The few tester corals I had in the tank started losing color. Hopefully now with some tang poop they'll start to bounce back!

Keeping an eye on your thread, I'm trying to "œbounce back" myself but really the only things that survived my crash were bryopsis and bubble algae.
 
Sorry to hear about all your fish problems lately. On another note, how is the Coralcare Gen2 working out? I'm still picking my lighting. At first, I was set on Radion's. But after much thinking, I think I'm still set on having LED's, but more towards a wider array for more spread.
 
Sorry to hear about all your fish problems lately. On another note, how is the Coralcare Gen2 working out? I'm still picking my lighting. At first, I was set on Radion's. But after much thinking, I think I'm still set on having LED's, but more towards a wider array for more spread.

I personally love the CC Gen 2s. If you love the look and spread of T5, you'll love the CoralCares. I can't really say too much on the growth aspect yet since tank is still relatively empty. Just keep in mind they're big and weigh 15 lbs each. They're beefy and have really solid build quality.
 
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