Mission Statement and Bio
American Aquarium
Early Hobby Years
To be brief - Carl got his first aquarium in the late 1960's (1968 when he was 9 years old). It was a Metaframe 5-gallon aquarium which was different from all glass aquariums with silicone for construction, which became more popular in the 70's forward. This aquarium had a simple "bubbler" corner filter powered by a Metaframe air pump. His first fish were Guppies, Zebra Danios, Platties and White Clouds, which were a "starter pack" given with the aquarium.
A little over a year later, Carl received a 10-gallon aquarium where again, he used a simple corner filter even with larger and a more "modern" design. In this tank, there was many types of Tetras from Neons, Head/Tail Lites, etc. Also, Rasboras, Corys and his first Plecostomus (no one warned Carl how large these guys could get).
In the early 70's, Carl purchased a 40 gallon "all glass" aquarium, which had his first HOB filter- a Dynaflo (which is a much different design than current HOB filters). He continued with similar fish, which he had before, just more of them and a little more "exotic" (such as some Buenos Aires Tetras which were exotic to him at the time).
He later (77') decided to try his hand in saltwater even though there was little information at this time about saltwater keeping. He added an Undergravel filter, the "new" Nektonics design, which at the time was considered the best. (At least by others he knew in the hobby). He added Damsels, Clown Fish, a Yellow Tang, a Batfish and some others. He later added a Brown Octopus, which was the most interesting creature he owned. Mostly due to the neat personality it had.
A little over a year later, Carl received a 10-gallon aquarium where again, he used a simple corner filter even with larger and a more "modern" design. In this tank, there was many types of Tetras from Neons, Head/Tail Lites, etc. Also, Rasboras, Corys and his first Plecostomus (no one warned Carl how large these guys could get).
In the early 70's, Carl purchased a 40 gallon "all glass" aquarium, which had his first HOB filter- a Dynaflo (which is a much different design than current HOB filters). He continued with similar fish, which he had before, just more of them and a little more "exotic" (such as some Buenos Aires Tetras which were exotic to him at the time).
He later (77') decided to try his hand in saltwater even though there was little information at this time about saltwater keeping. He added an Undergravel filter, the "new" Nektonics design, which at the time was considered the best. (At least by others he knew in the hobby). He added Damsels, Clown Fish, a Yellow Tang, a Batfish and some others. He later added a Brown Octopus, which was the most interesting creature he owned. Mostly due to the neat personality it had.
First years in Pet Stores/Maintenance Business
In 1977 Carl took a job at Archie's House of Pets. Initially their original La Puente and shortly thereafter at the West Covina Mall store (it was called the West Covina Fashion Plaza). Danny Digiacomo was his original "boss" (he was not the owner but ran all three stores as if he were the owner) He was a good mentor and really knew his stuff from a business point of view. Later, issues between Danny and the actual owner (who was not a hands-on owner) resulted in him leaving as he purchased another high-end pet store in Orange County.
Carl shortly thereafter became an assistant manager at the West Covina Store and the general manager for the fish departments.
Carl made a point during this time to inquire about all trade representatives, such as TMC & Aquatronics, which they had some of the most up to date information about aquarium water chemistry and treatments at the time. They later knew Carl personally due to his many questions and later named him the "Green Flake Man" (more later as to why).
Bahooka Restaurants: In late 1978, Carl started his aquarium maintenance business on the side while still employed at Archie' House of Pets. In 1978, Carl had an employee of the Bahooka Restaurant contact him for a sick Arowana (the Bahooka was a restaurant, which would become very well known in the LA area for its many aquariums and unique Polynesian atmosphere). She had failed to cure an infection despite many attempts from others advice, however Carl made a house call and was able to save her prize fish. She was so happy, that she told her boss (Jack, one of the owners) and he contacted me to set up and maintain the aquariums at the Bahooka.
Carl shortly thereafter became an assistant manager at the West Covina Store and the general manager for the fish departments.
Carl made a point during this time to inquire about all trade representatives, such as TMC & Aquatronics, which they had some of the most up to date information about aquarium water chemistry and treatments at the time. They later knew Carl personally due to his many questions and later named him the "Green Flake Man" (more later as to why).
Bahooka Restaurants: In late 1978, Carl started his aquarium maintenance business on the side while still employed at Archie' House of Pets. In 1978, Carl had an employee of the Bahooka Restaurant contact him for a sick Arowana (the Bahooka was a restaurant, which would become very well known in the LA area for its many aquariums and unique Polynesian atmosphere). She had failed to cure an infection despite many attempts from others advice, however Carl made a house call and was able to save her prize fish. She was so happy, that she told her boss (Jack, one of the owners) and he contacted me to set up and maintain the aquariums at the Bahooka.
Unfortunately, the West Covina location lost its lease, however this allowed for the later to be more well-known Rosemead Bahooka location to expand, adding a new dining room whereby Carl extended their aquarium collection to over 100, and many were over 100 gallons each. It is noteworthy that these were unique custom wooden aquariums put together with fiber glass laminates with a glass plate pressed against the front from the inside.
During Carl's time setting up and maintaining the Bahooka Restaurants, he took in many what would later be very popular fish, including many Pacus, (including Rufus who was much smaller when taken in from a person needing a home for his Pacu that was out growing his home aquarium).
During Carl's time setting up and maintaining the Bahooka Restaurants, he took in many what would later be very popular fish, including many Pacus, (including Rufus who was much smaller when taken in from a person needing a home for his Pacu that was out growing his home aquarium).
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This became a launching point for Carl's business and when problems arose at Archie's, it prompted him to start his own store in Hacienda Heights at the end of 1979. Along with his fiancé at the time Tris (who he met at Archie's House of Pets).
1980s To 2002, Including Experiments/Trade Shows
Although Carl's aquarium store started slow, it did grow and Carl did have to rent the building next door to double in size, late 1980. However, it was the maintenance business, which really blossomed and made the name, especially since the store was in a somewhat obscure location.
During the early years, besides the Bahooka, Carl picked up many other well-known accounts from the Lobster House, doctors, attorneys, Coaster Co. (which by the 1990s was the largest furniture importer in North America and the largest account with multiple locations, with many aquariums and ponds), and others.
This account with its 100 plus aquariums would be a major testing ground for many of Carl's controlled experiments over the following years. The Bahooka was better than most accounts, since Carl was there (or had staff there) daily, so potential variables were more easily eliminated.
These also led to a contract with Disney to build and run the aquarium in the bar for the TV Show (pilot), Acting Sheriff (AKA "Make My Day") starring Robert Goulet. Strohmeyer was able to work out agreements with many of his service accounts such as the Bahooka & Coaster Co. to provide 100% care and with a certain price, he used these locations for many tests (as well as some breeding).
Carl's earliest tests were with fish foods (based on many ideas provided by mentors and hobbyist doctors he made friends with). This is how he earned the nickname the "Green Flake Man" by Aquatronics as he found despite the popularity of many household brand names such as Tetra Fish Foods, these foods may have raised generations of fish (as many anecdotal pundits of Tetra products would say. In actual controlled tests Tetra foods did not hold up to what Carl called the "Green Flake" at the time (now Spirulina 20) and other foods.
As well during these years and well beyond, he experimented with the product called the "Wonder Shell", originally created by Weco, and his extensive use and testing showed that it worked in ways not noted by Weco such in Redox balance (Weco was/is the original manufacturer), as well as did not work in ways claimed by Weco. In fact, Carl's industry/hobby leading article about Aquarium Redox was an outgrowth of experiments with Wonder Shells and UV Sterilization as popular science at the time did not explain all his results. Carl also developed a medicated versions of the Wonder Shell too during this time which still stands out as a product with no comparison in the hobby/industry.
COMMENT/EDITORIAL: Of late Carl has put 1000s of hours of testing and research into the Wonder Shell alone, so why purchase this product from a "parasite" retailer that is just along for the ride and knows little about practical use and are often selling clearance product and/or do not have the full line (including medicated) or proper instructions. Yes, you can often get this same product from a discounter (although often less fresh thus losing mineral Cations), but why not support someone who has supported this hobby his whole life (not to mention has the full line with accurate instructions to back their us up)? Please support AAP's mission of cutting-edge information by purchasing your Wonder Shells via AAP only, not Amazon, eBay, or other parasite retailers (although we do have an authorized seller via eBay using our legal AAP name).
Strohmeyer admits, the ideas to perform these tests were because HE LISTENED to researchers and a representative from Sera foods of West Germany at a trade show who, at the time made this statement: "I find it interesting how popular Tetra Foods are in America while in Germany, they are considered the cheap discount food". Carl figured excellent marketing, which still persists to this day. See Carl Strohmeyer's Fish Nutrition article for more about these fish food experiments. Along with his Spirulina Article:
• Proper Fish Nutrition
• Spirulina Algae in Fish Food
In the late 1980s Carl became good friends with Dr. Herzog, a well-respected Endocrinologist in Whittier, which was a long-term fish hobbyist (both marine and Freshwater). Carl maintained an aquarium in his office and helped with his home aquarium. During this time Herzog taught Strohmeyer LOTS about what medications can and cannot do, and how even in human treatment a doctor makes an "educated guess" at best. He taught Carl much, which contradicts to-this-day many anecdotal claims about medications, bacteria, and more that unfortunately still persist in this hobby. Often by people who blindly repeat bad information in blogs, forums, groups, or even Yahoo Answers.
