SUCCESSFULLY RESOLVED - Found Aiptasia on TopShelfAquatics frags.

[TheHarold]

My first aiptasia in the hobby was brought in by a previous purchase from TSA, and then I see again that there are many people who also are infested with aiptasia after the recent live sale. I had bought a mini colony of zoas on live rock from you guys, a mistake I will not make again in the future.

I ended up having to lose a lot of encrustment of my corals, when I got rid of all my rock and sand during a tank upgrade to finally get rid of them.

The live sale thread was locked by a moderator after aiptasia was brought up, and it was suggested that someone create a feedback thread. I was disappointed that TSA deliberately did not respond to the people mentioning the aiptasia.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...day-live-sale-official-thread.444048/page-111

I was wondering if you had any response, @TopShelfAquatics, to shipping frags with aptasia. You know how awful it is to be infested- my question is what measures are you taking to stop infesting buyers tanks? Filefish? Inspection? Replugging before shipping? Hopefully you have not resigned yourselves to sending out corals like that and potentially ruining the tanks of your customers.

The thread was locked pretty quickly, but I saw the following people posted about aptasia on theirs. Clearly it is a problem, and I assume for every person that posted about it, there are a dozen more than did not. So, this post is meant both to provide feedback on the corals you have sold here on reef2reef, as well as to obtain information on how you intend to prevent further harming the tanks of your customers and R2R members.

@Josh poulin
@Cristy17
@Mordie101
@Lui1521
@jordan9095
@blue.flyzz

edit:
I am aware I misspelled aiptasia in the title, my bad. Wont let me edit it though. If a #mod could fix that, it would be appreciated.

Edit edit:
That was crazy fast. Thanks mystery mod!

 

[TheHarold]

I have yet to get aiptasia from a frag purchase but believe it is inevitable given time. I have recieved many other hitchhikers , bristle wormss , things that look like ants etc . In fact when the lights go out it’s a whole other world of interest to view.
I do not think it’s the intention of a vendor to forward any hitchhikers to there clients but I see it as just part of the hobby . And I may be wrong on my believe that everything has a purpose in our recreated reefs and some are going to be more of a challenge then others. I would be more upset if my purchase arrived dead or damaged. Just my opinion , sorry for your disappointment with this vendor , but I do not believe any vendor should be blacklisted over aptasia or other hitchhikers that come with a purchase . You should contact them directly and bring it to there attention and maybe they can do something for you . I know I would not be inclined to assist anyone that decided to post like this .
Good luck , and I think you will find more assistance in ridding the aiptasia from the great folks on this site then people bad mouthing the vendor , hence the closing of these treads.

I know it is not their intention to send frags with aiptasia- their customer service regarding shipping issues seems to be excellent. Nor do I think this is an attempt at "blacklisting" a vendor. This is intended to be more constructive, to see what they intend to do about the issue. They were already informed of the issue and did not respond to feedback on their sale thread- rather seem to have contacted a moderator and asked them to lock it (This is my assumption, perhaps it was a coincidence that the thread was locked). If you feel that the title is too provocative, perhaps I should take out the capital word.

I also do not think this thread will be closed, as long as the discussion remains civil.
And if anything, this post will encourage customers to inspect their purchase carefully and replug the coral before adding it to their tank.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Good Morning Everyone

While we do appreciate good civil discussion, this is a vendor feedback thread. Outside comments other than that of the OP and the vendor are not permitted. If you would like to link to your own feedback thread in regards to the same vendor that is permitted. This is done so that the OP and vendor can converse and come to a resolution without having to page through comments.
Thank you everybody for your cooperation

 

[TheHarold]

Good Morning Everyone

While we do appreciate good civil discussion, this is a vendor feedback thread. Outside comments other than that of the OP and the vendor are not permitted. If you would like to link to your own feedback thread in regards to the same vendor that is permitted. This is done so that the OP and vendor can converse and come to a resolution without having to page through comments.
Thank you everybody for your cooperation

Is there another area where I can post this, where other people can also respond? Already someone else mentioned that they had the same experience- although I see that comment was since deleted. I think it is important to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. I could perhaps make add a poll, but that seems rather crude

 

[Crabs McJones]

Is there another area where I can post this, where other people can also respond? I think it is important to see if anyone else has had a similar experience.

If they have had a similar experience, they are more then welcome to start their own vendor feedback thread and link that thread in here. But any feedback is moved to vendor feedback forum to give the vendor a chance to communicate with the consumer

 

[TheHarold]

If they have had a similar experience, they are more then welcome to start their own vendor feedback thread and link that thread in here. But any feedback is moved to vendor feedback forum to give the vendor a chance to communicate with the consumer

Okay, fair enough- thank you.

I hope it is okay that I tagged others with the same issue in the original post: please leave that if possible, as that legitimizes the need for discussion.

 

[blue.flyzz]

per admin rules, linking my thread
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...frags-purchased-from-live-sale-me-too.469508/

 

[TopShelfAquatics]

Good morning to @TheHarold and the others who have been tagged in this post.

We want to start off by saying that we always welcome feedback on our corals and appreciate the customers that take the time to reach out to us to discuss any comments or concerns they have with purchases.

