Aiptasia in "clean" chaeto

[AlgaeBarn]

My lord you think running a warehouse or whatever is taking up 90% of their profits or something?

And no condoms are not advertised as 100% that’s the thing.. you go link me a condom that’s 100% advertised and it’s an analogy dude lol.. the main concept you completely missed was the aids it would be no pun intended to have to clean / rid your system of the pest because of false advertisement. I don’t care what your disclaimer says label your stuff as ‘ cleaner ‘ algae not clean pest free rofl.

I don’t wanna talk about revenue and what not when I own a small business not gonna get into it but I think I know a thing or two. Anywho you say it’s advertised as 99.99% are you sure? I’m almost certain clean pest free algae means 100% and an advertisement does not include the fine text.. that’s just stuff to avoid a lawsuit to keep themselves ‘ safe ‘ I worked at an eng. Firm you’d be surprised how many times ‘ responsibility of builder ‘ or similar is quoted just to cover our arses.

This is just my thoughts on the senario as OP pointed out you do not have to agree with it but keep the degrading remarks to yourself if you’re not reasonable enough to maturely discuss things then please don’t respond.

We are not a dry good warehouse, we are essentially an indoor greenhouse. The cost to run a dry goods warehouse and an active cultivation facility that requires people here everyday are in completely different realms.

 

[mike550]

I never told you the time frame we sold 50k portions of macroalgae. You're numbers are quite a bit off with regards to our revenue, its not nearly that high. 2019 was the first year we showed a profit (we incorporated in 2012). We've been running of debt for the past ~7 years and we have no investors. I was finally able to quit my corporate job 4 years ago, and I still make significantly less than what I did when I was working corporate. The thing is that I'm not doing this for the money. We love what we do, and we are proud of what we produce. Macroalgae research doesnt have the wealth of scientific literature that terrestrial plants or bacteria or even phytoplankton. We end up having to do a significant amount of costly development work to design systems that work at scale. It's not a simple process, and we have our limitations, but we do truly desire to bring you the very best, and often with things that were not commonly available or accessible before.

You would be shocked at the cost of running a saltwater aquarium live goods company. The amount of pumps, lights, salt, and equipment you run through (salt is terrible for just about everything) would cause your jaw to drop. Most of the hobby stuff is not designed to work with how we run our operations. From the outside, looking in, it looks like a lot of $$, but our electric/gas bill alone would cause the majority of people reading this to cause their jaw to drop.

A lot of these systems do not scale linearly, and you must test quite a few different pieces of larger equipment to finally find the one that works. With the casually spending $10k+, we have been planning upgrades for quite some time (it will improve our growth rate and minimize labor). Also, we got rejected from 5 banks (we got financed with a bank in Florida...we are in Denver, Colorado), so we obviously aren't just rolling around in cash.

Also, waiting for the comments that say I don't know how to manage a business and my expenses aren't that high.

You’ve done a terrific job explaining your situation and view. I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase products from you rather than getting chaeto (for example) from a fellow reefer for much less (or even free) that looks clean and supposedly came from a clean tank. Fact of the matter there are risks. So I’ll make my decisions based upon lowest risk as a start.

Fact is at some point we all need to be accountable and responsible for our decisions.

 

[Squidward]

So the aptasia should be in the sump then? Kill them before it gets to the main display right?

 

[AlgaeBarn]

So the aptasia should be in the sump then? Kill them before it gets to the main display right?

We had overnighted a new batch of chaeto and 10 peppermint shrimp free of charge to the OP the next shipping day after this happened. The customer should be free and clear.

 

[Roachbeef19]

So the aptasia should be in the sump then? Kill them before it gets to the main display right?

Not that easy. Aptaisia will and can spread like crazy

 

[Keen4]

I had the same happen to me. I saw 4 or 5 in the chaeto after adding it to my refugium. Pulled it and tossed it immediately (unfortunately it took a couple weeks to notice). I added a few peppermint shrimp to the fuge and they seemingly kept it in check. Still see an occasional one pop up in the display though.

I just put in my chaeto today and noticed about 6 hours later that there was aphasia. I immediately threw it out and now am going to order from Algae Barn. I hope I caught it but im sure there are babies floating around somewhere. I will eventually get some peppermint shrimp and berghia nudebranch slugs in my sump and display I guess. Kind go worried now. I just set up my new tank yesterday. ULM cycle. BRStv ULM episode 8.

 

[Keen4]

If its only in you chaeto, I would throw it out and get some new from a local reefer. Once aptasia takes off it can spread everywhere, your overflow, plumbing, stuff is awful. I would also contact @AlgaeBarn and see what they can do for you.

Even though I took out my chaeto after being in for a few hours, Im sure it will spread after I took it out. Right? I sense that the baby ones are in my sump and already have reached my display.

