How to Know if Frags are Dead

[TnFishwater98]

I think you will be all right. I looked up the seller and he looks like he will be honest with the situation and will make it rights. Dudes a veteran and he trains in martial arts. I don’t feel like you should have a issue getting refunded or re-shipped.

 

[trevorhiller]

Update: I woke up this morning and checked on them. Even the stuff that had any signs of life are looking way worse. I emailed the same to fish of hex and he messaged me back saying that the candy cane and the GSP aren't dead and he'll send me a code for the dead stuff.

He claims the GSP is impossible to kill, so I hope he's right. To be fair, it actually still has some tiny hint of purple to it yet. As for the candy cane.... well i disagree.

Lesson learned: hold package at UPS terminal. Although it appears the one closest to my house is only open 330 PM to 730 PM daily?? so that isn't much of an improvement over my typical 530-630 pm delivery time. I also don't think I will order from someone again who won't offer a few days guarantee. Good on him for making this right, however, to be fair I emailed him 3 hours after these were received instead of 2 hours. If he wanted to be a jerk, he could say sorry too late. 2 hours is just not reasonable IMO.

I'm probably going to wait a few more weeks before reordering anything though. I'm not going to chance the weather being an issue again.

 

[Chrisv.]

Update: I woke up this morning and checked on them. Even the stuff that had any signs of life are looking way worse. I emailed the same to fish of hex and he messaged me back saying that the candy cane and the GSP aren't dead and he'll send me a code for the dead stuff.

He claims the GSP is impossible to kill, so I hope he's right. To be fair, it actually still has some tiny hint of purple to it yet. As for the candy cane.... well i disagree.

Lesson learned: hold package at UPS terminal. Although it appears the one closest to my house is only open 330 PM to 730 PM daily?? so that isn't much of an improvement over my typical 530-630 pm delivery time. I also don't think I will order from someone again who won't offer a few days guarantee. Good on him for making this right, however, to be fair I emailed him 3 hours after these were received instead of 2 hours. If he wanted to be a jerk, he could say sorry too late. 2 hours is just not reasonable IMO.

I'm probably going to wait a few more weeks before reordering anything though. I'm not going to chance the weather being an issue again.

Yeah that doesn't look so good. I'm not sure if i would be satisfied with his claim that the candy cane is alive ... because let's be real, it looks pretty bad. And as for the GSP... suffice it to say that I think the whole order should have been refunded.

Do you have a local reef club in your area? I am certain that you will find better/bigger corals at better prices with no shipping stress if you buy locally from other local reefers.

 

[trevorhiller]

I agree with you, but I feel partly responsible. I guess I should have tried to intercept the box from UPS. Plus he's going to have to eat the cost of shipping again. I was trying to order from him because he seems like a smaller operation and is a fellow Pennsylvanian, but perhaps I'm better sticking with in person deals or larger outfits online.

I've tried to look for a local club/local reefers, but the only posts I can find are from the early 2010s. It doesn't seem like there are too many active reef keepers in my area anymore. There is one place about an hour from me that seems good. Covey's Coral Cove in Bloomsburg, PA. But he keeps weird hours and I haven't been able to get over there.

 

[Joe31415]

Although it appears the one closest to my house is only open 330 PM to 730 PM daily?? so that isn't much of an improvement over my typical 530-630 pm delivery time.

It's not about getting them to you earlier in the day, it's about them sitting in a climate controlled warehouse instead of the back of a fedex truck (or on your doorstep) for 12 hours in the freezing cold.

 

[fish farmer]

Update: I woke up this morning and checked on them. Even the stuff that had any signs of life are looking way worse. I emailed the same to fish of hex and he messaged me back saying that the candy cane and the GSP aren't dead and he'll send me a code for the dead stuff.

He claims the GSP is impossible to kill, so I hope he's right. To be fair, it actually still has some tiny hint of purple to it yet. As for the candy cane.... well i disagree.

Lesson learned: hold package at UPS terminal. Although it appears the one closest to my house is only open 330 PM to 730 PM daily?? so that isn't much of an improvement over my typical 530-630 pm delivery time. I also don't think I will order from someone again who won't offer a few days guarantee. Good on him for making this right, however, to be fair I emailed him 3 hours after these were received instead of 2 hours. If he wanted to be a jerk, he could say sorry too late. 2 hours is just not reasonable IMO.

I'm probably going to wait a few more weeks before reordering anything though. I'm not going to chance the weather being an issue again.

Good plan to wait. The ground hog said six more weeks of winter. I never have a problem with coral deliveries, but I plan them in spring and fall when low temps are around 50.

 

[Cell]

I wouldn't be happy with that pack job. It seems pretty standard these days to use the little plastic sample cups to protect frags from rubbing on the bag as a minimum.

 

[trevorhiller]

Update on the outcome of this fiasco.

