Rainforest Farms International...?

[GrillMaster]

Or I can jus lock it again!!

[Proctoid]

Based on my recent experience I would not recommend using Rainforest Farms International. As a matter of fact I would be emphatic about going anywhere but there for Discus. The guy is arrogant and a fraud peddling inferior Discus at best. In my particular case he sent sick fish, damaged fish, and the wrong fish. And of course denied it. Furthermore, he packaged the fish in bags that leaked and when I opened the box the fish were literally partially out of the water. Not good! After many phone calls and emails I finally accepted the fact that I had been ripped off and chaulked it up as a learning experience. He will never get business from me again.

[born2lovefish]

I personally have bought from Tom a few times. I mainly have gotten different tetras and cories for my planted tank. Never had any problems, but I always pickup my fish up from him. Can say that I have not seen a lot of the stuff he has on his website when I have been to his place. He told me once he keeps his high dollar discus at another place.

[tcmemphisbbq]

This is just my personal experience, Tom brought me my two fish I bought from him and a few plants to my Bbq joint 8+ months ago when i first got into discus, The plants were great... he brought me a "green snakeskin", which hasn't grown even an inch, I also wanted a yellow discus and what was to be a "golden sunrise" on his site turned out to be a CB, nice one but wrong fish none the less. Also when I ordered my live rock from him (my first experience), the box leaked and fell apart in shipping and fed ex had to barrell all of the "precured live rock" and it sat in a truck over the weekend..... I've dealt with him via email mostly other then meeting him at our place as he was passing through, face to face (at least to me) he came off as not a decent guy, but I definately will not do business with him in the future since finding a home at SD, any future discus I buy will be from SD sponsors and SD sponsors ALONE.

That is just how things went down for me as a customer. Knowing what I know now and experience I wish I would have researched it more, but I didn't, his place is only 45 minutes from my place so I thought I was helping a local business.

[tcmemphisbbq]

This is just my personal experience, Tom brought me my two fish I bought from him and a few plants to my Bbq joint 8+ months ago when i first got into discus, The plants were great... he brought me a "green snakeskin", which hasn't grown even an inch, I also wanted a yellow discus and what was to be a "golden sunrise" on his site turned out to be a CB, nice one but wrong fish none the less. Also when I ordered my live rock from him (my first experience), the box leaked and fell apart in shipping and fed ex had to barrell all of the "precured live rock" and it sat in a truck over the weekend..... I've dealt with him via email mostly other then meeting him at our place as he was passing through, face to face (at least to me) he came off as not a decent guy, but I definately will not do business with him in the future since finding a home at SD, any future discus I buy will be from SD sponsors and SD sponsors ALONE.

That is just how things went down for me as a customer. Knowing what I know now and experience I wish I would have researched it more, but I didn't, his place is only 45 minutes from my place so I thought I was helping a local business.

Im sorry I ment he came off as a decent guy in person the first time I met him....

[TURQ64]

A case of cabin fever has me making this post. Not a rant, more of an expensive joke...My experience with Tom was - nice to talk with on the phone..That's where 'nice' stops...Shipping was atrocious; poor choice of heat packs, and the banding machine didn't seal the bags tight enough, so no air...I ordered six Cardinals, a breeding trio of German Blue Rams, and five Discus..two of a strain he named 'Sunset Flame',(supposedly from a golden background), and three Blue Scorp's...What I received was..four Neons, two Cardinals, three tiny Electric Blue Rams, two pidgeons the size of a quarter, one Blue Turk, and two Cobalts..The discus were poor q. besides being small, one died on arrival, one badly mis-shaped, (both should have been culled early on)...Quite the joke compared to my order..never returned email or phone call...you decide!

[Discus Origins]

It appears that a lot of people have been duped by Tom's fancy RFI website. After a few years without fish I decided to get back into them a few years ago and found his site informative and nicely done compared to other breeders on the web. That's about where the nice things I have to say about him run out.

He sold me 6 juvenile Heckels (he claimed he bred them himself) and 6 F1 RSGs. He shipped all 12 three inch fish in one box, 10 of the 12 came in leaking with barely enough water to wet the fish. All of the RSGs were black in the bag, I called him right when I opened the box and he told me to add salt to the water and turn the temp up to 88 degrees and call him the next day. Next morning I had 2 fish alive, the other 10 all hanging up in a corner all black and slime sloughing off and they slowly died off throughout the day. These fish went into a 90 gallon biotope tank that had 30 cardinals that cycled the tank for 2 months.

He claimed that the cardinals must have given the discus some disease, then he claimed acid burn (ph was 6.5 in the tank, same as the water in the bags). After a few minutes he offered to replace the fish if I paid for another 5 at regular price. I would also have to pay shipping again. So he wanted me to pay for 17 fish and end up with 10. I told him no thanks on the juveniles because I wasn't going to try them again. I told him that I liked some of the red dragons on his website, did he have any extra breeding pairs that he would sell to me. He said sure and would ship me one pair of red dragons and charged me 1/2 price for the pair ($200 instead of $400). I received two bland colored pigeon bloods, both oblong in shape, peppered and snub nosed, looking NOTHING like the picture of the pair that he sent me of the pair. I emailed him pictures of the fish and he claims that I didnt take pictures of the fish he sent! After a few minutes of not so nice words, he finally told the truth and said he didn't even pack the fish himself and that the shop help must have shipped me the wrong fish.

At this point I was livid and paid shipping TWICE and ended up with 2 small and 2 adult fish that I didn't want. He told me to ship him back the two adults, he would pay for the shipping and then ship me another pair of quality breeders. I told him that I had a friend who would take the fish for the $50 in shipping that I had paid if he was fine with it instead of him having to pay shipping back. He said ok and would get back in touch with me on the pair.

