sherry
Aquarium Advice FINatic
so today was the day I was supposed to upgrade from a 12 gallon eclipse to a 37 gallon acrylic cube... acrylic because I have two young sons (1 and 3) cube because I live in a tiny NYC apartment and had room for 20 inches wide of tank and wanted to be able to have a bit of a bio load.
The idea was to have everything here and do it all at once so to minimize the stress on the older fish/plants. I figured that with the older substrate and filter media the cycle would be almost instant... Also, since I have only ONE place for the tank.. I couldnt' put up the new one without taking apart the old one.
Tank came from Glass cages
new lights filters from Big Als
many fish and new plants azgardens
When all the hardware made it to my house, I hit the button on the fish order.. The tank I left in it's box because in a small apartment with two boys I didn't want to risk scratching it.
Well...we took apart the 12 gallon. fish and plants in buckets.. then re-leveled the stand to be extra sure, and went to grab the new tank...
It had huge cracks all over it.. all through the 3/8 inch acrylic running 12 inches, 9 inches 7 inches another 8 inches ect..
It gets worse. I called glass cages, http://www.glasscages.com, and said something to the effect of "help!" I've got fish and plants and no where to put them... they answered by telling me that I had to file a claim with fedex.
Now I agree fedex did a shoddy job delivering but glass cages did a shoddier job of packing this thing (maybe an inch of styrofoam around the tank and nothing else)
My friend hearing this going on, took the phone from me.. I was about to just faint... and said that the company should deal with fedex separately, that packaging was just as much to blame for the tank disaster and that glass cages should replace the tank "with all haste". She was firm but very polite.
They hung up on her. Then later told me that since talking to my friend they have decided NOT TO REPLACE THE TANK!!!! they don't care that I have invested in lights and a filter or fish or plants... they have "pushed the button" on a refund thru amex. actually they didn't let us know this until 5 hours later. I am reordering the story a bit
These people are dangerous and should not be in business. I could say worse, but I won't.
okay. so next thing to happen. I have a total mud bath left in the old eclipse. mulm galore from the old eco complete. my pal and i decide to use the new lights and the new filter on the eclipse to try to salvage some fish/plants while we scramble for a new tank.
I go to set up the filter, an eheim ecco. should be great only it doesn't fit my stand... I have a stand that has a shelf (used as part of the structural integrity) and I needed a filter that cleared 12 inches operating. Went to buy an xp1 and a very nice woman at big als talked me into the ecco.. even measured it set up and said I'd be fine. Well she forgot to measure the intake/outflow valves.
Now I have need of great filtration and no working filter. What can I say except big als was amazing!!!! I called Dan the manager and told him the whole story.. and basically said the disaster was Glass CAges' fault but the mistake at big als was compounding this in a really unfortunate way. I asked the impossible of him. I asked not only that he replace the ecco with the shorter xp1, but that he allow us to operate the ecco until the other filter arrived.
since we were only running the eclipse, there is room on the stand behind the tank.. it won't be there later when we finally get a cube, but for the short term it is there. DAN agreed!!!!! He said he wanted to make as much of this better as he could!!! He even spent an hour on the phone helping us get the thing running
he went further. This was before glass cages told us to go sit on a tack.. but I had a bad feeling about them. They had been very difficult when making the order already.. I didn't trust them and I told Dan that. I asked him if he had a friend that built acrylic tanks... (I already knew that everyone I had tried to order from wanted $500 for an acrylic cube since it is an odd size. I only ordered from Glass Cages because their price was remarkably lower... )
Dan from big als had a friend, called the man up and found out that he could build a tank but it would take weeks.... With Dan on one phone on speaker.. I called class cages to see if I would need that fall back.. This is when they informed me that my friend was "too snotty" and they decided not to make us another tank..
Never once did these horrible people apologize for sending a tank packed in a way that could shatter!!!
Dan heard all of this.. called his friend, and the man is building us a new cube this weekend. It is a little more expensive.. .but not anywhere near what everyone else wanted...
I still had to cram my fish into the 12 gallon and most of my plants into a friends 125... and tonight is only night one of what will be at least 10 days including shipping... but.. at least we have a hope of getting this resolved with few deaths.
oh.. and amex is putting in a claim against glass cages not only for the price of their tank, but for the price of the replacement. it may not pan out in the end.. but the rep essentially said that amex usually would consider behavior like this to carry liability.
