AlgaeBarn...Is it all just hype?

AlgaeBarn

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I realize a lot are juvenile at the moment so i dont think I can really fairly judge how many are in here. I just know when ive gotten pods from my LFS or aquarium depot they are a lot more visible than the jar I just received.

I have reached out to support about the TurboStart and they kindof gave me the run around and told me to just use it and that they always send it with a heat pad. Thats the biggest issue I have though, that TurboStart should have never been boxed up with a heat pad. I really think that did a number on the bottle I got because i havent seen any rapid change in my tanks cycle. Forsure no 5 day cycle like is advertised..

The biggest mistake here is confusing amphipods with copepods. What you get from aquarium depot is 99% amphipods, these are significantly larger than copepods and are an entirely different animal. With regards to the LFS, you are likely buying the biggest, but worst seeding copepod. Tigriopus are big and bright and easy to see, but also have significantly slower reproductive rates than copepods such as tisbe, apocyclops, or oithona.
 
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AlgaeBarn

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I said the same thing. my LFS does a better job. I will say that when I expressed I was unhappy with my AB order they did try to make it right. They do have great Customer service it's just I would like to see a few pods here and there and not feel like I'm paying 50-60 bucks for some rodi water.


You should be able to see our pods. Please DM me with your order number and we will get you taken care of
 

AlgaeBarn

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I'll still listen to Melevs and BRS.


I will just will always keep in mind that most of these dudes pitching you something are probably getting paid out a little something to talk about these products... I will do a little more digging for impressions from other people in hobby vs the dude whos trying to sell me it.

Hi, We don't pay cash for youtube sponsorship, we do occasionally give away free product for reviews, however, this is for people that have purchased in the past and have already expressed their love for our product. We turn down A LOT of people that ask for free product in exchange for a stellar review. A question I hope you ask yourself: If its a crappy product, why would you waste your time trying to get it for free as well as putting your name on the line?
 

AlgaeBarn

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Not sure how that is relevant. When I was running cultures I could have sent you a tiny bottle with 10's of thousands. Hows that an accurate comparison to buying a product that tells you roughly how many pods to expect?

I've ordered from them a couple times. Once there was definitely tons of pods in the bottles. Another time I was underwhelmed by what I saw in the bottles. Of course, the pods are tiny. Do I count them? No that is quite impossible. Kind of odd they give that number as what you'll get, idk how they verify it. I wouldn't call them all hype though, they are generally quite responsive here as well as my communication with them.

Hi,

We were the first pod company (from my understanding) to release a pod counting protocal. We released this back in 2015, and other companies have followed suite. https://www.algaebarn.com/blog/white-papers/determining-an-overall-count-for-your-copepods/

We appreciate your feedback, and we have focused our efforts on including more adult copepods in the bottles. However, adult tisbe, apocyclops, and oithona look nothing like adult tigriopus, so please do not confuse the them. Tigriopus are much bigger and easier to see.
 

AlgaeBarn

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People can justify it any way they want, but order Algae Barn Pods and then order pods from Reef Nutrition or Pod your Reef and compare them.


There is DRASTICALLY more life in the Reef Nutrition and Pod your Reef packages, it's not even remotely close.

I wouldnt agree, but you are fine to have your own opinion. Our pod quality has skyrocketed the last year or so.

Now you understand why I won't order anything else from Algae Barn they sell water lol for 50+ bucks.

Please send me your last order number, I would like to check a few things.
 

AlgaeBarn

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Pods will come on any live rock, coral frags, or macro algae you purchase. What’s going to survive in your tank will survive. Purchasing “pods in a bottle” doesn’t make much sense to me unless you’re culturing a specific type for raising larvae.

Most quality dips will kill pods.
 

AlgaeBarn

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Three things, turbostart 900 is not an instacycle. I used it in my tank, it was shipped with an icepack in my case, my tank still took three weeks to cycle. Secondly, Youtubers rave about algae barn because algae barn sponsors them, I do not take any product recommendations from Youtubers for that reason, some are even unscrupulous enough to shill products they have spoken out about in other videos. Coralfish12G did this in the most disingenuous way I'd ever seen, I lost a lot of respect for him after seeing that. Lastly, as others have pointed out, you can't see all the pods, also, the numbers cited are approximations. In addition, you are comparing pods in a small container to pods in a larger container, the quantities may look different.