Other researchers in the industry played a major role in Strohmeyer's education here as well, as he spent a great amount of time over the years in consultation with the lab techs within the aquarium pharmaceuticals industry.
A recommended read for more on this subject, please see Carl's medications article:
• Aquarium Medications; Page 1
During the late 1980s, Carl also set up many aquariums in a room of his house where he experimented and performed controlled tests of UV Sterilizers, filters, medications, and more. While his earliest experiments were with fish nutrition, he later shifted to disease prevention, then copious amounts of effort for UV Sterilizers. To this day, this still accounts as the subject Strohmeyer has spent the most of his time in research. Later, came experiments into aquarium chemistry, lighting, and finally Redox, which was the most eye opening for him in the aquarium hobby.
During the 1990s, many of these tests continued and Carl used his aquariums along with Coaster Co (which by now had become his largest service account for both aquariums and large ponds) for his tests, which would eventually contribute to his articles:
• Aquarium Disease Prevention
• UV Sterilization
• Aquarium GH, KH, pH, Calcium
• Aquarium & Pond Redox
These tests were conducted to try and explain why Strohmeyer was observing certain results with differences in care of many of his client’s aquariums and ponds.
He also conducted these tests, because it was simply NOT good business for him to make unnecessary visits due to problems with his client's aquariums or ponds (not to mention, better customer satisfaction). So, figuring out a method or methods, which keep fish alive along with equipment with the least problems was advantageous for him. Aquarium Disease prevention was so important that Carl found employing as many steps as possible were part of this "prevention puzzle" would lower the amount of disease incidence and lengthen fish longevity.
During the late 1990s, when Strohmeyer was considering re-opening his aquarium store, which he earlier had closed for personal reasons (See personal Bio). He pondered using one of Marineland's pet store bio wheel systems since he had many Penguin Filters as well. However, when discussing this with another colleague in the maintenance business (that he would occasionally see at Quality Marine).
The colleague questioned Carl's reasons and quickly made him realize he was sold on the Bio wheel for anecdotal reasons. This was the beginning of another controlled test about these popular bio filtration devices. Please see this article for more:
• Aquarium Answers; Do Bio Wheels work?
Many similar tests also were conducted around this time, including using Fluid Filtration, methods for fish disease prevention (which resulted in his Redox research and also tied in with what would become his UV Sterilization and Chemistry article) live rock crumbles for nitrate removal in Marine Aquariums, Protein Skimmers, Veggie Filters in ponds, and many different filter combinations (including drilled canister filters), which often went against the popular filter system beliefs of the time.
Summary of 1978-2002: Later, Strohmeyer sold off his maintenance company and then opened an online business, which featured his researched articles and experience as the cornerstone of his business plan. The other cornerstone, which contributed to the growth of his business was the customer service he provided both then and now. In many interviews with his clients, he found while he certainly gained and kept many customers via his ability to keep their aquariums to their satisfaction, it was his customer service, which was the over whelming reason most clients/customers stayed with him both then and now.
2002-Present, INCLUDING Current Research, Strengths and Weaknesses: In 2002, Carl had to leave behind his aquarium maintenance business and store.
Strohmeyer worked at a candy factory as a production manager when he first had to move to Oregon for personal reasons. For these reasons, please see Carl's personal bio.
He soon started his online aquarium information & later supply websites, in part from inspiration of a co-worker a the candy factory (Rachel Owen). He also realized many people over the years, which knew him during his maintenance business days wished he would put down on paper his Aquarium & Pond Information Knowledge & Research. He utilized his websites for this idea.
Starting in 2005 he looked to use his long time "American Aquarium" name for the online URL (this was basically his earlier business name), but soon realized a band was using this URL name, so friends suggested many terms and he went with products to the end even though at the time he was not selling any aquarium products (thus "American Aquarium Products or AAP). Strohmeyer published many of his articles to the AAP website and have since researched further, updating, correcting and adding new content (including new articles). He cites as many references as possible, especially for new information added. Unfortunately, the sudden move in 2002 forced Strohmeyer to leave behind a lot of research documents as well.
Also starting in 2005 (before even selling aquarium products), Strohmeyer also became active in in many aquarium forums/groups (often via invitations), starting with Google "use-net" forums. He also was active in Yahoo Answers for some time at the suggestion of many of his friends he made in these forums/groups (although he is no longer active in Yahoo Answers). Of late he has been invited into many Facebook groups to share his experience and article library. His time helping and sharing in forums along with updating/researching of his articles now takes up the majority of his time!
While the original selling website was more to simply sell shells and related "Ocean Decor" products, he quickly realized (in part by urging of those who knew him for years), that he should go back to selling what he recommends. One friend bluntly stated; "why not sell some of these products that are noted in your articles?" While now the shell/ocean decor part of the website is a very minor part of this business, it still represents a large portion of the website since Carl's original intention was to utilize his growing library of aquarium/pond keeping information to attract person to a simpler business of selling shells/ocean decor.
For those who make Ad Hominem attacks upon Carl, it is clear they never even bothered to investigate this webpage or Carl's history as the facts are the history of his articles that some detractors with no otherwise valid refutation claim to be to "shill" products, go back decades before this AAP website selling aquarium products or even existed. Again, to clarify, even the AAP website which began in 2005 to provide a place to place his article with the selling of Ocean decor as a way to pay for the time and content, did not begin to actually sell aquarium products until 2006!!
Carl first started aquarium products selling via eBay (while his "American Aquarium" web site was still evolving from just information and shell decor). He sold mostly what he could readily obtain from long time contacts. In the beginning this was by his own admission what would achieve eBay "price points", not always what he used in his aquarium maintenance and design business. A good example was a Chinse Sponge Filter knock off. Friends who he knew and met (while active in online aquarium help forums) questioned why he did not always sell what he recommended such as the Sponge Filters, silicone and Vecton/Advanatage UV Sterilizers. He stated that he was trying to not appear to have a conflict of interest. However, friends pointed out that this was silly and was basically appealing to Logical Fallacy arguments. So, as he was evolving his web site, he did not follow what he necessarily sold on eBay.
What Carl would like to point out to readers of this biography is, much of his success and knowledge over the years is not based on my scientific brilliance or similar, rather more to his use of management/business skills to recognize what he did and did NOT know. This allowed himself to learn from others and as well recognize in others where they could make up his deficiencies.
Strohmeyer continued to research for his articles and he generally research OUTSIDE the Aquarium industry/hobby, because he RECOGNIZED much of the popular information was often re-posted and passed around over and over. Carl would research fish farming studies, horticultural studies, medical studies, lighting innovations, water chemistry and its effects on life in general, and many other such sites (often .edu sites too).
One of Carl's talents is that he is very good at organizing information, while at the same time, he's a poor analytical thinker (He's a much better "picture" thinker). Most who have worked with him over the years have noted that he's often open to learn and that he makes up for his weaknesses with his business organization and similar skills.
An example: Even during his stint of attempting a career change of becoming a professional pilot, that four VERY different flight instructors and even a very hard ass FAA examiner (for his multi-engine pilots license) noted that he was only an average pilot in his flying abilities, but his excellent cockpit organization and recognition of his weaknesses (he was not at all cocky according to one instructor) made him an excellent pilot.
What does this have to do with fish keeping? Well, a lot of Carl's feedback over the years with clients who stated they appreciated his honesty, integrity (he would not simply sell a product, because there was a lot of money to be made or it was popular which also proves out by the fact, he earned less than minimum wage over his 16 years online), dependability, and willingness to always learn. The fact is, another mentor over the years (Reggie) at an aquarium supply wholesaler, which finished his business career there told Strohmeyer this: "I have never seen a more dishonest and backstabbing business than the aquarium industry".
These statements are NOT to puff Carl up or put others down, rather to point out that his ability to learn is something anyone who is honest and puts their mind to it can do. What Carl is good at (as per others too), is that he's very good at organizing information, listening to others, and testing what they say, regardless of his opinion at the time (which may be then forced to change...).
Even in areas of less knowledge, such as specific fish species knowledge and breeding. Carl HAS kept many of these fish in a generic sense and has applied his tests in keeping fish alive and long-term fish health to these fish with excellent results. So, although he may not know the specifics of many different exotic fish, he can attest to VERY good success in long term health and care (Clients that had many different aquarium service personnel before Carl have stated this as well).
This all has resulted in Car often being sought out for his expertise in aquarium/pond fish diseases and prevention, including cutting edge articles about Redox, lighting, & UV sterilization where persons have even sought out Carl's expertise from outside the aquarium/pond keeping industry. The Covid 19 Pandemic has in particular had many asking Carl for his thoughts, especially when it comes to oxidative stress (Redox) and the role it can play to how this virus often kills due to an inflammatory response by the victims own immune system. Disney World is a well-known entity that has sought Carl's advice (again in particular about UV Sterilization and Redox).