The idea was to have everything here and do it all at once so to minimize the stress on the older fish/plants. I figured that with the older substrate and filter media the cycle would be almost instant... Also, since I have only ONE place for the tank.. I couldnt' put up the new one without taking apart the old one.
Tank came from Glass cages
new lights filters from Big Als
many fish and new plants azgardens
When all the hardware made it to my house, I hit the button on the fish order.. The tank I left in it's box because in a small apartment with two boys I didn't want to risk scratching it.
Well...we took apart the 12 gallon. fish and plants in buckets.. then re-leveled the stand to be extra sure, and went to grab the new tank...
It had huge cracks all over it.. all through the 3/8 inch acrylic running 12 inches, 9 inches 7 inches another 8 inches ect..
It gets worse. I called glass cages, http://www.glasscages.com, and said something to the effect of "help!" I've got fish and plants and no where to put them... they answered by telling me that I had to file a claim with fedex.
Now I agree fedex did a shoddy job delivering but glass cages did a shoddier job of packing this thing (maybe an inch of styrofoam around the tank and nothing else)
My friend hearing this going on, took the phone from me.. I was about to just faint... and said that the company should deal with fedex separately, that packaging was just as much to blame for the tank disaster and that glass cages should replace the tank "with all haste". She was firm but very polite.
They hung up on her. Then later told me that since talking to my friend they have decided NOT TO REPLACE THE TANK!!!! they don't care that I have invested in lights and a filter or fish or plants... they have "pushed the button" on a refund thru amex. actually they didn't let us know this until 5 hours later. I am reordering the story a bit
These people are dangerous and should not be in business. I could say worse, but I won't.
okay. so next thing to happen. I have a total mud bath left in the old eclipse. mulm galore from the old eco complete. my pal and i decide to use the new lights and the new filter on the eclipse to try to salvage some fish/plants while we scramble for a new tank.
I go to set up the filter, an eheim ecco. should be great only it doesn't fit my stand... I have a stand that has a shelf (used as part of the structural integrity) and I needed a filter that cleared 12 inches operating. Went to buy an xp1 and a very nice woman at big als talked me into the ecco.. even measured it set up and said I'd be fine. Well she forgot to measure the intake/outflow valves.
Now I have need of great filtration and no working filter. What can I say except big als was amazing!!!! I called Dan the manager and told him the whole story.. and basically said the disaster was Glass CAges' fault but the mistake at big als was compounding this in a really unfortunate way. I asked the impossible of him. I asked not only that he replace the ecco with the shorter xp1, but that he allow us to operate the ecco until the other filter arrived.
since we were only running the eclipse, there is room on the stand behind the tank.. it won't be there later when we finally get a cube, but for the short term it is there. DAN agreed!!!!! He said he wanted to make as much of this better as he could!!! He even spent an hour on the phone helping us get the thing running
he went further. This was before glass cages told us to go sit on a tack.. but I had a bad feeling about them. They had been very difficult when making the order already.. I didn't trust them and I told Dan that. I asked him if he had a friend that built acrylic tanks... (I already knew that everyone I had tried to order from wanted $500 for an acrylic cube since it is an odd size. I only ordered from Glass Cages because their price was remarkably lower... )
Dan from big als had a friend, called the man up and found out that he could build a tank but it would take weeks.... With Dan on one phone on speaker.. I called class cages to see if I would need that fall back.. This is when they informed me that my friend was "too snotty" and they decided not to make us another tank..
Never once did these horrible people apologize for sending a tank packed in a way that could shatter!!!
Dan heard all of this.. called his friend, and the man is building us a new cube this weekend. It is a little more expensive.. .but not anywhere near what everyone else wanted...
I still had to cram my fish into the 12 gallon and most of my plants into a friends 125... and tonight is only night one of what will be at least 10 days including shipping... but.. at least we have a hope of getting this resolved with few deaths.
oh.. and amex is putting in a claim against glass cages not only for the price of their tank, but for the price of the replacement. it may not pan out in the end.. but the rep essentially said that amex usually would consider behavior like this to carry liability.
To say that "sucks" is an understatement Sherry. Glass Cages handled this poorly but were within their legal rights. Their responsibility ends when they turn the freight over to Fedex. Fedex responsibility ends when you sign the receipt of order. For this reason you should always inspect anything of a fragile nature before you legally take possesion.
it took me a month to get the money back. My husband called them and it was done in a couple weeks. Some people just don't take women seriously 
.
