Perfecto/Marineland Tank Warranty

[Mpek]

I was a little worried when they unboxed the tank in my house.... It was an emergency situation since my Marineland 150 broke and my fish were in garbage cans in the garage. I had to get them a new tank quick! When I saw that they only used that little itty bit of silicone and no re-enforcement what so ever...I was skeptical and worried that it might some day give way. I should have never accepted that tank and should have waited for a custom build. I'm now in the design process with Living Color for a 12 footer! Woohooo! My house is still destroyed but it looks like UPG wants to process this claim through their insurance since it's a very large claim. They do have excellent customer service and I will continue to buy from them...just not large aquariums.

 

[GroktheCube]

Glad to hear they're taking care of you!

 

[tkeracer619]

Wonder who has more failures now. Glass Cages or Marineland?

 

[jerzeedevl]

So, I'm looking to purchase a 220 marineland tank. I'm going to drill it so obviously the warranty will be void. My main concern is the quality of the seams. This isn't the first I've read about the seams on these tanks. Could I apply another bead of silicone to insure or what is that just a waste. I'm more concerned with 200 gallons of water on my floor in a house that I am moving into next week. lol. Ugh....stories like this make me nervous to set up a large tank. Sorry for your lost brother!

 

[Mpek]

Thanks bud....I personally would look to see how custom glass tank makers do it. From what I understand they put several pieces of glass along all of the seams and silicone it to have more surface area to make it stronger. I also would euro brace it. That plastic rim crap for large tanks is no bueno. Look into maybe having a pro come in to help you out. Next tank is going to be acrylic for me so it can be chemically bonded together. Not doing a large glass tank again.

 

[tkeracer619]

Unfortunately acrylic isn't immune to seam separations or bracing failures but yes most people do go with acrylic when you start getting big.

 

[feersomen]

I'm curious if custom aquarium builder will be willing to offer such insurance payouts and protections should one of their aquariums leak. I'm sure leaks can and will happen on almost any aquarium. Will Reef Savy or any other custom fab plant be able to offer a lifetime warranty on aquarium and stand? What will their payout look like if you suffered such a lost?

Maybe since marineland produces aquariums in such high volume the changes of leak stories are more common than a cusom fab plant that may only do a several hundread tanks a year compared to marineland's output of thousands of aquariums.

 

[dkeller_nc]

This is just speculation, but considering the way that Reef Saavy builds tanks, I suspect that the reason one doesn't see posts about failures of their tanks isn't just that they're sold in much smaller volume than big producers like US Pet (Marineland, Perfecto, etc...).

Their tanks are built to be pretty bomb-proof; one of the clues to their design philosophy is their stated limitations on the water height in rimless tanks - 20" high on 48" long, 1/2 glass tanks, 24" high on up to 72" long tanks with 3/4" thick glass.

 

[davandwilk]

I had a 150 Deep Marineland tank and I caught mine before it let go. Mine was 3 years old.

I had my tank in a peninsula style so I can walk around the tank. I had noticed the seal in the back panel at the bottom had a bright spot (i have black silicone) when i looked down the glass pane. I had been watching it for a few weeks to see if it was getting bigger. Anyway I missed a few weeks and when I went to check it again there was less than 1/4" silicone by about 3 inches long holding on 1/2" glass at that spot. The tank was 30" high with no extra bracing at the bottom.

After draining and cleaning the tank I was able to peal the silicon off the glass in long strips. (By the way that not supposed to be possible). I ended up cutting the tank up. I thought about trying to reseal it but it ended up in the garbage.

This was 6 months ago. I ended up ordering a tank from Reef Savy. They are expensive but if I would have skipped on the cheap tank in the first place I wouldn't have to buy a second tank. I tell my wife that the tank might be expensive but im saving over 20 thousand in flooding damages to the house.

I couldn't imagine having that much salt water on my floor.

 

[skid99]

Mpek have you received anything from United Pet Group yet? My tank exploded on 3/31/15 and they offered to pay the clean up bill but after getting a copy of the invoice from my contractor for the damages they turned it over to their insurance and still haven't heard anything.

 

[Sk8r]

My tank has glass siliconed top and bottom, no rim, actually, just 5/8ths thick glass with access ports siliconned in the same way the bottom is: the canopy covers that part. I think it's probably strong enough to stand on.

 

[Mpek]

UPG is taking their sweet time in taking care of this. They forwarded my claim to their insurance company Liberty Mutual. Obviously, they don't think my house is worth how much it's going to cost to repair it so.... I'm going to give them one last opportunity before I restart the claim with my homeowners insurance. If that happens I'm hiring a Public Adjuster who is going to get everything he possibly can from my insurance. My insurance then will go through subrogation with Liberty Mutual which will end up costing them way more in court fees and retaining their lawyer. It's in their best interest to just pay out to me directly.

 

[Hal]

My Miracles tank has eurobracing on the inside at the bottom of each wall.