In closing, Carl is still learning and though some may criticize him or label him a fish expert guru, in reality he's somewhere in the middle and he will also point out, besides the fact he's still learning, many of those he's learning from are younger or even only have a few years of experience. (Suzie Q at Everything Aquatic was relatively new to the hobby, but she taught him things he didn't). He has also learned from others at Everything Aquatic such as John Laffin (Murdock), Rogier Van Vlissingen, Bill, Jon V, Eve, Parker, Fishfever, and MANY others there alone. (Please forgive Carl if your name is left off here, even though chances are, he has learned from many posts, especially questions that made him re-check his own research or expand it!!!)
Carl will also admit, while he was not treated well on many Google groups he was on, he still learned from some of those, which were rude and nasty. He did not let their nastiness get in the way of good information.
As noted earlier, if Carl's articles have been helpful, please help him by providing a link in a personal blog or website to your favorite articles/products give a "shout out". A list of most of Carl's article:
• Aquarium Information
Other Help:
• Other help for this website has come from Steven Wright's fantastic picture skills (he really exemplifies the expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" with his picture art).
• Tommy Butler with his professional knowledge of operating systems and more has helped Carl much, including hosting of web sites and just his inspiration.
• Blaine Scheidegger also contributed much in his 8-month tenure here with vast improvements to web design, layout and simply fresh ideas.
• For their many talents, thank you Misti King & Devon Trigg. Besides their work in improving articles, they help everyone at AAP deal with the extreme negativity and dishonesty, which is unfortunately occasionally found in the aquatics hobby/industry. We have to deal with it in emails, forums, groups, Facebook, etc. Thank you.
For critics of what many will call his bias in products, it is difficult for anyone to make such a statement and call themselves an honest person with a straight face if they have read this bio, the AAP Mission Statement, & his personal bio.
He has made many personal sacrifices professionally and including passing on good contracts that could have made him considerable $$ over moral reasons, getting much lower discounts from manufacturers by refusing to sell entire lines as requested as he did not find all the products something he would use professionally, and even leaving a business in the hands of untrustworthy person when he was force to move his family to protect them from a psychopathic predator that was harming his family just to save jobs (he lost a $1000s in this decision alone).
Even now he only resides in a small 900 square foot home and works a second job with very limited income because he places others in the hobby first, he certainly is NOT getting rich off from his long hours and efforts!!!
So, in the end, beware of isolated anecdotal low information persons/forums/FB pages that will use personal attacks on Carl to discredit him since they have no real arguments against his vast experience, testing, & cited references, most often with the old argument that he "sells stuff"; just note what he has given up for other's:
1. He canceled his largest contract (110 aquariums) that not only provided a good portion of income, but more so a LOT of publicity just to stand behind an employee after the new owners of this large contract sexually harassed said employee
2. He helped many over the years, taking in families into his home. However, one person had bad intentions and harmed his wife & daughter and took $1000s.
This actually got worse, resulting in Carl having to move literally in the middle of the night and entrusting his business with others against his lawyer's advice so as to keep their jobs, only to see them liquidate his business for 10s of $1000s.
3. Later, once operating online and helping many all-day & into the night and weekends, this Ghost from the past reared its head and caused family issues we will not mention, but suffice it to say, one of the ways these forces against Carl brought up was that he cared more about helping others in the aquarium community than his family (which of course was not true). Then when he cut back the time, he spent helping others to meet this criticism, more criticism was poured out on him by his detractors.
These are but a few examples, just to remember when his detractors use the tired Ad Hominem argument that all Carl is about is selling stuff!!!
For Carl's Personal Biography Page, please follow this link:
• My Biography
Carl is now retired. Ownership of AAP was passed to Devon Trigg in December of 2021.
During the early years, besides the Bahooka, Carl picked up many other well-known accounts from the Lobster House, doctors, attorneys, Coaster Co. (which by the 1990s was the largest furniture importer in North America and the largest account with multiple locations, with many aquariums and ponds), and others.
This account with its 100 plus aquariums would be a major testing ground for many of Carl's controlled experiments over the following years. The Bahooka was better than most accounts, since Carl was there (or had staff there) daily, so potential variables were more easily eliminated.
These also led to a contract with Disney to build and run the aquarium in the bar for the TV Show (pilot), Acting Sheriff (AKA "Make My Day") starring Robert Goulet. Strohmeyer was able to work out agreements with many of his service accounts such as the Bahooka & Coaster Co. to provide 100% care and with a certain price, he used these locations for many tests (as well as some breeding).
Carl's earliest tests were with fish foods (based on many ideas provided by mentors and hobbyist doctors he made friends with). This is how he earned the nickname the "Green Flake Man" by Aquatronics as he found despite the popularity of many household brand names such as Tetra Fish Foods, these foods may have raised generations of fish (as many anecdotal pundits of Tetra products would say. In actual controlled tests Tetra foods did not hold up to what Carl called the "Green Flake" at the time (now Spirulina 20) and other foods.
As well during these years and well beyond, he experimented with the product called the "Wonder Shell", originally created by Weco, and his extensive use and testing showed that it worked in ways not noted by Weco such in Redox balance (Weco was/is the original manufacturer), as well as did not work in ways claimed by Weco. In fact, Carl's industry/hobby leading article about Aquarium Redox was an outgrowth of experiments with Wonder Shells and UV Sterilization as popular science at the time did not explain all his results. Carl also developed a medicated versions of the Wonder Shell too during this time which still stands out as a product with no comparison in the hobby/industry.
COMMENT/EDITORIAL: Of late Carl has put 1000s of hours of testing and research into the Wonder Shell alone, so why purchase this product from a "parasite" retailer that is just along for the ride and knows little about practical use and are often selling clearance product and/or do not have the full line (including medicated) or proper instructions. Yes, you can often get this same product from a discounter (although often less fresh thus losing mineral Cations), but why not support someone who has supported this hobby his whole life (not to mention has the full line with accurate instructions to back their us up)? Please support AAP's mission of cutting-edge information by purchasing your Wonder Shells via AAP only, not Amazon, eBay, or other parasite retailers (although we do have an authorized seller via eBay using our legal AAP name).
Strohmeyer admits, the ideas to perform these tests were because HE LISTENED to researchers and a representative from Sera foods of West Germany at a trade show who, at the time made this statement: "I find it interesting how popular Tetra Foods are in America while in Germany, they are considered the cheap discount food". Carl figured excellent marketing, which still persists to this day. See Carl Strohmeyer's Fish Nutrition article for more about these fish food experiments. Along with his Spirulina Article:
• Proper Fish Nutrition
• Spirulina Algae in Fish Food
In the late 1980s Carl became good friends with Dr. Herzog, a well-respected Endocrinologist in Whittier, which was a long-term fish hobbyist (both marine and Freshwater). Carl maintained an aquarium in his office and helped with his home aquarium. During this time Herzog taught Strohmeyer LOTS about what medications can and cannot do, and how even in human treatment a doctor makes an "educated guess" at best. He taught Carl much, which contradicts to-this-day many anecdotal claims about medications, bacteria, and more that unfortunately still persist in this hobby. Often by people who blindly repeat bad information in blogs, forums, groups, or even Yahoo Answers.
Other researchers in the industry played a major role in Strohmeyer's education here as well, as he spent a great amount of time over the years in consultation with the lab techs within the aquarium pharmaceuticals industry.
A recommended read for more on this subject, please see Carl's medications article:
• Aquarium Medications; Page 1
During the late 1980s, Carl also set up many aquariums in a room of his house where he experimented and performed controlled tests of UV Sterilizers, filters, medications, and more. While his earliest experiments were with fish nutrition, he later shifted to disease prevention, then copious amounts of effort for UV Sterilizers. To this day, this still accounts as the subject Strohmeyer has spent the most of his time in research. Later, came experiments into aquarium chemistry, lighting, and finally Redox, which was the most eye opening for him in the aquarium hobby.
During the 1990s, many of these tests continued and Carl used his aquariums along with Coaster Co (which by now had become his largest service account for both aquariums and large ponds) for his tests, which would eventually contribute to his articles:
• Aquarium Disease Prevention
• UV Sterilization
• Aquarium GH, KH, pH, Calcium
• Aquarium & Pond Redox
These tests were conducted to try and explain why Strohmeyer was observing certain results with differences in care of many of his client’s aquariums and ponds.
He also conducted these tests, because it was simply NOT good business for him to make unnecessary visits due to problems with his client's aquariums or ponds (not to mention, better customer satisfaction). So, figuring out a method or methods, which keep fish alive along with equipment with the least problems was advantageous for him. Aquarium Disease prevention was so important that Carl found employing as many steps as possible were part of this "prevention puzzle" would lower the amount of disease incidence and lengthen fish longevity.
During the late 1990s, when Strohmeyer was considering re-opening his aquarium store, which he earlier had closed for personal reasons (See personal Bio). He pondered using one of Marineland's pet store bio wheel systems since he had many Penguin Filters as well. However, when discussing this with another colleague in the maintenance business (that he would occasionally see at Quality Marine).
The colleague questioned Carl's reasons and quickly made him realize he was sold on the Bio wheel for anecdotal reasons. This was the beginning of another controlled test about these popular bio filtration devices. Please see this article for more:
• Aquarium Answers; Do Bio Wheels work?
