AQUARIUM SUFFERING

Friday 20 Dec 2013

Andrea’s custom aquarium was shipped from California by FedEx Ground, she has been anxiously charting its progress across the US. It was confirmed in Fargo, ND yesterday and was scheduled to be delivered to Connies Depot in Walhalla ND. She was restless last night, up early and checking the tracking frequently. What, it is not deliverable, FedEx showed that Connies was closed??? What, Andrea quickly checked and Connies was open 10 – 6 so quickly on the phone to FedEx. They were great to talk to, very helpful and confirmed that when they called prior to attempting delivery early in the morning they could not confirm anyone would be there to take delivery so it was left in the FED Ex depot. The next delivery would not be attempted until Monday and if there was no answer when they called…you get the picture…so Andrea asked if we could go to Grand Forks and pick it up ourselves. They said no problem and arranged for one of their drivers to meet us at the depot.

We grabbed our passports and headed to Grand Forks a two hour drive on a good day, this should be a good day right, O degrees Celsius, blowing 40K NW, a ton of snow packed and icy roads from the blowing snow, full of optimism we headed out. US customs, no problem ND highways very nice, and life was good, we made the FedEx depot on time and they sent one of their drivers to meet us. The pallet was a little rough, a corner block was broke off and there was damage to the outside but they opened the shrink wrap and checked what we could see. Everything looked fine so we headed home, a quick stop at Canada Customs to pay the taxes and we were home.

The un-wrap went well, we cut the strapping and Noah and I started to slide the top box off, we could hear something bad!! This was the cabinet, what the hell could be broken glass in a cabinet made of wood. No way to tell in the yard, it was dark and cold, the whole thing wrapped in cardboard so in the house it went. There was no way to describe the look on Andrea’s face, she had been waiting for weeks to get her aquarium and something is broken…

We brought the package in and carefully stated unwrapping it, as soon as the top was off she was looking down the cut out in the top, only to find the sump had been shipped loose in the bottom of the aquarium. (A sump is like a mini aquarium that houses all the cleaning components, refugium, heaters, and so on. Essentially the big pretty tank is useless without it.) Now try and imagine who would place a glass box in a wooden box loose and ship it from California to Manitoba. Seriously we ship guns with more protection than that glass box had in that wooden cabinet. Anyway to the point the sump was smashed, Andrea’s heart was smashed along with it. She quickly fired off a quick phone call to one of the CAD Lights sales reps she had been dealing with to tell him about the sump and we headed back out to get the rest of the aquarium.

Interestingly enough the wooden cabinet with the loose sump in it had been shipped on top of the glass aquarium; not sure of the logic behind this as the design when in the house full of water is for the glass aquarium to sit on the wooden stand but I am only the guy paying for it I guess. Anyway we opened it enough to check that there was nothing inside the aquarium itself, it was empty so into the house it went. We finished unwrapping it and took a blue light LED flashlight to inspect it. There was nothing we could see, it looks like an awesome tank that will be setting on our living room floor half unpacked for who knows how long.

Worse than even the broken sump is the fact that she ordered a complete setup, a basically ready to fill and run salt water tank with all the essential components included except a few individual pieces which she had dragged me into my least favorite of all Canadian cities so she could buy everything else last week. We were to have everything setup and the tank filled Saturday night allowing hours for landscaping the tank. NOTHING was there, none of the additional components she ordered was there except the light hangers, no plumbing, no pumps, no filter and so on. We have a useless 48” long 24” deep and 24” high hunk of glass sitting on out living room floor taking up space…it is though a beautiful hunk of glass though.

Jan 2 2014

They are building a new sump and looking for the missing parts so I am sure it will all end well.

We have actually been down with a stomach flu for the last few days, even though we are now seeming to come out of it we are still very low energy…thankfully in one sense we have had little motivation to go out – it has been a barrage of -40 to -50 C with the wind chill and even my passion for ice fishing knows those are limits not worth risking an accident in.