It has been brought up a few times now that customers have discovered aiptasia on pieces that were recently purchased from us during a recent live sale. With that being said, we apologize to those customers who have since found aiptasia on their pieces. We understand that when making a purchase from a reputable company, you expect a certain level of product to be delivered. At Top Shelf Aquatics, we spend countless man hours, resources, and efforts to ensure that any piece we sell exceeds the customer's expectations. We strive to sell pieces that only bring color and variety to your tank, without the headache of any unwanted inhabitants.

Recently, within a week of our Live Sale, we noticed numerous aiptasia began to appear in one of our tanks. While we had them in that system in the past, we had not seen any in quite some time. We are unsure of how they began to spread so rapidly, but we have been actively eradicating the problem and have temporarily stopped selling pieces from that system. Through a combination of Kalkwasser paste, manual removal, and natural predators, we have almost completely removed them from that system at this time. While we know this does not help solve the issue of aiptasia already in the tanks of a few of our customers, but we wanted everyone to know that we are aware of the problem and are taking appropriate steps to address the unwanted anemones.

Looking back through the records of our last two Live Sales, we sold and shipped around 1,700 pieces to roughly 200 different customers. At this time, after going back through the two old sale threads, it appears that roughly 20-25 frags seem to have been affected, all of which were from the same system. In our discussions with the three customers who have reached out to us directly, it seems that the vast majority of aiptasia were very small, even to the point where they were not detected during the customers initial inspection of the frags prior to adding them to their tank. The majority of all aiptasia that we have been eliminating in our system have also been extremely small. We tend to believe that an aiptasia was drawn into a return pump which led to the release of many smaller pieces. We only mention this as a precursor to let everyone know that we do inspect each piece prior to shipment. While we are very diligent in those inspections, it does occasionally happen that something can slip by. With the relative size of aiptasia that have appeared on the recently shipped pieces, we feel as if the aiptasia were most likely incredibly small when shipped which allowed them to get past our pre-ship inspection.

For the customers that have been affected, please reach out to us individually via pm. This will allow us to work with you one on one and determine the best course of action to guarantee your satisfaction. Together, we can determine the most appropriate steps that need to be taken to help you eliminate any renaming aiptasia in your system. Individual PMs allows us to ask specific questions about your system while referencing your specific order so that we can best solve the problem as whole and ensure you are satisfied with the outcome. PMs will always get a response from us but we don’t always get to read every posts that pops up on past sale threads. As of the time we are writing this, only 3 customers have reached out to us via PM in regards to this issue and they have been responded to.

We understand that purchasing corals from a vendor online requires a certain amount of trust that they will deliver a clean and healthy frag that accurately represents what you intended to purchase. When other customers have a negative experience with a particular vendor, we understand that you may be hesitant to purchase from them in the future, especially if the vendor seems to not take any action or respond to the issue presented. We hope that this response will affirm the fact that we stand behind our corals 100%. We will always do whatever we can to ensure our customers satisfaction with each and every transaction.

For everyone reading this thread, if you have any comments or concerns regarding this issue or any other concern, please reach out to us and we will do our best to answer your questions and work with you to find a solution to any problem you may have.

-TSA Team

 

[TheHarold]

Good morning to @TheHarold and the others who have been tagged in this post.

We want to start off by saying that we always welcome feedback on our corals and appreciate the customers that take the time to reach out to us to discuss any comments or concerns they have with purchases.

It has been brought up a few times now that customers have discovered aiptasia on pieces that were recently purchased from us during a recent live sale. With that being said, we apologize to those customers who have since found aiptasia on their pieces. We understand that when making a purchase from a reputable company, you expect a certain level of product to be delivered. At Top Shelf Aquatics, we spend countless man hours, resources, and efforts to ensure that any piece we sell exceeds the customer's expectations. We strive to sell pieces that only bring color and variety to your tank, without the headache of any unwanted inhabitants.

Recently, within a week of our Live Sale, we noticed numerous aiptasia began to appear in one of our tanks. While we had them in that system in the past, we had not seen any in quite some time. We are unsure of how they began to spread so rapidly, but we have been actively eradicating the problem and have temporarily stopped selling pieces from that system. Through a combination of Kalkwasser paste, manual removal, and natural predators, we have almost completely removed them from that system at this time. While we know this does not help solve the issue of aiptasia already in the tanks of a few of our customers, but we wanted everyone to know that we are aware of the problem and are taking appropriate steps to address the unwanted anemones.

Looking back through the records of our last two Live Sales, we sold and shipped around 1,700 pieces to roughly 200 different customers. At this time, after going back through the two old sale threads, it appears that roughly 20-25 frags seem to have been affected, all of which were from the same system. In our discussions with the three customers who have reached out to us directly, it seems that the vast majority of aiptasia were very small, even to the point where they were not detected during the customers initial inspection of the frags prior to adding them to their tank. The majority of all aiptasia that we have been eliminating in our system have also been extremely small. We tend to believe that an aiptasia was drawn into a return pump which led to the release of many smaller pieces. We only mention this as a precursor to let everyone know that we do inspect each piece prior to shipment. While we are very diligent in those inspections, it does occasionally happen that something can slip by. With the relative size of aiptasia that have appeared on the recently shipped pieces, we feel as if the aiptasia were most likely incredibly small when shipped which allowed them to get past our pre-ship inspection.