Many similar tests also were conducted around this time, including using Fluid Filtration, methods for fish disease prevention (which resulted in his Redox research and also tied in with what would become his UV Sterilization and Chemistry article) live rock crumbles for nitrate removal in Marine Aquariums, Protein Skimmers, Veggie Filters in ponds, and many different filter combinations (including drilled canister filters), which often went against the popular filter system beliefs of the time.
Summary of 1978-2002: Later, Strohmeyer sold off his maintenance company and then opened an online business, which featured his researched articles and experience as the cornerstone of his business plan. The other cornerstone, which contributed to the growth of his business was the customer service he provided both then and now. In many interviews with his clients, he found while he certainly gained and kept many customers via his ability to keep their aquariums to their satisfaction, it was his customer service, which was the over whelming reason most clients/customers stayed with him both then and now.
2002-Present, INCLUDING Current Research, Strengths and Weaknesses: In 2002, Carl had to leave behind his aquarium maintenance business and store.
Strohmeyer worked at a candy factory as a production manager when he first had to move to Oregon for personal reasons. For these reasons, please see Carl's personal bio.
He soon started his online aquarium information & later supply websites, in part from inspiration of a co-worker a the candy factory (Rachel Owen). He also realized many people over the years, which knew him during his maintenance business days wished he would put down on paper his Aquarium & Pond Information Knowledge & Research. He utilized his websites for this idea.
Starting in 2005 he looked to use his long time "American Aquarium" name for the online URL (this was basically his earlier business name), but soon realized a band was using this URL name, so friends suggested many terms and he went with products to the end even though at the time he was not selling any aquarium products (thus "American Aquarium Products or AAP). Strohmeyer published many of his articles to the AAP website and have since researched further, updating, correcting and adding new content (including new articles). He cites as many references as possible, especially for new information added. Unfortunately, the sudden move in 2002 forced Strohmeyer to leave behind a lot of research documents as well.
Also starting in 2005 (before even selling aquarium products), Strohmeyer also became active in in many aquarium forums/groups (often via invitations), starting with Google "use-net" forums. He also was active in Yahoo Answers for some time at the suggestion of many of his friends he made in these forums/groups (although he is no longer active in Yahoo Answers). Of late he has been invited into many Facebook groups to share his experience and article library. His time helping and sharing in forums along with updating/researching of his articles now takes up the majority of his time!
While the original selling website was more to simply sell shells and related "Ocean Decor" products, he quickly realized (in part by urging of those who knew him for years), that he should go back to selling what he recommends. One friend bluntly stated; "why not sell some of these products that are noted in your articles?" While now the shell/ocean decor part of the website is a very minor part of this business, it still represents a large portion of the website since Carl's original intention was to utilize his growing library of aquarium/pond keeping information to attract person to a simpler business of selling shells/ocean decor.
For those who make Ad Hominem attacks upon Carl, it is clear they never even bothered to investigate this webpage or Carl's history as the facts are the history of his articles that some detractors with no otherwise valid refutation claim to be to "shill" products, go back decades before this AAP website selling aquarium products or even existed. Again, to clarify, even the AAP website which began in 2005 to provide a place to place his article with the selling of Ocean decor as a way to pay for the time and content, did not begin to actually sell aquarium products until 2006!!
Carl first started aquarium products selling via eBay (while his "American Aquarium" web site was still evolving from just information and shell decor). He sold mostly what he could readily obtain from long time contacts. In the beginning this was by his own admission what would achieve eBay "price points", not always what he used in his aquarium maintenance and design business. A good example was a Chinse Sponge Filter knock off. Friends who he knew and met (while active in online aquarium help forums) questioned why he did not always sell what he recommended such as the Sponge Filters, silicone and Vecton/Advanatage UV Sterilizers. He stated that he was trying to not appear to have a conflict of interest. However, friends pointed out that this was silly and was basically appealing to Logical Fallacy arguments. So, as he was evolving his web site, he did not follow what he necessarily sold on eBay.
What Carl would like to point out to readers of this biography is, much of his success and knowledge over the years is not based on my scientific brilliance or similar, rather more to his use of management/business skills to recognize what he did and did NOT know. This allowed himself to learn from others and as well recognize in others where they could make up his deficiencies.
Strohmeyer continued to research for his articles and he generally research OUTSIDE the Aquarium industry/hobby, because he RECOGNIZED much of the popular information was often re-posted and passed around over and over. Carl would research fish farming studies, horticultural studies, medical studies, lighting innovations, water chemistry and its effects on life in general, and many other such sites (often .edu sites too).
One of Carl's talents is that he is very good at organizing information, while at the same time, he's a poor analytical thinker (He's a much better "picture" thinker). Most who have worked with him over the years have noted that he's often open to learn and that he makes up for his weaknesses with his business organization and similar skills.
An example: Even during his stint of attempting a career change of becoming a professional pilot, that four VERY different flight instructors and even a very hard ass FAA examiner (for his multi-engine pilots license) noted that he was only an average pilot in his flying abilities, but his excellent cockpit organization and recognition of his weaknesses (he was not at all cocky according to one instructor) made him an excellent pilot.
What does this have to do with fish keeping? Well, a lot of Carl's feedback over the years with clients who stated they appreciated his honesty, integrity (he would not simply sell a product, because there was a lot of money to be made or it was popular which also proves out by the fact, he earned less than minimum wage over his 16 years online), dependability, and willingness to always learn. The fact is, another mentor over the years (Reggie) at an aquarium supply wholesaler, which finished his business career there told Strohmeyer this: "I have never seen a more dishonest and backstabbing business than the aquarium industry".
These statements are NOT to puff Carl up or put others down, rather to point out that his ability to learn is something anyone who is honest and puts their mind to it can do. What Carl is good at (as per others too), is that he's very good at organizing information, listening to others, and testing what they say, regardless of his opinion at the time (which may be then forced to change...).
Even in areas of less knowledge, such as specific fish species knowledge and breeding. Carl HAS kept many of these fish in a generic sense and has applied his tests in keeping fish alive and long-term fish health to these fish with excellent results. So, although he may not know the specifics of many different exotic fish, he can attest to VERY good success in long term health and care (Clients that had many different aquarium service personnel before Carl have stated this as well).
This all has resulted in Car often being sought out for his expertise in aquarium/pond fish diseases and prevention, including cutting edge articles about Redox, lighting, & UV sterilization where persons have even sought out Carl's expertise from outside the aquarium/pond keeping industry. The Covid 19 Pandemic has in particular had many asking Carl for his thoughts, especially when it comes to oxidative stress (Redox) and the role it can play to how this virus often kills due to an inflammatory response by the victims own immune system. Disney World is a well-known entity that has sought Carl's advice (again in particular about UV Sterilization and Redox).
In closing, Carl is still learning and though some may criticize him or label him a fish expert guru, in reality he's somewhere in the middle and he will also point out, besides the fact he's still learning, many of those he's learning from are younger or even only have a few years of experience. (Suzie Q at Everything Aquatic was relatively new to the hobby, but she taught him things he didn't). He has also learned from others at Everything Aquatic such as John Laffin (Murdock), Rogier Van Vlissingen, Bill, Jon V, Eve, Parker, Fishfever, and MANY others there alone. (Please forgive Carl if your name is left off here, even though chances are, he has learned from many posts, especially questions that made him re-check his own research or expand it!!!)
Carl will also admit, while he was not treated well on many Google groups he was on, he still learned from some of those, which were rude and nasty. He did not let their nastiness get in the way of good information.
As noted earlier, if Carl's articles have been helpful, please help him by providing a link in a personal blog or website to your favorite articles/products give a "shout out". A list of most of Carl's article:
• Aquarium Information
Other Help:
• Other help for this website has come from Steven Wright's fantastic picture skills (he really exemplifies the expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" with his picture art).
• Tommy Butler with his professional knowledge of operating systems and more has helped Carl much, including hosting of web sites and just his inspiration.
• Blaine Scheidegger also contributed much in his 8-month tenure here with vast improvements to web design, layout and simply fresh ideas.
• For their many talents, thank you Misti King & Devon Trigg. Besides their work in improving articles, they help everyone at AAP deal with the extreme negativity and dishonesty, which is unfortunately occasionally found in the aquatics hobby/industry. We have to deal with it in emails, forums, groups, Facebook, etc. Thank you.
For critics of what many will call his bias in products, it is difficult for anyone to make such a statement and call themselves an honest person with a straight face if they have read this bio, the AAP Mission Statement, & his personal bio.
He has made many personal sacrifices professionally and including passing on good contracts that could have made him considerable $$ over moral reasons, getting much lower discounts from manufacturers by refusing to sell entire lines as requested as he did not find all the products something he would use professionally, and even leaving a business in the hands of untrustworthy person when he was force to move his family to protect them from a psychopathic predator that was harming his family just to save jobs (he lost a $1000s in this decision alone).
Even now he only resides in a small 900 square foot home and works a second job with very limited income because he places others in the hobby first, he certainly is NOT getting rich off from his long hours and efforts!!!