I emailed him several times after that wondering when I was ever going to receive a breeding pair of the fish that I picked out. He never emailed me back and never returned my voicemails. He took my $800 and all I got out of it was 2 small discus that I gave away to my LFS.

NEVER ever deal with Tom. He acts very nice when trying to get your money....but if he can't trick you or realizes you know your stuff that all goes away. Tell everyone and anyone who is thinking about buying discus to stay away from RFI.

Mark

[TURQ64]

I hear you, Mark!....I have one stunted, ugly little fish (as far as Discus) To show for the whole deal..It's not what I ordered, and around 1 3/4". I've had it going on 4 months..Keeping it alive for a photo shoot comparison!....What a slimeball, eh?
Gary

[amyers]

I am new to this forum and the site on a whole, I am usually the type that like to read and look at pictures on the internet, I only got back into discuss keeping in December 2009 after 13 years, back then i was doing it on a small carribbean island were i work. I bought my first tank a 75 gal for my home in Ft Lauderdale and bought a few small fish from wattley' s in miami to start with, my wife took care of them and most died since she was new to this hobby. we tried another batch, and basically the same happened,I travelled back and forth and was determined not to give up on my dream. I did not want to breed themIi just wanted to have these beatiful creatures to look at when im at home. With the guidance of gabriel pasoda at wattleys we got it in 3 months. Ok it was time , no holding back now I had acess to wattleys supply warehouse and on each visit I was selecting the biggest and best he had , didnt care about the price. I travel alot, and when im not there my wife went long distances to purchase blackworms to feed thes fishes daily, its fun loking at them eat with agression, by December 2010 I had three tanks 120 g the largest and a little over thirty discus, some were up to eight inches. late February I decided I wanted a bright yellow discus so I decidedto go online, I've been looking for months at fishes on the internet and was always attracted to the ones on RFI disus [ please be aware folks its now RFI Tropical fish]. I ordered two yellows ie a pearl flame and yellow ica, 2 rainbow dragons ,2 blue scorpions and a super red melon,.The owner called me that nite and said the box can hold two more bags, so i agreed to take two more "SPECTACULAR" colours that he recommended. I paid extra to get 4" fish instead of 2" fish. When the fishes ariived they looked harassed, and the water smelt bad, I thought probrably it was the journey that had them that way. They were all 2 inches and less plus the extra two fish I ordered wernt in the box, and none were the types I paid for , I acllimated the fish and let them loose in my small 65 gal tank with a couple other fish. when I called up the owner of RFI Tom, he said give them time the will get colour, and hell send the other fishes with the next order, he'll also throw in a free fish with the next order, when I asked if he charged for them , he said he dont know check my account on the website, this showed he did not charge, but when the credit card bill came there was an extra charge of 200 + dollars. Anyway the other discuses in the tank started to act stange by staying on the top of the water in a corner of the tank and not eating. i did a water change and left the country to go back to my job. The fishes started to die one by one , my wife was emailing me pictures of dead fish every day, and I just coudnt figure out what was happning since I never encountered any disease like this. I did some research and discovered the disease discus plague, all the tetras and othe fishes were ok and only two of Toms fishes died eventually , they were apparently immune to what it was.It spread to another tank and in all I lost around 25 of my prized collection. I followed the advice of the variuous articles and started treating with antibiotics. The battle is still ongoing but so far I managed to keep about a dozen of the big fellas alive. were now treating for ick,I think this week , everything will be ok, This was believe me one of the most panful experience in my life some of those fishes allowed me to pet them with my hands like dogs, we were really close, how can a human being be so cruel. I was betrayed by this man, not to mention blatantly robbed, I will never be able to replace some of thes fishes, the head on some of these fishes were over an inch thick. I told him my fishes were huge ang costed alot of money, he should have just kept my money and not send anything. Not to mention i now have to deal with an irratic wife who is blaming me for this mess. Anyway people thats my story, in future I'll stick to my one supplier. But something needs to be done about this guy and soon, I was always one to think that this kind of behavior in buisness was not possible or tolerated in the USA, and im sure there are others like me who feel that way. He needs to be stopped, if there is anything that can be done let me know I'll be willing to help financially or otherwise. Please warn other people out there, so they wont have to have this horrible experience. P.S . Tom has also blatantly refused to refund the money for the fishes that weren't sent.

[TURQ64]

I got a new chip for my camera yesterday, so sometime today when the fishroom duties slow down, I'll post one of his 'beauties'.....ugh!

[Elite Aquaria]

HI all,

I've gone thru and cleaned this thread up...There were many posts by people that did not have first hand experiences and were only commenting... This is not the purpose of this section... If you want to comment on something that is posted here...send the person a Pm or email...

Please Click here and read Al's comments on this section before you post here.

Any comments that are not first hand will be removed from the Live stock and Product Review section of this forum....

[TURQ64]

Well, the card that came for my camera is the wrong card,so..here's a photo from my wife's cheapie..all fish pictured (quite a 'salad', never mixed strains before) are within a month or so of each other as far as age and size when purchased...can you guess which one is RFI's 'sunset flame'?...

[IMG][/IMG]

[TURQ64]

Well, there's an end to the story of RFI and me...As if it knew it's photo debut had come and gone, the little thing was firmly impaled on a filter intake this a.m....now on my roof to feed the migrating Graeckles...

[LKSDiscus]

I too had a horrible experience from him order 6 fish all of them dead two arrived dead and he would not even acknowledge even with pictures that I sent to him. Would not order anything from the web until just recently from Kenny and Mike and got some awesome fish. