bad refugium story

[jollopee]

Well, I built what I thought would be a pretty good fuge......but it didnt turn out so well, the baffles all fell off . Oh well, so I thought I would go ahead and just buy one,well let me tell you, I really wish I had just bought one from Marine Depot but ooooooh noooooo Todd has to save a few bucks and use someone else online. Well I bought and paid for it last saturday paid for express delivery as well. It still isnt here. I called em thursday morning they told me it had been shipped out but after 15 minutes of me being on hold while they were looking for my tracking number they came up empty handed and garunteed me that it was shipped on wednesday
(why did it take so long to ship out an express delivery package ) and would email me my tracking number,which I never recieved after that phone call. So I called them today (friday) told them I still hadnt gotten my tracking number and she sais well Im out of the office right now ( wait a minute didnt I just call you on your 1-800 place an order number, must be some kind of mobile customer satisfaction thing ). They tell me they will email me a number as soon as she gets back in the office. This is a little after 12 noon when I talked to em. The email I got at 2pm with the DHL tracking# showed a DHL pickup at owner location at 1:30pm TODAY. Can I give the name of this company here,they arent a sponsor. I guess I should have known better, hopefully no one else gets hogshwanked from these (insert nasty name here)people like I did

Todd

[Steven Pro]

I would name names.

[Reefland]

Can't start a thread like this without naming them.

[jollopee]

http://www.aquariumliquidators.com I will never buy anything from here again....my wife thinks its funny she sais I have deep pockets and short arms

Todd

[jollopee]

Well, I just recieved an email from these folks and well, I guess there was some fine print that I didnt read.

copied from the bottom of the page where I ordered this:

There will be no returns on custom orders. All filters are made to order, and could take from 3 days to 2 weeks (in addition to delivery time) to ship depending on the size and type of the filter and how busy our supplier is. If you need the filter quickly, please contact us before ordering to ensure a smooth transaction.

This doesnt mean Im not still TICKED off but I did kick myself . I put a temporary container to run as a sump for now and that DID NOT go well at all. To add to my already stressful situation I ended up putting about 30 gallons of water on the floor. This story is even better. I got everything in the sump and hooked up. Used my uv light as a main part of my return line. I walked into the kitchen to read the directions on the cpr overflow,next thing ya know I hear water. So Im thinking uh oh my ro/di can is full so I run into the laundry room and the can is only half full and I look over and water is flowing out from under my tank. I hurry up,as I am standing in about 3 inches of water to unplug the wires. I jump up and grab my overflow box and lift it out of the water......well hell,its not even deep enough in the water to draw water out and water is still flowing out of my sump,WHAT THE HECK. So I run into the laundry room and grab every piece of laundry in there and throw it out the door into my growing lake on my hardwood floor,water is still running,where the heck is this comeing from. So I run to the closet grab every sheet blanket and towel in there and I start mopping up the floor,finally I realize where its comeing from. THE DAMN RETURN LINE, it was siphoning out back down my uv light and through the return pump,so I jump onto my mound of wet laundry and fish out the plug in for the pump and whirl it around to get all the water off and plug it in.......problem solved? I think not. So the water pumps out of the sump into the main tank and all is good right, not likely, not with the night Im haveing (its now 12:30 am). So I unplug my return pump and continue cleaning up,next thing you know Im hearing water again,ooooooooooooooooooh damn. So get the cord again and plug it back inbut this time after I pumped it all back in the tank, I lifted the return line out of the water . Im pretty certain there is still 5 gallons of water under my tank cabinet.....lets all have a laugh on my account eh


Did I mention I didnt shut off my ro/di water.......that was a situation about 20 minutes after I got my first screw up under controll.

[ANGRY JOHN]

well that should mean that you have water standing by to refill the tank
anywase i had all these troubles when i started but i was only 12 so not only did i have to clean it all up i had my mom and dad yelling at me. my big problem was a hose that poped off my skimmer which doesnt seem like a big deal but i had a top fathom tf-200 which holds like 3-4 gallons as well as a sump that held 20. what a mess. kent marine makes a float switch which is made for auto leaveling of sumps but i use as a safty switch for my ro bucket. i dont know how much trouble that float switch has saved me over the years but i am shure that buy now i would have had mold from all the overflows. on a side note i would recomend drilling a siphon break in your return line or mabe a check valve. both works better as sometimes check valves are prone to sticking open if not cleaned often. keep charging the hard way and the long road teaches the lesons rembered.