Hi @ironman187, 3 weeks is far from the normal cycle time. Did you predose the aquarium to hit 2-3 ppm ammonia? I dont think we have ever had it take this long. Could you walk me through how you cycled the aquarium? Here is an unbiased post that showed turbostart consuming all the ammonia in 2 days. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bacteria-in-a-bottle-myth-or-fact.403226/

We do not pay Youtubers with cash, please see our above post.

Concentrating the pods into a smaller bottle will give them appearance of more (pods don't like hanging out next to each other), but makes shipping more challenging.
 

italquam

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I'll still listen to Melevs and BRS.


I will just will always keep in mind that most of these dudes pitching you something are probably getting paid out a little something to talk about these products... I will do a little more digging for impressions from other people in hobby vs the dude whos trying to sell me it.

I agree , you have to take the information and process it through yourself. I always check forums before I buy anything
 

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Hi @ironman187, 3 weeks is far from the normal cycle time. Did you predose the aquarium to hit 2-3 ppm ammonia? I dont think we have ever had it take this long. Could you walk me through how you cycled the aquarium? Here is an unbiased post that showed turbostart consuming all the ammonia in 2 days. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/bacteria-in-a-bottle-myth-or-fact.403226/

We do not pay Youtubers with cash, please see our above post.

Concentrating the pods into a smaller bottle will give them appearance of more (pods don't like hanging out next to each other), but makes shipping more challenging.

I followed the instructions on the bottle of Fritz.

You still give youtubers kickbacks, so that's not any different imo.
 

AlgaeBarn

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I followed the instructions on the bottle of Fritz.

You still give youtubers kickbacks, so that's not any different imo.

Well, we would love to troubleshoot with you. There is only limited label space and maybe a simple mistake was made. This is not a common occurrence so we would like to determine the root cause. This way, we can further minimize the likelihood of re-occurrence in the future.

I would respectfully disagree on the youtubers. It feels like you are saying that we pay people to shill and post reviews of products they haven't tried. If it's a terrile product, why would you do a review/promote for more bad product that you are just going to discard? It's not like they can resell our products with the live nature of our products.

Most of the Youtube videos come from current customers who have placed many orders, and say hey, I would like to do an unboxing video, would you be able to send me a package so I can do a video. It's not like they get a cash check with the percentage of sales. They are dedicating their time to doing a video about us, that requires a lot of work, equipment, and time. We do our best to be as ethical as possible, but we are always open to feedback on how to improve. Would you be able to offer some suggestions how we could make this the more ethical?
 

AlgaeBarn

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again jumping in, I know nothing of their internal affairs and stuff but as a customer I enjoy buying from them and like their products.
Thanks for the love! We don't enjoy it when people have a bad experience (thats not a good way to grow the business), but we do know how important feedback is to help improve our processes. It hurts to hear, but it makes us better. We always try to make it right with the customer, because we area also hobbyist and we know the pain of buying a product and being unhappy with it. Further more, we know the importance of practiceing continuous improvement. Nobody or no company is perfect, but boy do we keep trying our best to keep improve with the goal of reaching perfection.
 

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Well, we would love to troubleshoot with you. There is only limited label space and maybe a simple mistake was made. This is not a common occurrence so we would like to determine the root cause. This way, we can further minimize the likelihood of re-occurrence in the future.

I would respectfully disagree on the youtubers. It feels like you are saying that we pay people to shill and post reviews of products they haven't tried. If it's a terrile product, why would you do a review/promote for more bad product that you are just going to discard? It's not like they can resell our products with the live nature of our products.

Most of the Youtube videos come from current customers who have placed many orders, and say hey, I would like to do an unboxing video, would you be able to send me a package so I can do a video. It's not like they get a cash check with the percentage of sales. They are dedicating their time to doing a video about us, that requires a lot of work, equipment, and time. We do our best to be as ethical as possible, but we are always open to feedback on how to improve. Would you be able to offer some suggestions how we could make this the more ethical?