January 8th I placed an order for
GSP - 19.99
Beginner SPS 6-Pack 119.99
Green Slimer 24.99
Candy Cane 14.99

w/ shipping, my order totaled $210.38

I emailed on January 12th inquiring when he anticipated shipping, never heard back.
I messaged via his website chat on the following Friday or Saturday (can't remember) never heard back.
January 21st he posted a YouTube video stating he wasn't dead and weather has been bad, but will be shipping orders that week.
January 30th I emailed stating if I didn't hear back, I would contact bank for refund.
January 30th I heard back stating weather has been bad and a notice was sent out, he offered to ship regardless of weather. I replied I just wanted some communication and was fine continuing to wait, but had never received a notice.
January 31st he shipped anyway.
Order received in the above condition on February 1st.

Today he sent me a DOA gift certificate for $120. I'm quite annoyed that I am out $90. I think the only thing that has a chance of surviving at this time is the GSP, but even that I haven't seen any extension/signs of life on. I can certainly understand not refunding the shipping as he has to pay out of pocket for that, that's fine. But I was hoping to be able to replace all the frags at least, especially with the size of his operation.

I'm going to wait a few weeks and order some replacement frags and move on, but I feel like it is only fair to share the outcome of this ordeal. I am just posting what happened and you can make your own judgements on whether this is satisfactory service or not.

 

[Chrisv.]

Thanks for sharing. Wondering if your credit card company should be involved further. I don't know that I'd want a gift certificate.

 

[trevorhiller]

I contemplated arguing with him, the candy cane is toast and so is the green slimer. There’s nothing left to them. But if he doesn’t want to honor his guarantee and make right on what happened, particularly after the poor communication during weather delayed shipping, then I’ll just take my business elsewhere and share the experience here. Hopefully others will see this before they consider doing business with him. I really expected more, especially because I stated I’m new to the hobby and selected him because he’s a fellow Pennsylvania reef keeper. I could have just as easily ordered from WWC or another outfit and this would have been handled immediately without question.

I don’t believe there is anything I could have done to prevent this and it’s not worth my time arguing with him. I don’t feel like I should have to threaten negative reviews to get fair treatment.

 

[Chrisv.]

This was the guy who runs the FishofHex YouTube channel? I'm kinda surprised. Fish of Hex seems like he ships a lot of coral. Thanks for letting us know.

 

[trevorhiller]

Yes that’s how I found him.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Yeah it really did kind of take the wind out of my sails, especially after waiting 3 weeks for them to ship and 3 months into the tank. But I guess this goes with reef keeping…

The truth is most likely even if the corals did not get stressed During shipping from the looks of your tank they would die anyways cause your tank is to young still for sps.

 

[zuri]

I feel bad for whomever the seller is this thread is dragging their name through the mud can tell why they are dragging their feet as they are being exhorted

 

[zuri]

to the op stick with places like wwc who are used to dealing with newer reefers an have large warehouses 10-day warranty

 

[trevorhiller]

I’m not trying drag his name through the mud. I’m just reporting my experience and dissatisfaction. He’s hardly a small operation, from what others have said this is his full time operation and he has a website and YouTube channel. He’s not just someone selling on the forums ocassionally.

As for the age of my tank, that has really nothing to do with this. It doesn’t matter if I had a 20 year old tank, if the frags arrived dead, they arrived dead. IMO, the seller should have offered a full refund as they arrived in 24 hours and were not packaged sufficiently for survival. You’re all entitled to your opinion just like I am.

I agree. Like i said, in the future I’ll be ordering from outfits that stand behind their product a little more.

I feel for the guy having to take a loss on my order, but that’s part of selling live items. I gave him the ok to wait until there was warmer weather and just made it clear, I just wanted some sort of update after 3 weeks of no contact. He chose to ship them out and they died.

 

[Chrisv.]

The truth is most likely even if the corals did not get stressed During shipping from the looks of your tank they would die anyways cause your tank is to young still for sps.

Really? A three month old tank can't handle a green slimer frag? I disagree.

And really it's beside the point. We will never know because they arrived dead.

As for the comments feeling bad for the seller, he is a big boy. He has a huge social media presence and I'm sure he is on here. Tough to defend him IMHO.

 

[zuri]

frags were alive in those first shots... ur a nurse?

As for the age of my tank, that has really nothing to do with this. It doesn’t matter if I had a 20 year old tank, if the frags arrived dead, they arrived dead. IMO, the seller should have offered a full refund as they arrived in 24 hours and were not packaged sufficiently for survival. You’re all entitled to your opinion just like I am.

 

[Chrisv.]

frags were alive in those first shots... ur a nurse?

Would you honestly be happy if you got frags that looked like that? 100% of the corals look 90% dead.

 

[zuri]

I have worse than that and they lived, this guy is new and doesn't know his elbow from his foot
Dinos in a 3 month old tank? guys we need to be on point when giving advice holding hands isn't my thing blunt an honest is