So, in the end, beware of isolated anecdotal low information persons/forums/FB pages that will use personal attacks on Carl to discredit him since they have no real arguments against his vast experience, testing, & cited references, most often with the old argument that he "sells stuff"; just note what he has given up for other's:
1. He canceled his largest contract (110 aquariums) that not only provided a good portion of income, but more so a LOT of publicity just to stand behind an employee after the new owners of this large contract sexually harassed said employee
2. He helped many over the years, taking in families into his home. However, one person had bad intentions and harmed his wife & daughter and took $1000s.
This actually got worse, resulting in Carl having to move literally in the middle of the night and entrusting his business with others against his lawyer's advice so as to keep their jobs, only to see them liquidate his business for 10s of $1000s.
3. Later, once operating online and helping many all-day & into the night and weekends, this Ghost from the past reared its head and caused family issues we will not mention, but suffice it to say, one of the ways these forces against Carl brought up was that he cared more about helping others in the aquarium community than his family (which of course was not true). Then when he cut back the time, he spent helping others to meet this criticism, more criticism was poured out on him by his detractors.
These are but a few examples, just to remember when his detractors use the tired Ad Hominem argument that all Carl is about is selling stuff!!!
For Carl's Personal Biography Page, please follow this link:
• My Biography
Carl is now retired. Ownership of AAP was passed to Devon Trigg in December of 2021.
Mission Statement
We strive to sell products and provide information in this manner:
1. Unique Website with Unique Content: Simply put AAP has always been based on "Information & Content First, Products 2nd and our layout reflects this.
When AAP's founder decided to go online after years in the aquarium industry both in operating fish stores and a large, highly regarded aquarium maintenance company, he wanted something different, not the same cookie cutter website; more information heavy and selling pages that also provide copious amounts of information.
As well AAP and founder Carl Strohmeyer's history has ALWAYS been about information and the community first, product/sales 2nd. From our founders many times putting people above sales, such as his extremely costly to him (both personally and professionally) dropping of his largest client in support of an employee to many times he has put profits well behind helping others.
The following points will expand on this... however, we have NO intention of being like every other cookie cutter aquarium/pond/fish website. We are unique in our set-up, information, use of many web pros in web site set up, and mostly professionally used products.
Our articles are unique with content, which is regularly updated. With both research and professional experience behind much of the information. This also includes our sister website - "Aquarium & Pond Answers".
Our mission has been and will be to push our information first and any products recommendations second. Even then, the majority of the products we recommend are based on our researched articles and experience.
For those who ask us to sponsor their forums, clubs, etc. If we elect to do so, please understand our mission statement of information first will also be carried over to any sponsorship. Please do not ask us to sponsor and then ask that we not follow our Mission Statement as more than one forum has.
A little History: When our online business was set up, we used a very secure website platform by guru Mitch Cohen, however we set it up as a typical product-based web site with little of the information we are proud of. We received constructive criticism stating, "nothing special, your site is not any different than other web sites and where is all this information you brag about?" We consulted more experts and slowly made our web site reflect this information with very content heavy web pages, even the selling/product pages were set up this way.
We added tools from these experts to aid in navigation, this now includes paid search bar that is vastly better than the free Google and other search bars we have tried as it is customizable based on what people are searching for (we should note that this search bar is an added expensive that we must pay monthly for too). So now our web site can be searched by drop-down, old-style picture search, and now this search bar.
For those critical of the web site, as it is not as mobile friendly, we will grant this even though we actually have installed software to adapt to mobile formats, but the fact remains, an information heavy site DOES NOT transfer to a mobile phone well. In fact, as a side note, my daughter uses the Schwab app for her mobile phone, but when she needs to do anything other than checking her funds, she goes to a computer as the facts are their website also is not as easy to use when one is needing content. Does this mean Schwab.com, one of the largest brokers, web site sucks? No!!! Bottom line AAP is set up for information and content first and our website reflects this!!!
2. Quality products based on our often-unique information and experience: At a great value that we or our aquarium maintenance partners would use.
If you explore our website from products to information, you will find a unique mix of products and information not found anywhere else. We don't carry just what sells. We sell products that are often only marketed to aquarium professionals, where cool gimmicky features are not often the priority.
An example would be many of TMC products, such as their LED controllers, which doesn't have a lot of "flash", but more makes up for it in science-based electronics. As another example, we generally do not sell UV sterilizers with baffles (twists), wipers, or other features, which our research has found to be simply gimmicks, which can lead to short life span of a product. Longevity of products (including lights that will last more than a year or two in an aquarium environment) is also very important to what we promote, as this was important with our 1000s of contract aquarium clients in that products that did not last at the very least incurred free house/business calls to correct the problem (which is simply not a a good business model).
This means, you will likely not find this website to sell everything you need for your aquarium or pond, as our mission is not to be everything to every aquarium or pond keeper. As well we do not mean to ever imply that we too are not continuing to learn from others, and ongoing experience and that our products fit every application, as they most certainly do not! We also do not want to ever imply that we are the end all of aquarium research & information (we certainly are not), but we do revise our article on a daily ongoing basis, which you will not find with most Internet articles or social media-based information.
Our goal is NOT to be a one stop store for all aquatic needs. Our hope is support of local aquarium/pet stores. However, we also do hope we are one place for aquatic information and do hope there's support for this information by purchasing at least a few of our helpful or unique products, if the information is found to be helpful.
This includes products, which are easy to find elsewhere such as API (Mars Fish Care) Filstar or Furan 2 where we provide information about their use not found elsewhere.
This is especially true of late, since Mars Fish Care has essentially thrown aquarium professionals "under the bus" that helped promote their brand in favor of discounters, by selling to these discounters at lower prices than what a professional can purchase. Even in large quantities and then not answering letters professionals and others send asking for similar deals.
We often do not sell some products from companies where we find the majority of their products excellent. We do this, because we or our professional maintenance partners have not found these particular products satisfactory. A good example would be SeaChem Focus, our founder found no difference in its use in controlled testing. Another example is the Fusion 500, we only sell the Fusion models we found to work well.
Other companies such as API, we do not sell all their products, or recommend their use for all applications the manufacturer (or others) may, so please read our extensive library of Aquatic Information (such as Aquarium Medications) if there are questions prior to use.
• An example of a product we thought was an excellent idea, but failed in testing was the JBJ Internal UV Sterilizer (which is also sold under alternative names).
• Another example are the Hydro Sponge PRO filters in small sizes, such as the #2. While the #5 PRO is an excellent filter for the environment and flow rates for, they were designed, we have found the Hydro Sponge #2 PRO to not work as well in both flow rates and bacterial loads for the smaller tanks a #2 are designed for, thus in the end the #2 Standard outperformed the #2 PRO in most instance (although we do sell this filter due to customer demand)!
• Most products we sell have a background in our decades of experience. This often includes science-based testing and ALWAYS includes only selling products that have known ingredients, which agree with the known science of aquarium keeping.
3. Testing: Even in selling many of the best quality products at competitive prices, we also realize that nothing is perfect and with many of our products such as the UV-C bulbs, aquarium light fixtures, UV sterilizers, pumps, and many, many more we open and test before shipping to help our customers avoid the hassles of receiving defective merchandise. So, if you see cut seals, etc., this due to our opening & testing of product prior to shipping (often with UVs in particular, we re-pack with more packing material than comes in the original box).
This is a time consuming process, which few of our competitors take the time to perform! The bottom line is, if the product package is open and the product looks "fired" as in the case of a UV bulb or other light fixture, this is because it was opened and tested, by us to ensure a non-defective product. Not because we sell used products!
4. Unique FREE: Articles & Information as noted earlier, about many aspects of aquarium and pond care, which are based on decades of experience, which also include our aquarium/pond maintenance partners. As well as 1000s of hours of in-depth research, often outside the anecdotal aquarium community.
If you have been helped with the many articles we provide here and at Aquarium Answers, please help us by providing a link in a personal blog or website to one of your favorite articles or products here and giving a "shout out".
5. Feedback: Our policy is to provide the BEST and most ACCURATE information possible, which our decades of hands-on experience and research testifies to.
Because of this knowledge base, we do NOT allow the popular Amazon.com type feedback as we have found this to be highly inaccurate with good reviews for products, which over normal use fail or bad reviews for excellent products, which were not properly used or even sold incorrectly.
As an example we have seen pumps, filters, etc. given bad reviews (such as the Rena Smart Filter) based on incorrect set-up.
As well, we have seen a popular internal UV Sterilizer (Killing Machine) given some good reviews, while in reality, these units have mostly failed in only months of testing. More importantly, these UVs cannot even perform level 1 sterilization, yet many purchase these sterilizer and later realize a problem and blame all UV Sterilizers.
How is this accurate? Our apologies to those who disagree with our Feedback policy. We care more about the truth so as keep our readers fish happy and healthy. We are more than happy to get feedback, including constructive and accurate criticism.
Please see our Contact Form to leave any feedback.
If it's preferred to leave more direct feedback, the forum we sponsor now has a public location to do this as well.
See:
• AAP Feedback: Products, Customer Service, Information
6. The lowest possible price: This means, many products we sell often are close to cost with profit margins as low $2 on some filters & pumps (even large aquarium or pond filters have small profits).
7. Shopping Cart: We utilize a PayPal hosted shopping cart, which accepts Credit Cards without requiring a PayPal account.
