High Tide Aquatics

Kinetic ELOS 120XL

All ELOS Diamond series tanks are made of their proprietary Diamond Glass on ALL panels since their tanks can be used as a peninsula as well. Wouldn't make sense to have it only on one panel.

I agree the QD2 does look more refined than the QD3. I guess it's function over fashion, I rather have a better performing Quiet Drain than one that looks better.

Watch some recent YouTube videos, you can see some of the newer tanks with the QD3.

Yeah, back in the day, the Diamond series had just been announced, and it wasn't clear if the tank I got (elos 120) was Diamond Glass or not. I got so many different responses from ELOS at the time, and it was a mess. It seemed like a scam to get me to purchase some old stock at a premium price to be honest. I guess I couldn't tell the difference at the end of the day, but it didn't sit right. Fast forward 10+ years or whatever, and again I'm not even sure what I have, lol. I hope everything works out, which I believe it will, but it is crazy that for the price I paid, this is what I'm getting. About 3x more than a similar Waterbox/Red Sea.
 
Maybe someone can tell me, do these paint problems seem unacceptable? To me it definitely is. Of course it's "hidden" by the panels, but still, I am paying an extreme premium on this thing:

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Sounds like I may be in the minority here, but I would just get some appliance paint and rattle can it white. To me, that looks pretty minor and a very easy fix. As for the plastic pieces, some sandpaper and light dremeling looks like it should fix those issues. I get the frustration with the details given the price paid, but this is likely a 1 person build crew and they are trying to get stuff out the door fast. One welder/metal fab, painter, and running the mill to cut the plastic. Likely they are all the same person and building in an assembly line with multiple projects at once. The plastic burs and overflow construction would be my biggest complaint, but again, sandpaper fixes lots. I have not seen many (or any) overflows I would be happy to sell if I were in the business.

I also have a fear of stands racking in a minor earthquake, so I would weld or bolt in some additional gussets. I know I am slightly paranoid there. Maybe it is my med device background and mechanical failure being strictly unacceptable, but I want to be able to throw my stand off the roof and have it survive with the only damage being to the ground.

This was a part of the reason I went custom is that I knew I would be responsible for the build, my builder was top notch, and I was quoted $600 to build the welded steel stand with carpentry since I have a buddy with a welder, and I ended up doing most of the welding myself. Ordering the raw material and doing my own assembly was a lot of fun for me. Also, the price some people were asking for the stand seemed high to me given that the skills to do a stand are relatively common, but high quality work is hard to find.

Seeing the variety of tank qualities out there, I am surprised everyone isn't just going Crystal Dynamics and calling it a day.
 
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Sounds like I may be in the minority here, but I would just get some appliance paint and rattle can it white. To me, that looks pretty minor and a very easy fix. As for the plastic pieces, some sandpaper and light dremeling looks like it should fix those issues. I get the frustration with the details given the price paid, but this is likely a 1 person build crew and they are trying to get stuff out the door fast. One welder/metal fab, painter, and running the mill to cut the plastic. Likely they are all the same person and building in an assembly line with multiple projects at once. The plastic burs and overflow construction would be my biggest complaint, but again, sandpaper fixes lots. I have not seen many (or any) overflows I would be happy to sell if I were in the business.

I also have a fear of stands racking in a minor earthquake, so I would weld or bolt in some additional gussets. I know I am slightly paranoid there. Maybe it is my med device background and mechanical failure being strictly unacceptable, but I want to be able to throw my stand off the roof and have it survive with the only damage being to the ground.

This was a part of the reason I went custom is that I knew I would be responsible for the build, my builder was top notch, and I was quoted $600 to build the welded steel stand with carpentry since I have a buddy with a welder, and I ended up doing most of the welding myself. Ordering the raw material and doing my own assembly was a lot of fun for me. Also, the price some people were asking for the stand seemed high to me given that the skills to do a stand are relatively common, but high quality work is hard to find.