 

[Keen4]

We had overnighted a new batch of chaeto and 10 peppermint shrimp free of charge to the OP the next shipping day after this happened. The customer should be free and clear.

This worked 100% for me. I threw in 5 shrimp into the refugium and they literally took care of the aptasia issue in a matter of hours

 

[ajtomase]

The description from their clean chaeto:
Our Macroalgae is Cleaned, Treated & Quarantined to ensure no unwated parasites make it into your system.

Must be our lucky day, 0.03% chance and we won . Both seemingly occurring within at least 3 months of each other. I didn't even bother to report my issue to them as what could they possibly do to make it right. They aren't going to be able to remove the aiptasia from my tank so really there was nothing further that I could possibly want from them.
I'm glad they are taking the steps to make sure it is soon going to be 100% clean, but maybe (maybe not) they knew something was going on hence the thousands being spent on a new system. They probably should have refrained from selling during this time.

If any of you ended up finding pests in a clean product you purchased (whether it makes it to your display tank or not) is going to leave a bad impression. I've seen people scream about vendors selling Acros with signs of flatworms, and I don't see this as any different. I get that people have vendors that they like, especially when they have had a positive interaction, and are a sponsor to this forum, but selling a clean product that isn't 100% clean needs to be called out. I wish there were a thread like this before I made my purchase.

Maybe they also could have been a bit more apologetic in their response above instead of being so defensive about not getting rich on their macro sales...that left yet another bad impression. How about a simple we are sorry that happened and are investing in a new system so that we can ensure this doesn't happen again. Then again maybe I expect too much from a vendor.

Spoke with @AlgaeBarn and it looks like the only "treatment" they do is a saltwater rise, which I would think doesn't really do anything because saltwater doesn't remove the pests like a dip in RODI, Flatworm Exit, or other products...

 

[AlgaeBarn]

Spoke with @AlgaeBarn and it looks like the only "treatment" they do is a saltwater rise, which I would think doesn't really do anything because saltwater doesn't remove the pests like a dip in RODI, Flatworm Exit, or other products...

Hi there! While we can not tell you the exact methods, we use a proprietary blend of appropriate cleaners, observational quarantine and hand cleaning by members of our staff trained to look for hitchhikers. The person you spoke with via email is new and misunderstand your question. We do apologize for that! He said that we do a saltwater rinse before we ship out- which is true but it is the very last step in the entire process of getting the customer clean Chaeto.

 

[MuscleBobBuffPants]

@AlgaeBarn earlier in the thread you mentioned that your investment in the new systems are designed to increase the confidence in your product so high as to remove the disclaimer from your website. I took a quick look and couldn’t find a disclaimer about the low possibility of pests. Does this mean those systems are now up and running and producing algae?

I recently placed an order that was shipped today, any ideas on if that order was from your newer systems?

No matter what the answer is I just wanted to say I really admire the effort you guys go through to give reefers the best chance of success. A 99.97 percent chance of no pests is good enough for me. My Pfizer vaccine is only 97% effective and I’m already going around with no mask on so…

 

[AlgaeBarn]

@AlgaeBarn earlier in the thread you mentioned that your investment in the new systems are designed to increase the confidence in your product so high as to remove the disclaimer from your website. I took a quick look and couldn’t find a disclaimer about the low possibility of pests. Does this mean those systems are now up and running and producing algae?

I recently placed an order that was shipped today, any ideas on if that order was from your newer systems?

No matter what the answer is I just wanted to say I really admire the effort you guys go through to give reefers the best chance of success. A 99.97 percent chance of no pests is good enough for me. My Pfizer vaccine is only 97% effective and I’m already going around with no mask on so…

We really appreciate the kind words and understanding of our effort and hard work! While we do still have some disclaimers up here and there we are always working on improving. Your order did come from the updated systems Appreciate the comparison as well- while it is hard to be at a 100% chance we do want to give our customers and hobbyist the peace of mind when starting their refugium!

 

[Reefernewbean]

Everything that had been added was coral that has been in my previous tank for a good amount of time. No new rock or corals were added. Did not transfer any wet rock, started with dry. All corals were dipped in peroxide and revive directly before being transferred over. All corals were removed from there frag plugs and either replugged or glued down directly to the rockwork. As I've said before I never saw a single aiptasia in any iteration of my previous set up. It started as a 10 gallon, transferred everything into a 40 breeder and then again into a 10 gallon while this tank cycled. From march 2018- december 2019 I had never seen any aiptasia, and did not own any livestock that would eat aiptasia. Only other thing wet that I added was the chaeto and pods from algaebarn. Have not seen any aiptasia in the display, only in the refugium in the chaeto.

+1 this just happened to me.

 

[AlgaeBarn]

+1 this just happened to me.

Hi there! We haven't had anyone reach out to our support about this, but we would like to look into your situation. Can you please send us your order number, email, details of your shipment, and images of how the chaeto arrived / how it looks now? Also sent you a DM -Raven