We do this for the proven safety of their encrypted shopping carts. Also, this integration allows for a template whereby we can provide the copious amounts of information/content unique to our website, which other "Checkout Button" templates do not allow. This requires a drop-down menu type shopping cart, which may not be as simple as a single shopping cart for each item. This drop-down menu cart is still one of the most popular carts for internet hosting and allows for information, which the popular "separate button" cart website templates do not allow.
It's also noteworthy that these drop-down menu shopping cart buttons are the EXACT SAME ONES EMPLOYED BY eBay when multiple selections of items are needed, so this cart is not unique to AAP!
As well, we added quick "Jump to Cart" buttons to skip past information to our drop-down menu carts. These are unique to our website and are not found on most others. Despite the few people these seem to confuse, feedback from our many forums, clients, customers have been 97% positive for these "Jump to Cart" buttons.
More importantly, with stat software we have installed, we show our shopping cart abandonment rate is under 30% when the average web site is 68%, this is an EXCELLENT number (the lower the better) and proves our checkout system is not a problem!!!
8. Provide Customer Service: To complement our top-notch researched articles, we respond to emails within an hour or two (often much less) during normal business hours.
Unlike most businesses in our field, we also check emails after hours and on weekends to provide immediate professional help for our customers or those simply asking questions about their fish or equipment. In fact, based on statistics, the vast majority of such questions are not from customers.
PLEASE respect this unique after hours service we provide. Please do not continue to ask follow up questions into the night expecting an immediate response, but rather please read information we provide. Please understand that this is also our family time too.
As well, our staff is trained to answer basic product questions, not specific aquarium/pond set-up or fish disease questions. We understand most people (as per our Stat software), will use the advice given to them to purchase locally. However, please also respect we cannot remain viable answering questions for other businesses customers.
Please allow us to help you by reading the articles we have spent 1000s of hours in research/writing, and refrain from repeat questions and discussions until after reading the article content. As well, when management level staff have to jump in and help with email questions that are already contained in our library of articles, this also detracts them from their time they spend in constant research, testing, & graphics to keep the articles updated.
HOWEVER, please feel free to ask for clarifications, etc., especially for unique lighting applications, etc.
Please also understand, when asking questions in our customer service email, it ONLY helps the asker.
However, when questions are asked in our sponsored forums, it benefits many in the forum and these forum posts are added to Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo searches, resulting in one question/answer benefiting many (including our website SEO, thus there's a small benefit for us too), as well as allowing us more efficient use of our time.
9. We are set up to operate online: As already noted, we offer world class customer support/help via email, INCLUDING after hours and weekend tech support from staff not even in the office that we pay per email to offer timely customer support. Few online sellers offer this (also including our staff paid to be online @ Everything Aquatic Forum). The FACTS are that we can provide links, diagrams and search history via email, which phone support simply cannot do.
Email support also allows to much better multi-task, which in recent years with very low margins due to free shipping, Amazon and other pressures has become a MUST!!! To help us serve you better, please use the same email address for your questions/customer support as you do with purchases. This makes it easier for us to provide you with the best possible customer support.
We need a written record for a variety of reasons, including teaching/training of other employees or forum members. This written record is important, as we have had multiple incidences of persons asking questions by phone (including our phone order line, which is not intended for tech support) and then disputing the information given based on miscommunication or other reasons and then demanding returns at our cost or even filing charge backs.
We will often research questions we do not readily have an answer for. This includes contacting staff (not otherwise readily available in shop, rather working at other locations for efficiency), vendors, sister maintenance company personnel, etc. for further information. We then can provide links to our extensive library or our many trusted outside resources for further information. This CANNOT be done via phone.
In fact, everyone at AAP reads technical questions sent by email (even if they were not the person who answered) including Carl. ALL questions are used to improve future questions and our articles. We cannot efficiently improve our articles and future answers if technical questions are answered by phone (as we did in the past). As well, since fraud is at an all-time high, with little merchant protection from credit card processors and other online providers, we LEGALLY need this written record for proof of what we recommended, or proof of the correct item sent.
Even for non-customers, we are more than happy to direct you to where further information can be obtained our extensive aquarium/pond keeping articles with specific links. However, we do ask for more detailed specific questions and answers, as well as questions directed at the author of the articles, that these be directed to the forum we sponsor:
• Everything Aquatic Forum Home Page
• Everything Aquatic; MeWe Version
WE APOLOGIZE for any inconvenience not having a direct phone line may cause. HOWEVER, the costs in employee time alone resulted in business losses. In part, because the majority of calls were not even from customers, rather people needing help with products we MAY sell, but have been purchased elsewhere. As well many of the questions from customers & non-customers were asking for detailed help with aquarium/pond builds, fish medications questions that could be asked in our forum where much more in depth and written help could be provided in a much more efficient manner. On top of that, not having a written record for technical issues could AND DID result in fraudulent charge backs and this results in CONSIDERABLE financial losses!
Another part of the reason for no phone customer service is a considerable amount of calls we have taken went on to ask questions, which lasted 20 or more minutes for information that is already in our extensive articles and could have been linked to in an email or forum question.
In the end, our staff, including Carl spends a great deal of time in article updates (which includes new pictures/diagrams), we would have to cease maintaining our free article libraries which is the most unique aspect of our web site so as to donate this time to questions that are otherwise much better handled via our email, articles, and for specifics, our sponsored forums (where we donate a considerable amount of time for free).
If customer assistance is needed, please use our email!
10. Handle in House Warranty Returns: This means time and man hours spent testing and often replacing or occasionally repairing products. When the majority of these returns are damaged by misuse or customer equipment failures (such as Blown UV Bulbs due to a customer's bad ballast or moisture damage to lights). Many of these warranty issues would not result in replacement from the manufacture without a repair/replacement charge, yet most of the time we provide this service for free other than return shipping fees.
11. Abuse of our Help: While the majority of the 7000 users per day of our websites are polite, unfortunately we occasionally receive emails from people who are very demanding of our help, rude, condescending, making dishonest accusations, or simply disrespectful. This is to our staff or the 1000s of hours Carl has put into the vast library of free information.
Often these people are very thoughtless and/or simply downright hate filled in their emails. This abuse of our help is often expecting more than what is reasonably of our customer service and Carl's time spent helping many here and in the forum.
A related issue is a small percentage of people who will make one or two purchases, then send many (often 100s) of emails. Often arguing answers while not reading articles Carl has spent so much time in research and writing. In the end, often using our help or Carl's articles to purchase elsewhere.
This abuse often includes arguing prices of products and shipping or why we do not sell certain products while selling others. Despite the fact we spend 75% of our time in research, customer service, picture diagrams, etc.
Since Carl often has little extra time and still takes little from his business, he still continues to attempt to help other fishkeepers- those who act in this manner we may choose to no longer answer questions here or in our sponsored forums.
As well, fraud is a common issue of late. With customers attempting to return product purchased elsewhere, complaining about products which were not used correctly even though we tested the product before shipping, and filing claims of non-receipt within a day or even a hour after purchase with their credit card issuer or PayPal. Since Credit Card issuers do little to fight fraud against merchants (& in fact often encourage fraud with their policies), we have to use in-house tools to combat this problem.
This includes refusing future sales to customers who have constantly misused products, refuse to pay warranty shipping, and the number one "Red Flag" is threatening or actually filing a complaint with their Credit Card issuer or PayPal (as this lowers our rating and takes up valuable employee time in responding and often results in a charge to us and higher merchant fees down the road).
We have found, statistically 80% of these are attempts to commit fraud against us in some form or another.
We ask honest customers give us a chance to correct any problem they might have (which we usually do, often at our loss).
By filing PayPal disputes or similar, this freezes our funds and places a "black mark" on our record, which affects our credit and ultimately our cost of doing business. Even threatening such actions we have found is simply a "school yard bully" tactic to get their way, often for absurd or dishonest reasons. Most people who do this, make such threats based on incorrect information.
Due to the problem of abuse of our customer service (to purchase elsewhere, etc.), rude emails, and potential fraud - we automatically place persons in a "blacklist" for refund of any future purchase and refusal of any future business transactions, as well as refusal to help with future questions or refusal to honor many of our free services such as our lifetime free service for uv sterilizers purchased from us.
Refusal of future business could be for the following reasons:
• People who use our help to purchase elsewhere, especially Amazon (along with other parasite retailers.
It is common for such persons to come back seeking more help, since many of these sellers remove or sell modified versions to make the product cheaper (Such as the SunSun Submersible UVs, which are missing the pre-filter sponge and use a low output medium pressure UV bulb instead of the high output bulb we use). Since Amazon is destroying our professional aquarium industry and our business directly, we find it offensive to use our help (whether it be a video, article, forum, or email). For this reason, we will refuse to further help or even sell to such persons (would you expect your doctor to work for free?)!
• People who are dishonest or make false claims.
• People who are rude, threaten, or bully our staff (this includes threatening with chargebacks or PayPal claims).
• People who file ANY PayPal Disputes or Credit Card Chargeback, or file any potentially fraudulent claim (Examples Include: "Purchase Not received" when in fact tracking shows it was OR "Item significantly not as described", when in reality this is not true.)
