:!: The purpose of this is basically to warn fellow hobbyists of what happens when an Aqua Logic chiller fails. Just to give some background on my aquarium, i have a 300g (w/80g sump)MMFI Surgarium II system, with algae turf scrubbers. I Purchased my Aqua Logic 1/2hp Delta Star chiller from Aqua Direct in May of this year. Approximately 3 weeks after installing the unit, I came home from work to find that the temperature in my aquarium was 93 degrees. The reason for this was that the chiller had failed. In a panic I called Aqua Logic and spoke to Rich Darby, who told me to call a repairman. He said not to worry, that they would send me out a replacement chiller and would compensate me for any loss of life that resulted from the malfunction of their unit.
The repairman showed up later that night and after checking the unit, told me that the relay which triggers the cooling unit had jammed and was defective. He was able to temporarily fix it and ordered a new relay. I called Rich back and informed him what had happened. He said he needed to see the defective unit and would wait to make any decision until that point. I took several digital pictures of the temperature on the Medusa control unit to prove the temperature was at 93 degrees.
Within days, my SPS corals started to bleach, and subsequently, I lost not only fish, but a vast majority of my corals. The total was slightly over $3300.
I again spoke to Rich who told me to send an email detailing the losses. Here is what I sent to Aqua Logic (Doug was the name of the contact person Rich told me to send the e to):
hello Doug...
as i'm guessing you are aware, i had a tragic event occur a week or so ago. i first have to apologize for the delay in getting you these pictures. i had originally in my panicked state shot all of them digitally on the highest setting, then when i was sending them to you, i realized that it would take almost 2hours to download on a 56k modem that your receptionist informed me you had. so i reshot everything i could in the lowest setting. hopefully it won't take nearly as long to download, however, the pictures confirming the temp at the time of failure are at the highest setting and may take a while to d/l. my apologies.
anyway, my 1/2hp chiller failed due to a jammed relay, and the water temp rose to 93 degrees (please see second email for pictures confirming temp on my Medusa controller) for an undetermined length of time (i discovered the problem when i returned from work that evening). i originally spoke to David at AquaDirect (i had purchased my chiller through them), who informed me that if there is a company out there that you have a problem with, the best one to have that problem with is Aqualogic, since you have such a great reputation.
I spoke to Rich several times during the course of the evening to keep him apprised of the situation. Needless to say I was very distraught. As I have no children, my 300g reef is essentially my 'baby'. Rich managed to keep me relatively calm during this process, assuring me that Aqualogic would replace the chiller and reimburse me for any losses. Obviously, I was quite relieved to hear this. Since much of my reef is SPS corals, I knew that I would be losing a great deal of animals. Unfortunately, I lost almost my entire SPS collection, many of my fish, a great deal of LPS corals, as well as a large clam, and a countless horde of snails, hermits, and emerald crabs. Essentially, I lost almost everything I spent countless hours busting my butt to obtain. I have included in this email several pictures as well as a spreadsheet of animals lost. I'm sure you will be in disbelief when you see the list. Trust me, it won't even compare to the misery I deal with everyday since the chiller failed. I encourage you to contact all the vendors involved to confirm purchases and I have receipts I will be more than happy to fax to you. Unfortunately, I do not have receipts for local frags that were lost, so I have no way of proving to you that they existed. I have not included those on the list. I have also not included on the list snails/crabs since there are so many of them and I didn't want to count shells on the sand. Please be well assured that i am not trying to scam anyone out of money...these losses are all legit. if you feel otherwise, please tell me so i can verify anything you have doubts about.
i would certainly appreciate a phone call from you to talk about this. i am very pleased that you have sent me a back-up chiller. i was so impressed that i have made sure all the vendors and other reefers i deal with know how you have handled this crisis so far.
i am looking forward to speaking with you soon...
>>>>>
That email was sent more than a month ago. Unfortunately, Doug never had the courtesy to call, nor did anyone else for that matter, even after I overnighted the defective unit to them. Today (July 12th)I called to get an update and here is what transpired....