My Perfecto 150g center brace cracked on its own after a couple of years. After sending a few pics I got a new one under a warrantby claim. I'm selling it.

 

[Hal]

It's in their best interest to just pay out to me directly.

That assumes they have a brain and a conscious.

Sadly, most large companies have in house lawyers that they forget that they draw a salary. The companies tend to think of them as "free."

 

[Arcylon]

Mpek amd other Marineland victims, thank you for sharing your nightmare. Mpek, my situation is similar to yours. My 250 DD front seam at the base blew last week. My wife hears the Vortech's going crazy around 4am. 100 gallons has already lleaked from the tank. 1 weeks later and 40K in damages. Fortunately I was able to same my livestock and corals which are being fostered at my LFS for the time being. Glass sat on the Marineland stand which has been up since August of 2013. Crushing experience as my reef was ramping up. I have just submitted everything to marine land and now I am being taken down the insurance claim route. Good news for me as I understand quite well the insurance reinsurance capital markets world and how these products work as I've designed some myself. What I would like to ask you is how your experience was with Marineland's insurance appointed agent (Liberty Mutual is who they said they are insured by), did they come out to view your tank, if so did they take it with them? This thing stinks like crazy and I need to get rid of it and I think they expect me to keep it in the house where it is. Any insight and detail you can provide about your experience going through this process would be extremely appreciated. I'm one week in to the disaster....Regards FYI, I heard from a custom manufacturer that this was a common issue with Marineland's deep dimension tanks... I am surprised there's not a class action suit out yet. Do you think I would benefit to have my attorney involved, who I employ, so really would not be a big deal or cost to me.

 

[daveM100]

What I don't get is that if there are so many failures from their tanks why are people still buying them? Stop buying their tanks and I bet they fix this crap asap, money talks and if your company loses money they'd be on this. But still to this day I read about DD all over this site. *** people. I was even going to go with one until I researched and found tons of bad experiences.

Arcylon, if I had a lawyer at my disposal he/she would already be on this, someone needs to stop this crap.

 

[elegance coral]

Sorry. wrong post.

 

[dkeller_nc]

What I don't get is that if there are so many failures from their tanks why are people still buying them?

That might be a rhetorical question, but the answer is simple: Because they're cheap. Same reason folks buy Chinese-made knock-offs of Tunze stream pumps.

 

[davidfrances]

Mpek amd other Marineland victims, thank you for sharing your nightmare. Mpek, my situation is similar to yours. My 250 DD front seam at the base blew last week. My wife hears the Vortech's going crazy around 4am. 100 gallons has already lleaked from the tank. 1 weeks later and 40K in damages. Fortunately I was able to same my livestock and corals which are being fostered at my LFS for the time being. Glass sat on the Marineland stand which has been up since August of 2013. Crushing experience as my reef was ramping up. I have just submitted everything to marine land and now I am being taken down the insurance claim route. Good news for me as I understand quite well the insurance reinsurance capital markets world and how these products work as I've designed some myself. What I would like to ask you is how your experience was with Marineland's insurance appointed agent (Liberty Mutual is who they said they are insured by), did they come out to view your tank, if so did they take it with them? This thing stinks like crazy and I need to get rid of it and I think they expect me to keep it in the house where it is. Any insight and detail you can provide about your experience going through this process would be extremely appreciated. I'm one week in to the disaster....Regards FYI, I heard from a custom manufacturer that this was a common issue with Marineland's deep dimension tanks... I am surprised there's not a class action suit out yet. Do you think I would benefit to have my attorney involved, who I employ, so really would not be a big deal or cost to me.

One of my two (2) Marineland 250 DD's burst a seam back in March of this year. In my experience, Marineland and their representatives were sympathetic, professional, polite and responsive, and my claims were completely satisfied. I wasn't happy it happened, but the folks over at Marineland took care of me.

Just my $0.02 worth.

 

[Mpek]

Arcylon: Liberty Mutual started giving me the run around and started talking about depreciation. They said that a home that is literally less than a year old has depreciated. It took them over a month to respond to approx. two dozen emails. So, I hired a Public Adjuster and am going through my home owners insurance. After the repairs are made my insurance is going to subrogate against Liberty Mutual and the LFS that installed the tank. After that is complete I'm going to then claim the Fish Tank, Fish and whatever else my insurance won't cover through MaineLand. It's been three months since the disaster and I'm still not made whole....I haven't gotten any form of payment yet and still have the tank in my great room with all of the fried electrical equipment, sand, and not so live liverock. They won't let me get rid of the tank yet but when they start the demo...it's going. My advice to you would be; If you have an attorney that works for you have him/her draft official letters for you to help get the process done quicker. I don't trust any insurance companies and you will never be made completely whole unless you sue them for the pain and suffering. Which, I should bc this is bull crap. I lost thousands in corals that took me years to aquire and my prized fish.