Ffe Lr

Flying Fish Express... My mother once told me that if you don't have anything nice to say, keep yer trap shut............... :X

I know two people who have ordered thier LR via flying fish, and I have to say, I was not very impressed either time. The rock seemed devoid of any little "creatures", and pretty much no coraline growth on it as well. I'm sure the rock served its biological purpose, but none the less......

I normally agree with the "if you don't have any thing nice to say......." mentality, however, I'm starting to think if the company responsible for the LR don't want bad things to be said, they should take care to send out a quality product, or at least one that is what it is claimed to be.

I've been looking into Tampa Bay Saltwater myself for my upcomming online LR purchase. Another guy I know went that route, and I have to say, the rock he got was excelent. Well worth every penny he paid. I've heard decent things about Gulf View also, but have never personally seen the rock. HTH.

"J"

p.s. Has any one noticed a serious decline in the quality of Fiji rock at thier LFS's of late?? I've traveled around 100 miles in either direction from me to get some rock, and I can't find anything that looks even half way decent. Don't suppose its a seasonal thing??

ok, that's for more provocation than I can stand!!!!!!! ehhehehe

I ordered from FFE when I set up my 55... Had read lots of good things about em, and then they ran a sale and I had to give it a shot... So, my rock comes while I'm at work and my fiance takes the package which was dripping and stinking up the entire house as she managed to lug it to the tub I had prepared... The inner bag was torn and all the water had leaked through to the shipping box. Suffice to say, the rock wasn't in very good shape

Now then, I called the company when I got home and I spoke to a couple different people. One of which was a phone rep that was clearly at a loss over what to tell me and the other was a paticularly SPECIAL livestock manager (I believe, its been a while and this memory was repressed...) This manager bascially called me a liar and said this was considered "normal" for their rock and I needed to suck it up... After a few choice words for this person, I hung up and wrote the company an email stating just how dissatisfied I was with them, their rock and this person specifically... Well, that email just happened to goto that very manager =) We exchanged a few nastygrams (I'm sure some of you know how I can get when properly annoyed.....) and it pretty much ended when I told him I'd be taking my FFE experience to the online community so that no one else would have to deal with this kind of garbage...

WELL....... I posted my tale of rocks gone bad right here on AC that night and went to bed... I awoke to find my emails, including my customer contact information, pasted into that thread by the manager who had apparently sent my emails to his personal email at home... The powers that be of AC were kind enough to take care of that little problem for me, so I started writing to every email address on FFE.com I could find... I eventually got the to the secretary of the owner who informed him of the situation...

The owner of the company called me at home that night and explained what had happened with my rock... Apparently when the shipment came in that week, a couple boxes were damaged... He told the shipping department to repack them, but in the haste of trying to get it to Fed-Ex, this did not occur.. He apologized profusely for the rock and for the employee's behavior and eventually gave me a full refund for the rock and told me to keep the now re-curing rock for my troubles...

WHAT A FIASCO!

As for the rock itself, beautiful stuff! Had my rock survived shipping, it woulda been fabulous stuff... I found several crabs, some nice macro algae growth, some mushrooms and even a gorgonian... Sadly, everything was DEAD =\

I do consider my case to be highly anomolous because I've read of other people having GREAT results from them.. It just goes go show that all operations, no matter how big or small, can have REALLY bad days...

btw, I asked the owner not to fire the jerk of a manager despite him so OBVIOUSLY deserving it... I had no desire to see some guy's family going hungry over a stinky box of rock... What he did afterwards, I can't say... But if the guy lost his job it was due to his own stupidity.....

If I were purchasing liverock today, my only option would be Gulf View... Not cuz FFE screwed my rock up, but because the rock that GV has to offer is head and shoulders above anything I've seen from anyone else.. Period =)