Aiptasia in "clean" chaeto

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AlgaeBarn

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so why hasn't @AlgaeBarn responded? do they need to be @ to respond to threads in their own sponsor forum? it says on your page that your algae is clean, treated and quarantined, how come there are people saying that pests made it through to their tank through your products? can someone else recommend me another vendor who can provide pods and algae without the pests? thanks.

Hi, I appreciate your patience. We have been crazy busy and trying to get some more help in place.

We reached out to the OP maybe an hour or so after this thread was posted and resolved the situation.

You probably think we are getting filthy rich off slapping a clean label on anything. Doesn't matter if we see any baddies or anything. You probably think we simply don't care about the hobbyest, all we care about is our bottom line. And it sounds like you think almost everyone that has purchased macroalgae from us is now infested with pests, yet we still keep the clean label. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Overall, we have had a total of about 13 reports of pests in over 50,000 macroalgae units shipped out. This puts us at approximately 99.97% clean rate (and I know some of those reports are false positives). This puts our current defect rate at about 350 defects per 1,000,000 macroalgae portions sold. We understand that even this amount is too high (especially when its your tank). Even if the pest did not come from us, we still try to help the customer all the same. While our macros are incredibly clean, we do have a disclaimer that pests may make there way through the quarantine process. We have already been in works for the past few months(and tens of thousands on dollars spent) in rebuilding our macroalgae cultivation system to push us to a guaranteed clean, no QT required, and removal of the disclaimer.
 
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Donny41

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I understand why people purchase clean products but this is kind of nuts....
Not only has it been a month but OP also transferred corals from another tank into this one...
At some point there has to be some personal accountability
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.
 

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Just recently received an order from algae barn a week back and was really impressed with clean and healthy macro algae (Cheeto, sea lettuce and ogo). The packaging was very nice too. And all of it for $45.

I still washed and drained all three of them a few times before putting it in the fuge. Can I still get some spores, possible...but that’s on me and not algaebarn. If I cannot clean a small portion of algae, how can I expect algaebarn to quarantine and clean for everyone....

Sam
 

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So what's the process of cleaning the chaeto when we receive it? Aptaisa ruined a reef for me years back and do not want it ever again
 
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Just recently received an order from algae barn a week back and was really impressed with clean and healthy macro algae (Cheeto, sea lettuce and ogo). The packaging was very nice too. And all of it for $45.

I still washed and drained all three of them a few times before putting it in the fuge. Can I still get some spores, possible...but that’s on me and not algaebarn. If I cannot clean a small portion of algae, how can I expect algaebarn to quarantine and clean for everyone....

Sam
Absolutely agree with this. I could have and should have cleaned and quarantined the chaeto prior to adding. Algaebarn is obviously a very reputable company and I would not hesitate to buy from them again.
 

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Hi, I appreciate your patience. We have been crazy busy and trying to get some more help in place.

We reached out to the OP maybe an hour or so after this thread was posted and resolved the situation.

You probably think we are getting filthy rich off slapping a clean label on anything. Doesn't matter if we see any baddies or anything. You probably think we simply don't care about the hobbyest, all we care about is our bottom line. And it sounds like you think almost everyone that has purchased macroalgae from us is now infested with pests, yet we still keep the clean label. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Overall, we have had a total of about 13 reports of pests in over 50,000 macroalgae units shipped out. This puts us at approximately 99.97% clean rate (and I know some of those reports are false positives). This puts our current defect rate at about 350 defects per 1,000,000 macroalgae portions sold. We understand that even this amount is too high (especially when its your tank). Even if the pest did not come from us, we still try to help the customer all the same. While our macros are incredibly clean, we do have a disclaimer that pests may make there way through the quarantine process. We have already been in works for the past few months(and tens of thousands on dollars spent) in rebuilding our macroalgae cultivation system to push us to a guaranteed clean, no QT required, and removal of the disclaimer.

Hi AB,

Just saying you state people think you’re filthy rich but idk 50k x $45 = 2.25 mil? That seems prettyyy good to me. And you said over 50k and im sure people buy bigger orders than just the small $45..

Anywho I’m sure with that amount of money it is expected you are able to remove the label and allow users to dump straight to their fuges. You have more than enough to create clean systems pest free. People pay extra I’m assuming for the quality, you shouldn’t advertise as clean pest free regardless of disclaimers and reduce the cost of it as of immediate reports. You are charging for premium prices while knowing your product is not premium, if you removed label and lowered price I’m sure no one will have ill feelings as we all understand it is fairly hard to have 100% clean systems. However with 2.25+ mil USD I personally would expect as advertised.

