Coralife Customer Service

[Mark_C]

A few months ago I purchased a Coralife Super Skimmer 65 which has been working fantastically. We’re having some work done on our house and the tank has been shifted a few times, power has been on and off a dozen times, etc… I woke up on Thursday Feb. 6 to a non functioning skimmer.

I called Coralife customer service. Its actually Central Aquatics and they deal with Kent, Aqueon, and Oceanic as well. Talked to Ken, he was professional, nice, and knowledgable. In describing the problem, he thought it might be a bad impeller and was ready to ship one out to me right away. Then, after a few moments discussion he told me to go home, test the unit, and see what I thought was wrong.

He then told me he would send me a pre-emptive e-mail that I could repspond to after checking the unit. His reasoning was that as we we’re in different time zones, and they opened shop while I was at work, I could simply mail him my findings and he could get to it right away without my having to interrupt work.
I was impressed.

I got home to his mail, tested the skimmer, and the following occurred (edited)…

Please take a look at the impeller and let me know what you find out. I will need your name and address to send out whatever part is needed to get you up and running.

Regards,
Rob M.
Central Aquatics Tech Lead
Kent Marine, Coralife, Aqueon, Oceanic, Zilla, Super Pet

I took the unit fully apart tonight. The main unit itself is intact and functions well. The pump is operating as I am getting flow into the skimmer. The main problem is that I’m getting no microbubbles.

It has to be one of the following from the pump to the skimmer:
The pump is not operating at capacity to turn the impeller fast enough
The impeller is not producing microbubbles (I’m guessing you’re spot on with this this)
The pump flow valve is restricting flow to the skimmer

I’m hoping its the easy fix we discussed and the impeller replacement will solve the problem.

Mark

I just put in an order for a whole replacement pump which also comes with a new air intake system.
The tank should be fine without a skimmer for a few weeks (it won’t take anywhere near that long however) unless it is the only form of filtration on the aquarium or the tank is grossly overstocked with fish.
I have gone almost a month with a non-functional skimmer on my reef tank and there were no issues other than a little excess algae growth on the glass that subsided when I got the skimmer up and running again.

Rob M.

Unexpected and generous fix. Thank you for your time and your help.
You’ve got my business in the future.

Thanks again,
Mark

Initial complaint was at 2:30pm on Thursday. An entire new pump and air system (solution overkill) was ordered by noon on Friday, less than 24 hours later.
No receipts, no red tape, no BS, just pure, old fashioned customer service.

[tkeracer619]

Excellent CS!

[gone fishin]

Thanks for sharing. It is always nice to see good reports.

[kmbyrnes]

As a former customer service manager, I hope you also called/mailed his supervisor to let her know.
It is always good to talk about positive service. Seems like all we hear are the bad stories.

[Mark_C]

Don't know why I called him Ken in the second paragraph as his name is Rob.

Originally Posted by kmbyrnes

As a former customer service manager, I hope you also called/mailed his supervisor to let her know.
It is always good to talk about positive service. Seems like all we hear are the bad stories.

Yep, got that last e-mail when I got home from work at 7pm. Planned to call today when they open.