Seeing the variety of tank qualities out there, I am surprised everyone isn't just going Crystal Dynamics and calling it a day.
I think where we don’t agree here is on what to expect for the price paid, though yes, the ways to remedy this are clear enough, it doesn’t change the amount I paid and how the quality is reflected. At least to me.
 
Francois at ELOS responded after I asked for a response (radio silence for a week now). He said impossible for him to send me a new stand. He keeps saying he wants to do everything possible, but I guess very few things are possible at this point.

He says it's impossible because all the stands he has in stock are sold. He said I can ship him the stand back, and he can ask for a repaint. I don't know if that means it will be repainted, or he will simply ask and that's the most he can do.

I will just ask him to order a new stand, make sure it's painted correctly, pre-assemble it to ensure it actually lines up completely, and then send it to me. I don't really care if it takes months since my house won't be done anyway.

Oh, and he still hasn't given me any information on the Quiet Drain 3.
 
Francois at ELOS responded after I asked for a response (radio silence for a week now). He said impossible for him to send me a new stand. He keeps saying he wants to do everything possible, but I guess very few things are possible at this point.

He says it's impossible because all the stands he has in stock are sold. He said I can ship him the stand back, and he can ask for a repaint. I don't know if that means it will be repainted, or he will simply ask and that's the most he can do.

I will just ask him to order a new stand, make sure it's painted correctly, pre-assemble it to ensure it actually lines up completely, and then send it to me. I don't really care if it takes months since my house won't be done anyway.

Oh, and he still hasn't given me any information on the Quiet Drain 3.
Did you pay via credit card? Theres always the option of a charge back. It seems to get quite manufactures suddenly willing to talk.
 
Did you pay via credit card? Theres always the option of a charge back. It seems to get quite manufactures suddenly willing to talk.

I did pay via credit card. Though he did respond to me, just didn't tell me anything about the Quiet Drain and I'm sure he's trying to get out of this mistake as best he can for himself. He's definitely not doing everything to try to make it right, but trying to test to see what is the least he can do to make me happy.

I get it, I don't think he's wrong to do that, but I'm standing firm on what I need from him to make this right. I don't think my demands are outrageous either. I'm going to patiently wait for a new shipment of his absolute stands to get in, and for him to check that what he sends me actually fits together and is properly painted. That's just standard QC/QA. I don't believe that's too much to ask for. He majorly messed up on this first stand, he admits, so this is what he really has to do.
 
I did pay via credit card. Though he did respond to me, just didn't tell me anything about the Quiet Drain and I'm sure he's trying to get out of this mistake as best he can for himself. He's definitely not doing everything to try to make it right, but trying to test to see what is the least he can do to make me happy.

I get it, I don't think he's wrong to do that, but I'm standing firm on what I need from him to make this right. I don't think my demands are outrageous either. I'm going to patiently wait for a new shipment of his absolute stands to get in, and for him to check that what he sends me actually fits together and is properly painted. That's just standard QC/QA. I don't believe that's too much to ask for. He majorly messed up on this first stand, he admits, so this is what he really has to do.

IMHO, I think your request is in your own words.....outrageous. I understand you paid a premium for the ELOS brand and build quality, but I don't think the metal frame is all that bad. Paint blemishes is not going to affect the structural integrity of the stand. With the panels installed and tank sitting on top you won't even be able to see it. Besides for the overflow lid, I'd be thankful the tank itself arrived with no scratches or a bad silicone job.

Unless you go custom, I don't think any mainstream aquarium manufacturer is going to inspect the paint, pre-assemble the stand then disassemble it to ship to you. I believe Francois technically works for Aquarium Partners which is a distributor for ELOS here in the US. He probably trusts ELOS did their QC/QA in Italy and forwarded the tank to you.

As for the Quiet Drain 3, if you are really that dissatisfied with the look of it and the stand do as recommended and file a chargeback as "Significantly Not As Described" and let your credit card company handle the situation. You might get the money back and can go buy another tank, but you'll probably end up with worst QC/QA issues.
 