We always work with customers and by taking such actions, this ties our hands and so any such filing does not help the buyer for any incident where would otherwise be able to help. We have reversed blacklists for the first three reasons for refusal of service, when persons have displayed remorse of their actions. It should be noted, we have often taken quite bit of abuse before "blacklisting" for rude, bullying, etc. behavior). HOWEVER, we are FIRM on reason #4 due to the how negatively this can affect our business and the dishonesty the few people who have done this to our business have shown.
Please know, these are the same policies local brick and mortar stores have the right to have in place. While their policy may not be written for all to see, these are the procedures they would take in the case of an "abusive" people coming into the store.
1. Unique Website with Unique Content: Simply put AAP has always been based on "Information & Content First, Products 2nd and our layout reflects this.
When AAP's founder decided to go online after years in the aquarium industry both in operating fish stores and a large, highly regarded aquarium maintenance company, he wanted something different, not the same cookie cutter website; more information heavy and selling pages that also provide copious amounts of information.
As well AAP and founder Carl Strohmeyer's history has ALWAYS been about information and the community first, product/sales 2nd. From our founders many times putting people above sales, such as his extremely costly to him (both personally and professionally) dropping of his largest client in support of an employee to many times he has put profits well behind helping others.
The following points will expand on this... however, we have NO intention of being like every other cookie cutter aquarium/pond/fish website. We are unique in our set-up, information, use of many web pros in web site set up, and mostly professionally used products.
Our articles are unique with content, which is regularly updated. With both research and professional experience behind much of the information. This also includes our sister website - "Aquarium & Pond Answers".
Our mission has been and will be to push our information first and any products recommendations second. Even then, the majority of the products we recommend are based on our researched articles and experience.
For those who ask us to sponsor their forums, clubs, etc. If we elect to do so, please understand our mission statement of information first will also be carried over to any sponsorship. Please do not ask us to sponsor and then ask that we not follow our Mission Statement as more than one forum has.
A little History: When our online business was set up, we used a very secure website platform by guru Mitch Cohen, however we set it up as a typical product-based web site with little of the information we are proud of. We received constructive criticism stating, "nothing special, your site is not any different than other web sites and where is all this information you brag about?" We consulted more experts and slowly made our web site reflect this information with very content heavy web pages, even the selling/product pages were set up this way.
We added tools from these experts to aid in navigation, this now includes paid search bar that is vastly better than the free Google and other search bars we have tried as it is customizable based on what people are searching for (we should note that this search bar is an added expensive that we must pay monthly for too). So now our web site can be searched by drop-down, old-style picture search, and now this search bar.
For those critical of the web site, as it is not as mobile friendly, we will grant this even though we actually have installed software to adapt to mobile formats, but the fact remains, an information heavy site DOES NOT transfer to a mobile phone well. In fact, as a side note, my daughter uses the Schwab app for her mobile phone, but when she needs to do anything other than checking her funds, she goes to a computer as the facts are their website also is not as easy to use when one is needing content. Does this mean Schwab.com, one of the largest brokers, web site sucks? No!!! Bottom line AAP is set up for information and content first and our website reflects this!!!
2. Quality products based on our often-unique information and experience: At a great value that we or our aquarium maintenance partners would use.
If you explore our website from products to information, you will find a unique mix of products and information not found anywhere else. We don't carry just what sells. We sell products that are often only marketed to aquarium professionals, where cool gimmicky features are not often the priority.
An example would be many of TMC products, such as their LED controllers, which doesn't have a lot of "flash", but more makes up for it in science-based electronics. As another example, we generally do not sell UV sterilizers with baffles (twists), wipers, or other features, which our research has found to be simply gimmicks, which can lead to short life span of a product. Longevity of products (including lights that will last more than a year or two in an aquarium environment) is also very important to what we promote, as this was important with our 1000s of contract aquarium clients in that products that did not last at the very least incurred free house/business calls to correct the problem (which is simply not a a good business model).
This means, you will likely not find this website to sell everything you need for your aquarium or pond, as our mission is not to be everything to every aquarium or pond keeper. As well we do not mean to ever imply that we too are not continuing to learn from others, and ongoing experience and that our products fit every application, as they most certainly do not! We also do not want to ever imply that we are the end all of aquarium research & information (we certainly are not), but we do revise our article on a daily ongoing basis, which you will not find with most Internet articles or social media-based information.
Our goal is NOT to be a one stop store for all aquatic needs. Our hope is support of local aquarium/pet stores. However, we also do hope we are one place for aquatic information and do hope there's support for this information by purchasing at least a few of our helpful or unique products, if the information is found to be helpful.
This includes products, which are easy to find elsewhere such as API (Mars Fish Care) Filstar or Furan 2 where we provide information about their use not found elsewhere.
This is especially true of late, since Mars Fish Care has essentially thrown aquarium professionals "under the bus" that helped promote their brand in favor of discounters, by selling to these discounters at lower prices than what a professional can purchase. Even in large quantities and then not answering letters professionals and others send asking for similar deals.
We often do not sell some products from companies where we find the majority of their products excellent. We do this, because we or our professional maintenance partners have not found these particular products satisfactory. A good example would be SeaChem Focus, our founder found no difference in its use in controlled testing. Another example is the Fusion 500, we only sell the Fusion models we found to work well.
Other companies such as API, we do not sell all their products, or recommend their use for all applications the manufacturer (or others) may, so please read our extensive library of Aquatic Information (such as Aquarium Medications) if there are questions prior to use.
• An example of a product we thought was an excellent idea, but failed in testing was the JBJ Internal UV Sterilizer (which is also sold under alternative names).
• Another example are the Hydro Sponge PRO filters in small sizes, such as the #2. While the #5 PRO is an excellent filter for the environment and flow rates for, they were designed, we have found the Hydro Sponge #2 PRO to not work as well in both flow rates and bacterial loads for the smaller tanks a #2 are designed for, thus in the end the #2 Standard outperformed the #2 PRO in most instance (although we do sell this filter due to customer demand)!
• Most products we sell have a background in our decades of experience. This often includes science-based testing and ALWAYS includes only selling products that have known ingredients, which agree with the known science of aquarium keeping.
3. Testing: Even in selling many of the best quality products at competitive prices, we also realize that nothing is perfect and with many of our products such as the UV-C bulbs, aquarium light fixtures, UV sterilizers, pumps, and many, many more we open and test before shipping to help our customers avoid the hassles of receiving defective merchandise. So, if you see cut seals, etc., this due to our opening & testing of product prior to shipping (often with UVs in particular, we re-pack with more packing material than comes in the original box).
This is a time consuming process, which few of our competitors take the time to perform! The bottom line is, if the product package is open and the product looks "fired" as in the case of a UV bulb or other light fixture, this is because it was opened and tested, by us to ensure a non-defective product. Not because we sell used products!
4. Unique FREE: Articles & Information as noted earlier, about many aspects of aquarium and pond care, which are based on decades of experience, which also include our aquarium/pond maintenance partners. As well as 1000s of hours of in-depth research, often outside the anecdotal aquarium community.
If you have been helped with the many articles we provide here and at Aquarium Answers, please help us by providing a link in a personal blog or website to one of your favorite articles or products here and giving a "shout out".
5. Feedback: Our policy is to provide the BEST and most ACCURATE information possible, which our decades of hands-on experience and research testifies to.
Because of this knowledge base, we do NOT allow the popular Amazon.com type feedback as we have found this to be highly inaccurate with good reviews for products, which over normal use fail or bad reviews for excellent products, which were not properly used or even sold incorrectly.
As an example we have seen pumps, filters, etc. given bad reviews (such as the Rena Smart Filter) based on incorrect set-up.
As well, we have seen a popular internal UV Sterilizer (Killing Machine) given some good reviews, while in reality, these units have mostly failed in only months of testing. More importantly, these UVs cannot even perform level 1 sterilization, yet many purchase these sterilizer and later realize a problem and blame all UV Sterilizers.
How is this accurate? Our apologies to those who disagree with our Feedback policy. We care more about the truth so as keep our readers fish happy and healthy. We are more than happy to get feedback, including constructive and accurate criticism.
Please see our Contact Form to leave any feedback.
If it's preferred to leave more direct feedback, the forum we sponsor now has a public location to do this as well.
See:
• AAP Feedback: Products, Customer Service, Information
6. The lowest possible price: This means, many products we sell often are close to cost with profit margins as low $2 on some filters & pumps (even large aquarium or pond filters have small profits).
7. Shopping Cart: We utilize a PayPal hosted shopping cart, which accepts Credit Cards without requiring a PayPal account.
We do this for the proven safety of their encrypted shopping carts. Also, this integration allows for a template whereby we can provide the copious amounts of information/content unique to our website, which other "Checkout Button" templates do not allow. This requires a drop-down menu type shopping cart, which may not be as simple as a single shopping cart for each item. This drop-down menu cart is still one of the most popular carts for internet hosting and allows for information, which the popular "separate button" cart website templates do not allow.
It's also noteworthy that these drop-down menu shopping cart buttons are the EXACT SAME ONES EMPLOYED BY eBay when multiple selections of items are needed, so this cart is not unique to AAP!
