About a year ago I was contacted by a guy who was having troubles with his small reef aquarium. After discussing several things over the phone, I convinced him to have an in-person consultation from me. With my aquarium installation and maintenance company, I am more geared towards dealing with much larger systems than what he had but he was near other clients of mine so we arranged some time around when I would be at those other clients, performing service on their systems. This was near the Hooks airport area in suburbs North of Houston itself. I spent about 1.5 hours at the guy’s place, critiquing his system and methods. I don’t intend to make it sound like I was being too harsh, but when I am consulting I don’t pull any punches. When people are paying me for my opinion (and even when they aren’t) I like to get to the point quickly. It is my job to read the situation and my surroundings in order to figure out how to tailor my advice. What I mean by this is I have to figure out what the client’s budget for their aquarium is before I can properly guide them so being direct and honest helps this process.
I have seen the same mistakes repeated so many times by well-meaning hobbyists, I can usually accurately guess what I will be walking into before I get there. There are almost always chemicals they don’t need, inadequate filtration issues, out-of-date test kits, and a head filled with wrong and conflicting information. I don’t say this to belittle anyone, but this is why they are paying me…to straighten them out and show them the path. I love doing it because this was my job for over 10 years at many different aquarium stores from the Dallas area, where I am originally from, to Houston, where I have resided since 2000. Though working at retail pet stores was often frustrating, I loved and still love aquarium problem solving for a captive audience. It’s a fun challenge and something I am well versed in. When someone is paying to hear my opinion, they are listening more earnestly by design.
3 months after my consultation
So this gentleman took all my advice I gave to him and turned his small reef around. I believe this was about 3 months later. Great turnaround for that amount of time. The best thing is, my advice wasn’t any more complicated or expensive in the long run. In fact, it saved him time and money. My methods are generally to keep things simple. Unfortunately, many “fish stores” would have you believe that the answer to every aquarium issue is contained in a bottle of something they have on the shelf…it isn’t of course. Sometimes people are spending more on chemicals and what not that are actually causing them to require other chemicals to correct what the original bottle was doing to their aquarium. Other times they are just working with incorrect information and methods. My job is to wipe the slate clean and guide them in a different direction. The saltwater hobby is expensive enough, even when you are doing it successfully. Throw in some costly mistakes and/or bad advice and it’s game over eventually. All that ends with is dead animals and someone who has a poor opinion about this hobby, a situation I despise.
The most recent picture of this system.
If you or someone you know would be interested in a consultation from me, please contact me to discuss. You don’t even need to be in Houston, or Texas, or the USA for that matter. We could set up something through Facetime or Skype and do it over the internet. Big systems, small systems, freshwater, saltwater, you name it, I can help. The money I could save you in the long run will always counter-balance the cost of the consultation. Is your system not running the way you think it should? Did you or someone else install things incorrectly? Have you been receiving bad or conflicting advice? Just contact me and we can go through everything.
Thanks and I hope to hear from you if you are confused about your hobby and want to be more successful.
Ben Johnson – Captive Aquatic Ecosystems – 713-385-1297 – ben@caecosystems.com – custom aquarium installation and scheduled maintenance in Houston, Texas and beyond.
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