The Shadow™ Overflow from Synergy Reef has arrived!

[ethridge78]

That's why I didn't get one a week or two late then price went up lost free shipping wasn't worth it too me

 

[mixer911]

@mixer911:

Rick, since you are explaining your costs, please understand that I am the engineering manager for an automotive Tier 1 manufacturer, with a responsibility for five plants throughout North America. I am involved with the development and purchase of 10-15 injection molds per year of many different types; grained, ungrained, high-pressure injection, low pressure injection molding, and also blow molding molds, etc. Therefore, I am directly aware of the pricing for molds making items much more complex than this. And I understand the batch run costs, overhead, S,G, & A, direct and indirect labor costs, and so forth, because our parts for our customers are molded by our suppliers. We just supply the tooling to them. So I understand the related costs of making these parts.

While you are to be commended for the further (and smarter) development of what I see as a pre-existing product in form and function, that being the Ghost overflow, my comments refer to this:

Initial offering at $139 (includes T-shirt, I think), or perhaps your initial offering price was $149 with a T-shirt, not sure. There's a lot of users and lurkers here who might not have been able to get in due to financial issues at the time, or have awareness of your initial offering such as myself. I've been dry-tank since December because we built a new house out of medical necessity for my spouse.

Regardless, your IO price was favorable (you could've kept the T-shirt and included shipping instead if you didn't include shipping already) for MOST users out here. I need four of them - 300DD DT, 40 breeder frag tank, and 24" cube for DSB/mangroves. Your current price incl shipping for me is about $850. Not gonna happen. That's the price of a custom 300 gal sump.

There's a lot of reefers out here that $199 for this is just too much. I've got many local friends with tanks that sometimes skip groceries to buy salt. But if they were going to do a new build, then $130-150 for these would hit their market, and they'd gladly buy it because they have something that says "Synergy Reef".

It's not my business how you do your business. But were it me in your shoes, I'd have batched, say, two years worth of projected unit sales. Costs would have been fairly low versus a low initial run of 3-6 months of inventory. Say 2000 units instead of 500 as an example. The reason for this is if, over a year, you paid for the tooling and overhead etc. by selling 1500 units at a lower price, you'd be better off than if you sell 200 units at the initial offering price and 800 units over 2 years at the full price because many reefers just can't afford them. Faster ROI, and likely a much-elevated sales level in the interim. I'm not trying to school you, just giving you my honest opinion from another point of view.

Regarding my comments about "its been done", in some ways, you're right, you have a different product, the largest differences being the snap-on lid and the one-piece molded box. I'm not saying that it's not a nice product; it is. And, you had the good sense to include two weirs per overflow assembly, and you have the drilling template, which I would have made from 3/8 acrylic, but overall, it's a nice offering. Believe it or not, as an engineer, I like the custom bulkhead nuts... go figure.

What I meant is the overall concept. No offense meant. I can pull out my original CAD files from 2006 that are basically the Ghost-style overflow with both magnetically-retained and slide-in weirs long before there was a Ghost-style overflow. The customer was a friend that worked at our old parent company with a 600g acrylic tank without any overflows. I was gluing acrylic long before I was a tank owner and had never seen or heard of a Ghost overflow. The project constraints were 3000g capacity/hr, and quiet. Those overflows were 1.25" deep and 28" long X 2, and he chose the slide-in weirs. We were never sure about how epoxy-sealed magnets would do in saltwater over time... The choice of weir was either a rounded slot or a square slot, both of which I water jet cut myself using robots.

Small world...

Kev

I appreciate your response and respect your opinions. I totally understand your point of view. With that said, We are a small company and have self funded this project and our whole company. We did offer a great price on the initial Pre-sale to help get these into the hands of people who wanted to get in early. This initial sale helped us to be able to complete our tooling and finalize our product. Currently they are actually $149.99, so right at the $150 price you mentioned. Yes we charge shipping, because we are not marine depot or bulk reef supply. We do not get super cheap shipping rates because of high volume. We only charge exactly what FedEx charges us. To be fair it averages about $15. If this is out of your budget, then I would look at other options. There are plenty out there. Ours is just a better value overall when you look at everything. Our price point is more than fair for what you get. Does it fit everyone's budget, no, and neither do a lot of products in general. It's not like we are producing a lesser quality item and raising the price, if anything we have created a better product and are offering it at a lower price.