I have not bought from you yet but just stating my thoughts.
 

TheHarold

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Hi AB,

Just saying you state people think you’re filthy rich but idk 50k x $45 = 2.25 mil? That seems prettyyy good to me. And you said over 50k and im sure people buy bigger orders than just the small $45..

Anywho I’m sure with that amount of money it is expected you are able to remove the label and allow users to dump straight to their fuges. You have more than enough to create clean systems pest free. People pay extra I’m assuming for the quality, you shouldn’t advertise as clean pest free regardless of disclaimers and reduce the cost of it as of immediate reports. You are charging for premium prices while knowing your product is not premium, if you removed label and lowered price I’m sure no one will have ill feelings as we all understand it is fairly hard to have 100% clean systems. However with 2.25+ mil USD I personally would expect as advertised.

I have not bought from you yet but just stating my thoughts.

You are mistaking revenue for profit. That is a very basic economic concept.
 
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DSFa

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You are mistaking revenue for profit. That is a very basic economic concep

Not really I know it costs money to set up / rent of space etc.. just saying with the way they’re able to throw 10k+ casually to try amend problems I’d say they’re doing pre fine.

What they do is cultivating algae from scratch to send of, I’d assume if the systems are clean and prestine there isn’t a whole lot of changes ongoing ie. you just grow a new batch and reuse the systems. If you can maintain it at the highest level of care it should be doable. Very unlikely they’re setting up new tanks every batch or whatever is what I’m saying once you get the system running it’s just maintaining quality control. Very doable with the amount they’re charging (top dollar) and you’d be naive to think the 2.25 revenue is not at least 3mil+ easy. They are using the disclaimer to still charge top dollar, which if I knew my product ain’t as advertised I wouldn’t sell it at premium costs.

I’m sure they’re just doing it for profits cause making 50k sales off $35 is a huge difference to $45.
 
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themcfreak

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Not really I know it costs money to set up / rent of space etc.. just saying with the way they’re able to throw 10k+ casually to try amend problems I’d say they’re doing pre fine.

What they do is cultivating algae from scratch to send of, I’d assume if the systems are clean and prestine there isn’t a whole lot of changes ongoing ie. you just grow a new batch and reuse the systems. If you can maintain it at the highest level of care it should be doable. Very unlikely they’re setting up new tanks every batch or whatever is what I’m saying once you get the system running it’s just maintaining quality control. Very doable with the amount they’re charging (top dollar) and you’d be naive to think the 2.25 revenue is not at least 3mil+ easy. They are using the disclaimer to still charge top dollar, which if I knew my product ain’t as advertised I wouldn’t sell it at premium costs.

I’m sure they’re just doing it for profits cause making 50k sales off $35 is a huge difference to $45.
New user with 3 posts, all in this thread, who has never bought from AB, and seems to know everything...? AB can't literally grow chaeto from nothing. They have to start with a seed/spore/piece of it to grow. And while they seem to do everything they can to make sure that piece doesn't have anything on it before it grows into the ball they put into the jar, there are millions of microscopic things on them that can't possible be accounted for. However, they advertise that it is 99.9% effective (just like condoms do). So your analogy is wrong. And, like stated above, your concept of economics seems to be as well. Just because they make a lot of revenue doesn't mean they have near that amount of profit. We can all guess what building costs are and such, but we don't know how much they spend to keep as many critters out as possible.
 
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DSFa

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



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.
 
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DSFa

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I’m assuming all other companies are also doing their best to send off pest free products but they don’t price or advertise as such is all I’m getting at. Premium price in my views is putting your money where your mouth is. I’m more than happy to pay top dollar for quality produce if it’s as advertised as that’s what I’d be ‘ expecting ‘ . Anyways a mod or whatever can remove my posts as I can’t seem to do so and I don’t want to be trolled or spammed for stating my thoughts. Please don’t reply to this thread I will no longer respond.

Have a good night all.
 
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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 :rolleyes:. 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.
 
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BloopFish

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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 :rolleyes:. 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. 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.
Honestly, they say that the number of people who have false positives would make the % even smaller, but I think if anything the number of false negatives would be much higher than false positives. Think about how many people out there simply trusted the seller that it is "clean" and never bothered to check for pests? Or the amount of people who would assume the pests are from their frag, but is really from the chaeto? People would LIKE to believe their chaeto they bought is pest free and that its some other thing that brought it on, mainly because the chaeto is ridiculously marked up. Seriously, the price is criminal if the pest freeness can't be guaranteed, you can "buy" chaeto from a fellow hobbyist for FREE. People literally toss them in their lawn or trash all the time.
 