I called Aqua Logic to get an update on the situation. I spoke to Rich. He informed me that after initial tests, they couldn't find anything wrong with the unit, that it was either 'operator error' or due to a 'brown out' from my power company. Based on that, Aqua Logic wasn't going to replace any animals that had died. I told him that was unacceptable especially after he indicated he would replace any animals that were lost. He said he wasn't going to deal with me anymore and transferred the call to the receptionist, who indicated that Gary Benzel, the owner, would call me personally.
5 minutes later Gary called. He informed me of the same thing. It was my fault. Or the power company's fault, but certainly not the fault of his product. His attitude was amazingly arrogant in light of the situation. He said I should have had all sorts of back-ups on the system to automatically turn off the lights and put ice in the aquarium once the temp rose to a certain level. I said that having an ice machine hookup to my sump was impossible since I'm only a hobbiest..he said that many large companies have that. He also said that in the eastern states, brown outs are so common that the relays in their chillers fail all the time! I informed him that i have a surge surpressor built into my house due to some high-end stereo equipment I have, and that I have never experienced a brown out. He said it didn't matter, he wasn't going to pay me anything, he'd let his insurance company deal with it and make them pay the bill, and that I can sue him if I like. He also said he was going to be taking back the replacement chiller as well, and hung up.
I called Steve (the individual who fixed the unit the day it had failed) at Cook's Service Company. He said under no circumstances did it fail due to anything I did. that it was installed properly. He also said that it wasn't due to a brown out. He said the relay had jammed, and that was what caused the unit to fail. He said he'd be willing to write a letter should it be necessary for legal reasons.
I've called my attorney and am waiting for a return call.
Since I own my own business, I am very conscientious of customer relations. Aqua Logic is devoid of customer relations, or better yet, couldn't care less about the end user. I always believe that what makes a company sound is the way it handles a problem, since eventually one will occur. Aqua Logic's 'just sue me' attitude is wrong, but unfortunately is becoming more typical of large companies who refuse to take responsibility for their products. Maybe your Aqua Logic chiller will never fail and you will never have any problems. However maybe you will never get into a car accident either, but you still have insurance. If you choose Aqua Logic, you won't be getting an insurance policy. I am obsessed with my reef. If you are too, do yourself a huge favor and DO NOT buy Aqua Logic.
If you have any comments or questions, please email me at [email protected]
Doug
The repairman showed up later that night and after checking the unit, told me that the relay which triggers the cooling unit had jammed and was defective. He was able to temporarily fix it and ordered a new relay. I called Rich back and informed him what had happened. He said he needed to see the defective unit and would wait to make any decision until that point. I took several digital pictures of the temperature on the Medusa control unit to prove the temperature was at 93 degrees.
Within days, my SPS corals started to bleach, and subsequently, I lost not only fish, but a vast majority of my corals. The total was slightly over $3300.
I again spoke to Rich who told me to send an email detailing the losses. Here is what I sent to Aqua Logic (Doug was the name of the contact person Rich told me to send the e to):
hello Doug...
as i'm guessing you are aware, i had a tragic event occur a week or so ago. i first have to apologize for the delay in getting you these pictures. i had originally in my panicked state shot all of them digitally on the highest setting, then when i was sending them to you, i realized that it would take almost 2hours to download on a 56k modem that your receptionist informed me you had. so i reshot everything i could in the lowest setting. hopefully it won't take nearly as long to download, however, the pictures confirming the temp at the time of failure are at the highest setting and may take a while to d/l. my apologies.
anyway, my 1/2hp chiller failed due to a jammed relay, and the water temp rose to 93 degrees (please see second email for pictures confirming temp on my Medusa controller) for an undetermined length of time (i discovered the problem when i returned from work that evening). i originally spoke to David at AquaDirect (i had purchased my chiller through them), who informed me that if there is a company out there that you have a problem with, the best one to have that problem with is Aqualogic, since you have such a great reputation.