That's why I didn't get one a week or two late then price went up lost free shipping wasn't worth it too me

Price actually is still $50 under it's MAP pricing. Anfd like I mentioned above, we get charged shipping from Fedex, so we only charge what it costs. The pre sale was just that and was intended to get people a great discount on an early order product. Granted some people who have been waiting since September for theirs to ship. We think it's only fair to those people.

 

[Gary G]

sweet days after my Bday this comes out a gift to myself.

 

[kattz]

I appreciate your response and respect your opinions. I totally understand your point of view. With that said, We are a small company and have self funded this project and our whole company. We did offer a great price on the initial Pre-sale to help get these into the hands of people who wanted to get in early. This initial sale helped us to be able to complete our tooling and finalize our product. Currently they are actually $149.99, so right at the $150 price you mentioned. Yes we charge shipping, because we are not marine depot or bulk reef supply. We do not get super cheap shipping rates because of high volume. We only charge exactly what FedEx charges us. To be fair it averages about $15. If this is out of your budget, then I would look at other options. There are plenty out there. Ours is just a better value overall when you look at everything. Our price point is more than fair for what you get. Does it fit everyone's budget, no, and neither do a lot of products in general. It's not like we are producing a lesser quality item and raising the price, if anything we have created a better product and are offering it at a lower price.

Thanks for the response, Rick... I'll keep this overflow in mind for the build, but we need to see how other things work out first.

Best,

Kev

 

[gws3]

Stop tooting your own horn and give them a break. The price is still cheaper than any comparable hand built unit with 3X 1.5" drains, and has a lot of awesome features built in. They throw in an extra removable weir so you can always have a clean one on hand. Their current pricing is what you are asking for. Since you're an engineer in the field of injection molding you should appreciate the immense amount of time and money they put into designing this and bringing it to production.

@mixer911:

Rick, since you are explaining your costs, please understand that I am the engineering manager for an automotive Tier 1 manufacturer, with a responsibility for five plants throughout North America. I am involved with the development and purchase of 10-15 injection molds per year of many different types; grained, ungrained, high-pressure injection, low pressure injection molding, and also blow molding molds, etc. Therefore, I am directly aware of the pricing for molds making items much more complex than this. And I understand the batch run costs, overhead, S,G, & A, direct and indirect labor costs, and so forth, because our parts for our customers are molded by our suppliers. We just supply the tooling to them. So I understand the related costs of making these parts.

While you are to be commended for the further (and smarter) development of what I see as a pre-existing product in form and function, that being the Ghost overflow, my comments refer to this:

Initial offering at $139 (includes T-shirt, I think), or perhaps your initial offering price was $149 with a T-shirt, not sure. There's a lot of users and lurkers here who might not have been able to get in due to financial issues at the time, or have awareness of your initial offering such as myself. I've been dry-tank since December because we built a new house out of medical necessity for my spouse.

Regardless, your IO price was favorable (you could've kept the T-shirt and included shipping instead if you didn't include shipping already) for MOST users out here. I need four of them - 300DD DT, 40 breeder frag tank, and 24" cube for DSB/mangroves. Your current price incl shipping for me is about $850. Not gonna happen. That's the price of a custom 300 gal sump.

There's a lot of reefers out here that $199 for this is just too much. I've got many local friends with tanks that sometimes skip groceries to buy salt. But if they were going to do a new build, then $130-150 for these would hit their market, and they'd gladly buy it because they have something that says "Synergy Reef".