For the customers that have been affected, please reach out to us individually via pm. This will allow us to work with you one on one and determine the best course of action to guarantee your satisfaction. Together, we can determine the most appropriate steps that need to be taken to help you eliminate any renaming aiptasia in your system. Individual PMs allows us to ask specific questions about your system while referencing your specific order so that we can best solve the problem as whole and ensure you are satisfied with the outcome. PMs will always get a response from us but we don’t always get to read every posts that pops up on past sale threads. As of the time we are writing this, only 3 customers have reached out to us via PM in regards to this issue and they have been responded to.

We understand that purchasing corals from a vendor online requires a certain amount of trust that they will deliver a clean and healthy frag that accurately represents what you intended to purchase. When other customers have a negative experience with a particular vendor, we understand that you may be hesitant to purchase from them in the future, especially if the vendor seems to not take any action or respond to the issue presented. We hope that this response will affirm the fact that we stand behind our corals 100%. We will always do whatever we can to ensure our customers satisfaction with each and every transaction.

For everyone reading this thread, if you have any comments or concerns regarding this issue or any other concern, please reach out to us and we will do our best to answer your questions and work with you to find a solution to any problem you may have.

-TSA Team

First of all- thank you for your response. It sound like you are aware of the problem and are taking care of it, which is reassuring. When you are importing so many pieces, it must be inevitable that am occasional pest gets through. I do doubt that the issue was actually limited to 20-25 frags out of thousands- I think most consumers would not post about the pest, either because they are unaware that they snuck in and did not post about it. Or they noticed them and dealt with it already. People who post about an issue are the minority, compared to the people that encounter it.

It sounds like it could really be a limited problem that may be already taken care of- I just wish that you guys responded to customers in the other thread so that there would be no need to make a specific thread about the issue to obtain a response. Instead of doing the right thing and apologizing to customers, explaining the issue and offering solutions, the thread was locked. Moderators do not "randomly' lock threads. Nor has TSA ever had one of their live sale threads locked in the past. So someone from TSA requested that it be locked after several members mentioned their frags were contaminated with aiptasia.


Let me know if that is incorrect

TheHarold

edit:

In addition, I am curious to what solution or course of action you are suggesting your customers take to resolve the issue- the "course of action that will guarantee their satisfaction". Because someone messaged me, very unhappily, that there was no course of action.

 

[TopShelfAquatics]

First of all- thank you for your response. It sound like you are aware of the problem and are taking care of it, which is reassuring. When you are importing so many pieces, it must be inevitable that am occasional pest gets through. I do doubt that the issue was actually limited to 20-25 frags out of thousands- I think most consumers would not post about the pest, either because they are unaware that they snuck in and did not post about it. Or they noticed them and dealt with it already. People who post about an issue are the minority, compared to the people that encounter it.

It sounds like it could really be a limited problem that may be already taken care of- I just wish that you guys responded to customers in the other thread so that there would be no need to make a specific thread about the issue to obtain a response. Instead of doing the right thing and apologizing to customers, explaining the issue and offering solutions, the thread was locked. Moderators do not "randomly' lock threads. Nor has TSA ever had one of their live sale threads locked in the past. So someone from TSA requested that it be locked after several members mentioned their frags were contaminated with aiptasia.


Let me know if that is incorrect

TheHarold

edit:

In addition, I am curious to what solution or course of action you are suggesting your customers take to resolve the issue- the "course of action that will guarantee their satisfaction". Because someone messaged me, very unhappily, that there was no course of action.

We did request that the thread was locked.

We had a particular customer who was not willing to work with us on any sort of middle ground and was requesting a full refund for all purchases made even though the corals were alive and doing well. We offered several alternative solutions which were more reasonable such as credits towards future purchases and several freebie frags. When the customer did not agree to this and went to the thread in order to stir up some sort of reaction rather than prompt a constructive conversatoin. We requested it be closed in order in prevent the conversation from further deteriorating or getting out of hand. We do not intend to post that customers name but I will send you a PM to discuss this matter further.

We have responded to any customer who sent us a message letting us know that they were affected.


We are suggesting a combination of AptasiaX and either berghia nudibranchs or peppermint shrimp depending on the current inhabitants for removing existing aptasia. As far as the customers satisfaction, we are asking the affected customers to offer a suggestion and are considering/agreeing to them on an individual basis.

 

[Lui1521]

Additional feedback


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/aiptasia-on-topshelfaquatics-frags-and-me.469760/#post-5212269

 

[Daniel@R2R]

This thread is being closed at the request of the OP. He has contacted the staff to indicate that he is satisfied by the response of TSA. He considers this issue to have been satisfactorily resolved, and wants the community to know that he is pleased by the way that TSA has handled the issue.

If at any time, either party in this transaction would like to reopen this thread, the staff is happy to do so.