IMHO, I think your request is in your own words.....outrageous. I understand you paid a premium for the ELOS brand and build quality, but I don't think the metal frame is all that bad. Paint blemishes is not going to affect the structural integrity of the stand. With the panels installed and tank sitting on top you won't even be able to see it. Besides for the overflow lid, I'd be thankful the tank itself arrived with no scratches or a bad silicone job.

Unless you go custom, I don't think any mainstream aquarium manufacturer is going to inspect the paint, pre-assemble the stand then disassemble it to ship to you. I believe Francois technically works for Aquarium Partners which is a distributor for ELOS here in the US. He probably trusts ELOS did their QC/QA in Italy and forwarded the tank to you.

As for the Quiet Drain 3, if you are really that dissatisfied with the look of it and the stand do as recommended and file a chargeback as "Significantly Not As Described" and let your credit card company handle the situation. You might get the money back and can go buy another tank, but you'll probably end up with worst QC/QA issues.

Your point of view is valid for sure. Earlier I did question if I'm being too picky about it as well.

The paint options are interesting, because Francois didn't have a white stand on hand from ELOS directly, so instead of ordering one he wanted to sell me the gray stand, but I elected to go with white. Instead of ordering direct from ELOS, he got a local painter to just paint over the gray stand. I think everyone objectively has their own acceptance levels for what is OK or not, so let's not go down that route of who's right, but holy cow, for the premium price of the absolute stand, it doesn't feel OK to me. You can judge me how you will, but it's a bit much for what I got. It's also not just the paint, the stand itself isn't fully straight. Assembling it was near impossible. The threading was poorly done so that two of the screws wouldn't go in. The hole alignments on a few spots were also so far off, that screws were going in at pretty big angles. I ultimately got it in, but it just didn't look right at all. Then the plastic pieces on top were totally not fitting, mismatched, and some of it was totally lifting off the frame. I was leveling the whole stand, and noticed that some of the angles of the metal aren't even 90 degrees. I think some of these things won't hinder the tank, but I've paid a lot less for much better quality.

The paint is noticeable from the outside as well, since a lot of it is on the edges. Being so white, you can tell where it's splotchy. Francois himself admits it as a bad job as well, so at least he's saying it's not up to par with what they expect.

Either way, I feel justified in that this isn't what either me nor ELOS expects for the quality. I don't think it's worth nitpicking who's subjectively right about how bad something is or what it's worth, as I respect your thoughts on that as much as my own. At the end of the day, it really sucked to see a stand like this.
 
Did you pay via credit card? Theres always the option of a charge back. It seems to get quite manufactures suddenly willing to talk.
And get black listed from ever buying from them again. Not the way to do business here.

IMHO, I think your request is in your own words.....outrageous.
Agree, I think you are being a bit unreasonable here. Get a tap and a reamer and fix the holes. Get a paint can and fix the paint. Then move on with your build and forget this ever happened.
 
And get black listed from ever buying from them again. Not the way to do business here.


Agree, I think you are being a bit unreasonable here. Get a tap and a reamer and fix the holes. Get a paint can and fix the paint. Then move on with your build and forget this ever happened.

Thanks again for your thoughts. It's always good to see all the different perspectives. It varies quite a bit, so it's nice to hear what others think of similar situations.
 
And get black listed from ever buying from them again. Not the way to do business here.


Agree, I think you are being a bit unreasonable here. Get a tap and a reamer and fix the holes. Get a paint can and fix the paint. Then move on with your build and forget this ever happened.
So should he send them a bill for all the work he has to do in order to get back to the product that was originally sold to him as a brand new product? This attitude of suck it up and just eat the cost is astonishing with the prices we pay for high quality products as advertised by the company.

Here’s a snippet statement from their site
Our success is based on an uncompromising, quality-oriented approach, from the first stage of the selection of the glass, to the development and the manufacture of our aquariums. This gives our customer the certainty of acquiring a product with unsurpassed quality, reliability and lasting value; an investment that usually survives over the time and is passed from hand to hand when the customer decide to move to a bigger or newer model. Although ELOS aquariums certainly are not cheap, hobbyist know from their daily experience that they are worth the cost. Many owners of aquariums also dream of someday having “an ELOS aquarium” of their own.