AlgaeBarn

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Hi AB,

Just saying you state people think you’re filthy rich but idk 50k x $45 = 2.25 mil? That seems prettyyy good to me. And you said over 50k and im sure people buy bigger orders than just the small $45..

Anywho I’m sure with that amount of money it is expected you are able to remove the label and allow users to dump straight to their fuges. You have more than enough to create clean systems pest free. People pay extra I’m assuming for the quality, you shouldn’t advertise as clean pest free regardless of disclaimers and reduce the cost of it as of immediate reports. You are charging for premium prices while knowing your product is not premium, if you removed label and lowered price I’m sure no one will have ill feelings as we all understand it is fairly hard to have 100% clean systems. However with 2.25+ mil USD I personally would expect as advertised.

I have not bought from you yet but just stating my thoughts.

Most of our macro sold is in $15 portions. Plus, many people use coupons, pod points, etc. Furthermore, we do free shipping (plus insulation, heat packs, etc) at $40. Plus we have packaging, utilities, labor, rent -- your standard overhead. We have made nowhere near 2.25+ mill in revenue on macroalgae.
 

AlgaeBarn

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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 :rolleyes:. 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.

I apologize if I came off as defensive. We are always upgrading our systems, getting a few reports of pests wasn't the main driver for this. Our current systems require extremely frequently cleaning, water testing, water changes, etc. We are always trying to improve everything we do ( and we have the bills to prove this ;Woot). These reports are pretty isolated, and I was trying to give numbers so people have a little better understanding of volume we due and very small number of reports of pests.
 

AlgaeBarn

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I’m assuming all other companies are also doing their best to send off pest free products but they don’t price or advertise as such is all I’m getting at. Premium price in my views is putting your money where your mouth is. I’m more than happy to pay top dollar for quality produce if it’s as advertised as that’s what I’d be ‘ expecting ‘ . Anyways a mod or whatever can remove my posts as I can’t seem to do so and I don’t want to be trolled or spammed for stating my thoughts. Please don’t reply to this thread I will no longer respond.

Have a good night all.

I appreciate the feedback. It hurts, but pushes us to improve.
 

AlgaeBarn

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Not really I know it costs money to set up / rent of space etc.. just saying with the way they’re able to throw 10k+ casually to try amend problems I’d say they’re doing pre fine.

What they do is cultivating algae from scratch to send of, I’d assume if the systems are clean and prestine there isn’t a whole lot of changes ongoing ie. you just grow a new batch and reuse the systems. If you can maintain it at the highest level of care it should be doable. Very unlikely they’re setting up new tanks every batch or whatever is what I’m saying once you get the system running it’s just maintaining quality control. Very doable with the amount they’re charging (top dollar) and you’d be naive to think the 2.25 revenue is not at least 3mil+ easy. They are using the disclaimer to still charge top dollar, which if I knew my product ain’t as advertised I wouldn’t sell it at premium costs.

I’m sure they’re just doing it for profits cause making 50k sales off $35 is a huge difference to $45.

Imagine if condoms were only 75% safe and a company said they were clean and won’t fail. You pay top dollar for premium safe rubber, You end up contracting HiV or some form of STI but read the packaging in fine font might say: all balblabla may have a small defect you must test before use filling with water to check possible holes. Hey i called them up later and they sent new ones for free!!! Nah i bet you’d be fuming, it’s the same concept your tank may already go through the craps if it’s an established huge tank and aiptasia or whatever pest broke off into between the rocks etc.. imagine the nightmare and hassle of new problems not to mention the costs of your stock etc. a new batch of ‘ clean ‘ algae ain’t gone mean much ya know.

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.
 
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AlgaeBarn

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Hi AB,

Just saying you state people think you’re filthy rich but idk 50k x $45 = 2.25 mil? That seems prettyyy good to me. And you said over 50k and im sure people buy bigger orders than just the small $45..

Anywho I’m sure with that amount of money it is expected you are able to remove the label and allow users to dump straight to their fuges. You have more than enough to create clean systems pest free. People pay extra I’m assuming for the quality, you shouldn’t advertise as clean pest free regardless of disclaimers and reduce the cost of it as of immediate reports. You are charging for premium prices while knowing your product is not premium, if you removed label and lowered price I’m sure no one will have ill feelings as we all understand it is fairly hard to have 100% clean systems. However with 2.25+ mil USD I personally would expect as advertised.

I have not bought from you yet but just stating my thoughts.

Also, posts like this make me regret posting numbers. Extrapolation with heavy assumptions is a pretty dangerous game.
 

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