Issues with AquaSD

[ribosomereefer]

Ordered an aquacultured Monsoon elegance coral from AquaSD.

To my surprise, a gall crab jumped out of the skeleton when I introduced it into my tank. Then I noticed the elegance had 3 deep holes in its skeleton and some of the skeleton was even chipped. This made me question whether the elegance was truely aquacultured...

Contacted AquaSD and they said it was perfectly healthy coral and they wouldn't do anything about it :/

 

[TeamAquaSD]

Ordered an aquacultured Monsoon elegance coral from AquaSD.

To my surprise, a gall crab jumped out of the skeleton when I introduced it into my tank. Then I noticed the elegance had 3 deep holes in its skeleton and some of the skeleton was even chipped. This made me question whether the elegance was truely aquacultured...

Contacted AquaSD and they said it was perfectly healthy coral and they wouldn't do anything about it :/

Hey there. Our apologies on the gall crab being sent off to you.
I will provide the shipout photo of the elegance before being bagged as well as the photo of the coral you sent us this morning in the email.
From everything we see the coral is still in great health and the gall crab is not damaging the flesh of the coral in any way. Best thing to do to get the crab out would either be with a probe or tweezers to manually remove the crab. If it is in a hard to reach spot you can always seal up the holes with superglue and the crab will perish.
Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions or concerns.

 

[ribosomereefer]

Here it is yesterday with the skeleton chipped off and pulling the flesh with it. @AquaSD

 

[TeamAquaSD]

Ah got it.
Still not too late for it to be saved though Since it arrived on 5/2/24 have you taken any precautions to try and save it?
Before being photographed and sold it did go through a quarantine and dipping process for over a month so not sure how one of those crabs could still be alive still. Have you actually seen the crab itself or just the holes?
I would dip the coral in a light iodine dip like lugols or reefdip and after the iodine soak you can put a little glue on the corals skeleton to join the two sides of the fracture together again which will greatly increase the corals odds of survival.
We inspect each coral during the dip / quarantine process and once again once when we pull the order and bag them up. We are very good at reaching out about issues such as this and almost always have exceedingly similar replacements so if there was an issue we would have contacted you.

The coral should make a full recovery once given a little care and as always we are here to help out however we can.

 

[ribosomereefer]

I always dip in iodine. I did not notice the crab during the dip as iodine is rather dark. However, the gall crab is definitely alive and moving after the dip when I placed the elegance into my tank. I'm not sure how there are pests as well since the Monsoon Elegance are "aquaculture".

In your website, you write "If any coral is not in good condition to be shipped, we will contact you via phone and email to substitute it for a different one of equal value." Yet, you still shipped this coral that requires me to glue the skeleton together. I'm not sure how this is acceptable.

 

[TeamAquaSD]

I always dip in iodine. I did not notice the crab during the dip as iodine is rather dark. However, the gall crab is definitely alive and moving after the dip when I placed the elegance into my tank. I'm not sure how there are pests as well since the Monsoon Elegance are "aquaculture".

In your website, you write "If any coral is not in good condition to be shipped, we will contact you via phone and email to substitute it for a different one of equal value." Yet, you still shipped this coral that requires me to glue the skeleton together. I'm not sure how this is acceptable.

As mentioned above we certainly do contact customers if any issues are prevalent. Holes through coral skeletons are not very common but do occur and as long as the coral is in a healthy condition and there are no visible issues with the flesh then we will send the coral out.
As mentioned about our quarantine / dip regiment we do hold on to these corals for around two months before there is a chance they can be shipped out from receiving the shipment, quarantine, the que it waits to be photographed, product template made for the item, ect.

The gentleman whom checks the items and bags them for shipping is very thorough and will bring to my attention any issues or flaws the coral may have so that we can contact the customer in order to bring them to their attention and avoid any possible issues just like this.
I am not sure of how the box was handled after it left our facility but I am positive that a fracture in the coral skeleton as prevelant as that would not have been missed by him or even caught earlier on in our general care routines for the corals. Surely someone would have noticed the break when dipping or feeding the coral as it would have been closed up.

Please follow the fixes I have mentioned and try to save the elegance. From the shipout photos to even the photo you sent via email it was looking nice and open / happy and should be able to make a recovery given the appropriate care.

 

[ribosomereefer]

As mentioned above we certainly do contact customers if any issues are prevalent. Holes through coral skeletons are not very common but do occur and as long as the coral is in a healthy condition and there are no visible issues with the flesh then we will send the coral out.
As mentioned about our quarantine / dip regiment we do hold on to these corals for around two months before there is a chance they can be shipped out from receiving the shipment, quarantine, the que it waits to be photographed, product template made for the item, ect.

The gentleman whom checks the items and bags them for shipping is very thorough and will bring to my attention any issues or flaws the coral may have so that we can contact the customer in order to bring them to their attention and avoid any possible issues just like this.
I am not sure of how the box was handled after it left our facility but I am positive that a fracture in the coral skeleton as prevelant as that would not have been missed by him or even caught earlier on in our general care routines for the corals. Surely someone would have noticed the break when dipping or feeding the coral as it would have been closed up.

Please follow the fixes I have mentioned and try to save the elegance. From the shipout photos to even the photo you sent via email it was looking nice and open / happy and should be able to make a recovery given the appropriate care.

If the coral is in great health as you've stated, why do I need to "save" it? It's also disappointing that you do not contact costumers when there's clearly 3 holes in the skeleton caused by gall crabs, which are known to annoy or kill elegances, especially small ones like this. As for the chipped skeleton, I can't speak on what happens in your facilities, but it arrived like this.

It was clearly not in good condition when you shipped it. Your guarantee policy clearly does not seem guaranteed

 

[TeamAquaSD]

Reach out to us next time you have an order placed and we will make sure that you are taken care of with a replacement

 

[ribosomereefer]

I don't understand this resolution. It's not really a replacement because I would need to make another purchase worth 100$+ because of your rules of order minimums (+$30 shipping fees). I would basically be paying twice as much to receive a "replacement".