I spoke to Rich several times during the course of the evening to keep him apprised of the situation. Needless to say I was very distraught. As I have no children, my 300g reef is essentially my 'baby'. Rich managed to keep me relatively calm during this process, assuring me that Aqualogic would replace the chiller and reimburse me for any losses. Obviously, I was quite relieved to hear this. Since much of my reef is SPS corals, I knew that I would be losing a great deal of animals. Unfortunately, I lost almost my entire SPS collection, many of my fish, a great deal of LPS corals, as well as a large clam, and a countless horde of snails, hermits, and emerald crabs. Essentially, I lost almost everything I spent countless hours busting my butt to obtain. I have included in this email several pictures as well as a spreadsheet of animals lost. I'm sure you will be in disbelief when you see the list. Trust me, it won't even compare to the misery I deal with everyday since the chiller failed. I encourage you to contact all the vendors involved to confirm purchases and I have receipts I will be more than happy to fax to you. Unfortunately, I do not have receipts for local frags that were lost, so I have no way of proving to you that they existed. I have not included those on the list. I have also not included on the list snails/crabs since there are so many of them and I didn't want to count shells on the sand. Please be well assured that i am not trying to scam anyone out of money...these losses are all legit. if you feel otherwise, please tell me so i can verify anything you have doubts about.
i would certainly appreciate a phone call from you to talk about this. i am very pleased that you have sent me a back-up chiller. i was so impressed that i have made sure all the vendors and other reefers i deal with know how you have handled this crisis so far.
i am looking forward to speaking with you soon...
>>>>>
That email was sent more than a month ago. Unfortunately, Doug never had the courtesy to call, nor did anyone else for that matter, even after I overnighted the defective unit to them. Today (July 12th)I called to get an update and here is what transpired....
I called Aqua Logic to get an update on the situation. I spoke to Rich. He informed me that after initial tests, they couldn't find anything wrong with the unit, that it was either 'operator error' or due to a 'brown out' from my power company. Based on that, Aqua Logic wasn't going to replace any animals that had died. I told him that was unacceptable especially after he indicated he would replace any animals that were lost. He said he wasn't going to deal with me anymore and transferred the call to the receptionist, who indicated that Gary Benzel, the owner, would call me personally.
5 minutes later Gary called. He informed me of the same thing. It was my fault. Or the power company's fault, but certainly not the fault of his product. His attitude was amazingly arrogant in light of the situation. He said I should have had all sorts of back-ups on the system to automatically turn off the lights and put ice in the aquarium once the temp rose to a certain level. I said that having an ice machine hookup to my sump was impossible since I'm only a hobbiest..he said that many large companies have that. He also said that in the eastern states, brown outs are so common that the relays in their chillers fail all the time! I informed him that i have a surge surpressor built into my house due to some high-end stereo equipment I have, and that I have never experienced a brown out. He said it didn't matter, he wasn't going to pay me anything, he'd let his insurance company deal with it and make them pay the bill, and that I can sue him if I like. He also said he was going to be taking back the replacement chiller as well, and hung up.
I called Steve (the individual who fixed the unit the day it had failed) at Cook's Service Company. He said under no circumstances did it fail due to anything I did. that it was installed properly. He also said that it wasn't due to a brown out. He said the relay had jammed, and that was what caused the unit to fail. He said he'd be willing to write a letter should it be necessary for legal reasons.
I've called my attorney and am waiting for a return call.
Since I own my own business, I am very conscientious of customer relations. Aqua Logic is devoid of customer relations, or better yet, couldn't care less about the end user. I always believe that what makes a company sound is the way it handles a problem, since eventually one will occur. Aqua Logic's 'just sue me' attitude is wrong, but unfortunately is becoming more typical of large companies who refuse to take responsibility for their products. Maybe your Aqua Logic chiller will never fail and you will never have any problems. However maybe you will never get into a car accident either, but you still have insurance. If you choose Aqua Logic, you won't be getting an insurance policy. I am obsessed with my reef. If you are too, do yourself a huge favor and DO NOT buy Aqua Logic.
If you have any comments or questions, please email me at [email protected]
Doug
Hopefully, you lawyer could do someting for you... Good luck !!