I appreciate the offer, but I ordered the Fritz from another source, and my tank has been up for 5 months and is going swimmingly. It's water under the bridge for me at this point and I don't care to rehash it.

I'm not accusing you of being unethical, I'm simply making the point that Youtubers are often the worst people to seek advice from, especially on items they were provided. I have no opinion on AB as I've never needed to order from you and have no first hand experience with you.
 
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Thanks for the love! We don't enjoy it when people have a bad experience (thats not a good way to grow the business), but we do know how important feedback is to help improve our processes. It hurts to hear, but it makes us better. We always try to make it right with the customer, because we area also hobbyist and we know the pain of buying a product and being unhappy with it. Further more, we know the importance of practiceing continuous improvement. Nobody or no company is perfect, but boy do we keep trying our best to keep improve with the goal of reaching perfection.

This is 100% true and I want everyone here to know algae barn reached out to me and we had a conversation and tried to figure out if there were some other factors that may have led to my cycle not going as fast as expected. The biggest reason i think may actually be that I dosed 2ml of Vodka a few days after adding the TurboStart.

That being said they are sending me another bottle of TurboStart on the house and I think this is really where you see that extra money coming into play. You can not argue that AB doesnt do everything they can to understand any problem you're running into and they WILL come up with a solution. Their customer service has been pretty good in my eyes.

I want to thank them for that and I know they've got me as a continued customer.
 

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This is 100% true and I want everyone here to know algae barn reached out to me and we had a conversation and tried to figure out if there were some other factors that may have led to my cycle not going as fast as expected. The biggest reason i think may actually be that I dosed 2ml of Vodka a few days after adding the TurboStart.

That being said they are sending me another bottle of TurboStart on the house and I think this is really where you see that extra money coming into play. You can not argue that AB doesnt do everything they can to understand any problem you're running into and they WILL come up with a solution. Their customer service has been pretty good in my eyes.

I want to thank them for that and I know they've got me as a continued customer.

Thanks for posting the resolution. Not everyone will come back and say “Hey they fixed it”. Good luck on your results!
 

Bryce M.

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This is 100% true and I want everyone here to know algae barn reached out to me and we had a conversation and tried to figure out if there were some other factors that may have led to my cycle not going as fast as expected. The biggest reason i think may actually be that I dosed 2ml of Vodka a few days after adding the TurboStart.

That being said they are sending me another bottle of TurboStart on the house and I think this is really where you see that extra money coming into play. You can not argue that AB doesnt do everything they can to understand any problem you're running into and they WILL come up with a solution. Their customer service has been pretty good in my eyes.

I want to thank them for that and I know they've got me as a continued customer.
Yay!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm glad!!!!!!!!!
I do genuinely enjoy AB so I'm really glad!
 

bsr2430

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Here’s why I’m mad at AlgaeBarn No one told me about Turbo Starter! I would’ve bought that with my purchase of 5280 pods and Chaeto algae! No worries though, my tank is on it’s second month cycle.

AlgaeBarn, keep up the great work! I will gladly pay the extra few bucks rather than have someone send me pests with a local or online purchase!

I’m sure anyone here who bought local or online and received a few pests wish they’ve spend the few extra bucks for a clean product.
Cheers mate!
 

Pau Hana Reefer

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I've purchased numerous times from algae barn. Their 5280 pods always seem way short, even looking at the bottle through a loupe it's pretty thin. Now, the newest pod mix offering they have, forgot the name, had a much denser pod population. It was also more expensive than the 5280 pods. If I were to buy again, that's what I'd purchase. I prefer reef nutrition by a large margin though, seems their pods live longer in the bottles too.

The one issue I have with algae barn are their contests. They say they are random drawings but the winners are always the person in the #1 point position, not exactly random drawing in my opinion. Specifically the holiday contests.

Ecopods? I've been eyeballing them over the last couple of weeks but they're pretty expensive compared to their other options.
 

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