sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Well the "worth" on used equipment is HIGHLY debatable. A lot of people will very often put the value of their equipment they sell at higher than what other people say it's worth sometimes because they're trying to maximize their investment they put into it sometimes is that they really don't know how much "depreciation" there is in said equipment. Do I disagree with what iCon said about the biocube being worth $50? Absolutely I disagree, I think the biocube is worth $0 because to me I have no need for it so it is effectively worthless and if I had one around there's a good chance I would give it away to a club member. If there's a bunch of people selling the same piece of equipment for half of what it costs new, and someone sells it for $10 more (still less than new), does that mean whomever bought the more expensive one "took the buyer" for $10? Absolutely not.
So before we start getting into whether or not "the club" is ok with whether or not the OP got ripped off, lets first determine whether or not the OP was in fact ripped off. So instead of using the "used value" which as mentioned above is a highly debatable number, lets look at the new value. So it seems Coralife doesn't make the 14 anymore, they make the 16 which is similar in size, so lets use that as a starting off point. New that cost $225, she threw in a heater and some sand, lets just call all of that as "free" since I doubt the sand was a new bag of live sand, and the heater at most would add $20... so new price vs. what he paid for it that's $100 cheaper than new. So far it's hard to argue the OP got taken for $75. Now this is the LED cube vs the power compact cube, so yeah the LED cube is more just because LEDs are the "in" thing. But if you look at Coralife's documentation, there's average PAR of 38 on the bottom of the tank which could grow zoanthids maybe, and sure it's higher directly under the LED I wouldn't be surprised if the power compact light puts out more light throughout the whole tank than LEDs do, after all you're not getting high end LEDs in these All in one setups, this isn't an EcoTech Radion or anything close to that, this is whatever is most cost effective for the company type of setups.
So dollar for dollar, I don't really feel that the OP was taken for $75 at all, could he have gotten it cheaper? Probably, but assuming the equipment with the tank was still in working order, and there weren't scratches on the tank, I would not say the OP was in any way "ripped off" as far as money is concerned. Another thing to remember is when used equipment is offered for sale there is a much smaller supply, how many other Biocubes were for sale in that size? Lots of factors go into the value of used equipment.
Now did the seller try to pull one over on the buyer (OP)? Well so far it's a one sided argument, but honestly I would say no based on what the first post said. In fact if anything I would say the OP is being more deceptive in his description, saying there are "issues" with the tank, and the only "issues" is that it had a power compact light... oh no it's old technology! Other types of lighting technology from that time period, metal halides & T5s. Now are PC bulbs the best? No, primarily because you can't get a good reflector to focus the light downward. But for AIO cubes of that size they literally shoe horn what they can to keep them small, and they went from using PC bulbs to LEDs, so trying to say "3 generations old technology" is really overstating the problem. But nothing else was mentioned as to what "issues" they may have been with the tank, for me if the pump was broken, silicone leaking, or any other actual "ISSUES" those are what I would talk about.
In fact there probably were no actual "ISSUES" as the OP stated the tank was still in the back of his car, so you don't know if this is the equipment not working, or the tank leaking or any other actual problems which would make the seller a horrible person, so this is 100% buyers remorse.
tl;dr version, buyer paid less than new price for a tank, buyer had buyers remorse very shortly after, pointing fingers at the club for being "uncaring" about this situation is completely uncalled for.