As well, we added quick "Jump to Cart" buttons to skip past information to our drop-down menu carts. These are unique to our website and are not found on most others. Despite the few people these seem to confuse, feedback from our many forums, clients, customers have been 97% positive for these "Jump to Cart" buttons.
More importantly, with stat software we have installed, we show our shopping cart abandonment rate is under 30% when the average web site is 68%, this is an EXCELLENT number (the lower the better) and proves our checkout system is not a problem!!!
8. Provide Customer Service: To complement our top-notch researched articles, we respond to emails within an hour or two (often much less) during normal business hours.
Unlike most businesses in our field, we also check emails after hours and on weekends to provide immediate professional help for our customers or those simply asking questions about their fish or equipment. In fact, based on statistics, the vast majority of such questions are not from customers.
PLEASE respect this unique after hours service we provide. Please do not continue to ask follow up questions into the night expecting an immediate response, but rather please read information we provide. Please understand that this is also our family time too.
As well, our staff is trained to answer basic product questions, not specific aquarium/pond set-up or fish disease questions. We understand most people (as per our Stat software), will use the advice given to them to purchase locally. However, please also respect we cannot remain viable answering questions for other businesses customers.
Please allow us to help you by reading the articles we have spent 1000s of hours in research/writing, and refrain from repeat questions and discussions until after reading the article content. As well, when management level staff have to jump in and help with email questions that are already contained in our library of articles, this also detracts them from their time they spend in constant research, testing, & graphics to keep the articles updated.
HOWEVER, please feel free to ask for clarifications, etc., especially for unique lighting applications, etc.
Please also understand, when asking questions in our customer service email, it ONLY helps the asker.
However, when questions are asked in our sponsored forums, it benefits many in the forum and these forum posts are added to Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo searches, resulting in one question/answer benefiting many (including our website SEO, thus there's a small benefit for us too), as well as allowing us more efficient use of our time.
9. We are set up to operate online: As already noted, we offer world class customer support/help via email, INCLUDING after hours and weekend tech support from staff not even in the office that we pay per email to offer timely customer support. Few online sellers offer this (also including our staff paid to be online @ Everything Aquatic Forum). The FACTS are that we can provide links, diagrams and search history via email, which phone support simply cannot do.
Email support also allows to much better multi-task, which in recent years with very low margins due to free shipping, Amazon and other pressures has become a MUST!!! To help us serve you better, please use the same email address for your questions/customer support as you do with purchases. This makes it easier for us to provide you with the best possible customer support.
We need a written record for a variety of reasons, including teaching/training of other employees or forum members. This written record is important, as we have had multiple incidences of persons asking questions by phone (including our phone order line, which is not intended for tech support) and then disputing the information given based on miscommunication or other reasons and then demanding returns at our cost or even filing charge backs.
We will often research questions we do not readily have an answer for. This includes contacting staff (not otherwise readily available in shop, rather working at other locations for efficiency), vendors, sister maintenance company personnel, etc. for further information. We then can provide links to our extensive library or our many trusted outside resources for further information. This CANNOT be done via phone.
In fact, everyone at AAP reads technical questions sent by email (even if they were not the person who answered) including Carl. ALL questions are used to improve future questions and our articles. We cannot efficiently improve our articles and future answers if technical questions are answered by phone (as we did in the past). As well, since fraud is at an all-time high, with little merchant protection from credit card processors and other online providers, we LEGALLY need this written record for proof of what we recommended, or proof of the correct item sent.
Even for non-customers, we are more than happy to direct you to where further information can be obtained our extensive aquarium/pond keeping articles with specific links. However, we do ask for more detailed specific questions and answers, as well as questions directed at the author of the articles, that these be directed to the forum we sponsor:
• Everything Aquatic Forum Home Page
• Everything Aquatic; MeWe Version
WE APOLOGIZE for any inconvenience not having a direct phone line may cause. HOWEVER, the costs in employee time alone resulted in business losses. In part, because the majority of calls were not even from customers, rather people needing help with products we MAY sell, but have been purchased elsewhere. As well many of the questions from customers & non-customers were asking for detailed help with aquarium/pond builds, fish medications questions that could be asked in our forum where much more in depth and written help could be provided in a much more efficient manner. On top of that, not having a written record for technical issues could AND DID result in fraudulent charge backs and this results in CONSIDERABLE financial losses!
Another part of the reason for no phone customer service is a considerable amount of calls we have taken went on to ask questions, which lasted 20 or more minutes for information that is already in our extensive articles and could have been linked to in an email or forum question.
In the end, our staff, including Carl spends a great deal of time in article updates (which includes new pictures/diagrams), we would have to cease maintaining our free article libraries which is the most unique aspect of our web site so as to donate this time to questions that are otherwise much better handled via our email, articles, and for specifics, our sponsored forums (where we donate a considerable amount of time for free).
If customer assistance is needed, please use our email!
10. Handle in House Warranty Returns: This means time and man hours spent testing and often replacing or occasionally repairing products. When the majority of these returns are damaged by misuse or customer equipment failures (such as Blown UV Bulbs due to a customer's bad ballast or moisture damage to lights). Many of these warranty issues would not result in replacement from the manufacture without a repair/replacement charge, yet most of the time we provide this service for free other than return shipping fees.
11. Abuse of our Help: While the majority of the 7000 users per day of our websites are polite, unfortunately we occasionally receive emails from people who are very demanding of our help, rude, condescending, making dishonest accusations, or simply disrespectful. This is to our staff or the 1000s of hours Carl has put into the vast library of free information.
Often these people are very thoughtless and/or simply downright hate filled in their emails. This abuse of our help is often expecting more than what is reasonably of our customer service and Carl's time spent helping many here and in the forum.
A related issue is a small percentage of people who will make one or two purchases, then send many (often 100s) of emails. Often arguing answers while not reading articles Carl has spent so much time in research and writing. In the end, often using our help or Carl's articles to purchase elsewhere.
This abuse often includes arguing prices of products and shipping or why we do not sell certain products while selling others. Despite the fact we spend 75% of our time in research, customer service, picture diagrams, etc.
Since Carl often has little extra time and still takes little from his business, he still continues to attempt to help other fishkeepers- those who act in this manner we may choose to no longer answer questions here or in our sponsored forums.
As well, fraud is a common issue of late. With customers attempting to return product purchased elsewhere, complaining about products which were not used correctly even though we tested the product before shipping, and filing claims of non-receipt within a day or even a hour after purchase with their credit card issuer or PayPal. Since Credit Card issuers do little to fight fraud against merchants (& in fact often encourage fraud with their policies), we have to use in-house tools to combat this problem.
This includes refusing future sales to customers who have constantly misused products, refuse to pay warranty shipping, and the number one "Red Flag" is threatening or actually filing a complaint with their Credit Card issuer or PayPal (as this lowers our rating and takes up valuable employee time in responding and often results in a charge to us and higher merchant fees down the road).
We have found, statistically 80% of these are attempts to commit fraud against us in some form or another.
We ask honest customers give us a chance to correct any problem they might have (which we usually do, often at our loss).
By filing PayPal disputes or similar, this freezes our funds and places a "black mark" on our record, which affects our credit and ultimately our cost of doing business. Even threatening such actions we have found is simply a "school yard bully" tactic to get their way, often for absurd or dishonest reasons. Most people who do this, make such threats based on incorrect information.
Due to the problem of abuse of our customer service (to purchase elsewhere, etc.), rude emails, and potential fraud - we automatically place persons in a "blacklist" for refund of any future purchase and refusal of any future business transactions, as well as refusal to help with future questions or refusal to honor many of our free services such as our lifetime free service for uv sterilizers purchased from us.
Refusal of future business could be for the following reasons:
• People who use our help to purchase elsewhere, especially Amazon (along with other parasite retailers.
It is common for such persons to come back seeking more help, since many of these sellers remove or sell modified versions to make the product cheaper (Such as the SunSun Submersible UVs, which are missing the pre-filter sponge and use a low output medium pressure UV bulb instead of the high output bulb we use). Since Amazon is destroying our professional aquarium industry and our business directly, we find it offensive to use our help (whether it be a video, article, forum, or email). For this reason, we will refuse to further help or even sell to such persons (would you expect your doctor to work for free?)!
• People who are dishonest or make false claims.
• People who are rude, threaten, or bully our staff (this includes threatening with chargebacks or PayPal claims).
• People who file ANY PayPal Disputes or Credit Card Chargeback, or file any potentially fraudulent claim (Examples Include: "Purchase Not received" when in fact tracking shows it was OR "Item significantly not as described", when in reality this is not true.)
We always work with customers and by taking such actions, this ties our hands and so any such filing does not help the buyer for any incident where would otherwise be able to help. We have reversed blacklists for the first three reasons for refusal of service, when persons have displayed remorse of their actions. It should be noted, we have often taken quite bit of abuse before "blacklisting" for rude, bullying, etc. behavior). HOWEVER, we are FIRM on reason #4 due to the how negatively this can affect our business and the dishonesty the few people who have done this to our business have shown.
Please know, these are the same policies local brick and mortar stores have the right to have in place. While their policy may not be written for all to see, these are the procedures they would take in the case of an "abusive" people coming into the store.
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