It's not my business how you do your business. But were it me in your shoes, I'd have batched, say, two years worth of projected unit sales. Costs would have been fairly low versus a low initial run of 3-6 months of inventory. Say 2000 units instead of 500 as an example. The reason for this is if, over a year, you paid for the tooling and overhead etc. by selling 1500 units at a lower price, you'd be better off than if you sell 200 units at the initial offering price and 800 units over 2 years at the full price because many reefers just can't afford them. Faster ROI, and likely a much-elevated sales level in the interim. I'm not trying to school you, just giving you my honest opinion from another point of view.

Regarding my comments about "its been done", in some ways, you're right, you have a different product, the largest differences being the snap-on lid and the one-piece molded box. I'm not saying that it's not a nice product; it is. And, you had the good sense to include two weirs per overflow assembly, and you have the drilling template, which I would have made from 3/8 acrylic, but overall, it's a nice offering. Believe it or not, as an engineer, I like the custom bulkhead nuts... go figure.

What I meant is the overall concept. No offense meant. I can pull out my original CAD files from 2006 that are basically the Ghost-style overflow with both magnetically-retained and slide-in weirs long before there was a Ghost-style overflow. The customer was a friend that worked at our old parent company with a 600g acrylic tank without any overflows. I was gluing acrylic long before I was a tank owner and had never seen or heard of a Ghost overflow. The project constraints were 3000g capacity/hr, and quiet. Those overflows were 1.25" deep and 28" long X 2, and he chose the slide-in weirs. We were never sure about how epoxy-sealed magnets would do in saltwater over time... The choice of weir was either a rounded slot or a square slot, both of which I water jet cut myself using robots.

Small world...

Kev

 

[mixer911]

So we got some footage from @mrsaltwatertank from our MACNA 2016 interview. Here we go over some of the basic differences between the Shadow and our older 16" overflow.

 

[revhtree]

So we got some footage from @mrsaltwatertank from our MACNA 2016 interview. Here we go over some of the basic differences between the Shadow and our older 16" overflow.

Very cool!

 

[Maximus]

How much longer will it be $149?

 

[Iballhog]

How much longer will it be $149?

I thought they mentioned Rising the price $10 each week .


Can't wait for the shadow, the timing should be perfect for when my new
Miracle tank arrives. Woohoo!!

 

[kattz]

Ordered two for the 300g.

Kev

 

[mixer911]

How much longer will it be $149?

We are going to hold steady at $149 until we get all the pre orders packed and shipped. So could be another week or 2. Waiting on them to arrive on the 21st! Then we have to pack them up for shipping.

 

[Mebeknob]

What company will be the first to make a "ghost" CORNER overflow?!

 

[TonapahNorth]

Do you anticipate making a 20" Shadow? Or other variants? If so, whats the expected release?
Thanks

 

[Reef man 89]

Just wondering will there be a ghost with 3 1" drains instead of 3 1.5?

 

[mixer911]

Do you anticipate making a 20" Shadow? Or other variants? If so, whats the expected release?
Thanks

Not at this time. We may revisit the option later, but nothing is on the horizon for anything larger than the 16"

Just wondering will there be a ghost with 3 1" drains instead of 3 1.5?

You just need to reduce the 1.5" drains down to 1" with pvc reducers. Will work fine.

 

[mixer911]

Anyone that is at Reefapalooza in California this weekend can see 2 of the Shadow Overflows installed on this AGE tank at the AGE booth #113.

 

[dan40b]

Ordered mine last night, very excited for this overflow!!

 

[nstuber3956]

I can't wait to get it. Got everything together just waiting on the overflow!

 

[Ikserk]

Rick, what is the recommended way to weld PVC to the polycarbonate? or are the three 1.5" drains threaded?

 

[mixer911]

Rick, what is the recommended way to weld PVC to the polycarbonate? or are the three 1.5" drains threaded?

Just the front Box, weirs and rear lid are Polycarbonate. The rear box is made of Translucent ABS. ABS and PVC can be bonded together. The 3 x 1.5" drains are slip fittings and can be welded with medium PVC glue, All Purpose Glue or ABS to PVC Transition Cement. We have tested them with all 3 and to be honest, regular medium PVC cement works great.