I guess the uncompromising was meant in a different fashion then how it’s stated.
 
Nice thread so far sorry about the issues..My tank top eurobracing has the same round black silicon stickers where they overlap crossways...What's your plan for the bottom under the sump?
 
Fwiw, I started this read thinking it was a bit over the top and move on. I'm not the person who'd send back a wrong plate at a restaurant.

Reading more of the details, I'd for sure expect compensation or a return. I also agree it's not elos in the wrong, it's the distributor if the distributor brought in a 3rd party to paint the stand and the 3rd party did a bad job. That's all on them.

If you buy a fridge, and it gets damaged on delivery, it's between the shipping company and the seller to figure it out. If you buy a blemished fridge on a deal, it's on you.

I also highly value my time, and if I'm buying new I like the new feeling. It's part of the value of buying new. Sure I can spray paint that fridge, but now it's that annoying thing I'll always see and be annoyed about.

My personal suggestion would be get them on the phone and talk live. I'd say you're bummed about this, and want to help make it right. I'd say that preferred option is a replacement, but you understand that's extremely complicated. My fallback is they can pay the going rate for a painter to come to the house and correct the below expectations paint job that their subcontractor did. I'd also like a new overflow cover to be sent. Barring that, I'd like a partial refund.

If none of that's acceptable, then I'd say I'd like their assistance coordinating a return & refund because I'd like to go a different route because this isn't a good match. If that's also not acceptable, I'd agree that we have a difference if opinions, so I'll defer to a 3rd party to resolve it, which would be the credit card company.

The realistic expectation would be they'll want to compensate you in cash and move on with their life. The amount they'll want to max compensate will be $0, but the rational amount will be the cost of picking it up and shipping it back or the cost of what they're out from a chargeback, whichever is less.

If you don't come to a cordial agreement it's in your best interests to just sever ties and go through the credit card company, because future warranty work will be a nightmare. Alternatively I'd reach out to Elos directly, saying you're having a disagreement with their distributor and would like assistance resolving it.

If someone's sales pitch is perfection, then their job is to deliver that experience. Comparing to a mass produced tank isn't really fair. Especially if in reality the reseller is probably leery of trying to do a return because Elos almost certainly would not have approved them painting the stand themselves.
 
Francois did send me a new overflow cover since the one that came with the tank was really damaged on one end. Hilariously this is the new cover. The hole isn’t even close and the length of this is much shorter.

I guess ELOS is just having distributors cut the overflow covers? It’s so weird.

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I guess the width is right, but that’s it. He said next step is to send him the covers back and he would make a new one that matches perfectly. Still no details on the overflow/drain specs.
That's a downer.

Playing 3rd party observer, my guess is the distributor buys these from Elos and then sells them. I'd guess it's almost certain that they're doing this without Elos involved, because if they did involve Elos it'd look bad for them and certainly be a PITA trying to handle all the time zones or whatever else. I'd feel like there's been enough red flags in this situation that it's worth gently starting to reach up the chain and trying to get in contact with Elos.

The subtle way of doing that is write it up in a Google doc with all the facts of what's occurred, with some approximate dates. Send it over to him with some specific requests, and an expectation this all gets resolved with minimal further back and forth because it's draining both your time. Ask that in the interests of time, he help connect you with Elos directly.

Likely either you'll get connected directly and get a final answer on what they're going to do, or in an attempt to avoid looking bad with Elos it'll get handled quickly.

Good luck!
 
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Francois did send me a new overflow cover since the one that came with the tank was really damaged on one end. Hilariously this is the new cover. The hole isn’t even close and the length of this is much shorter.

I guess ELOS is just having distributors cut the overflow covers? It’s so weird.

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Are you F-ing kidding me!!?!?
 
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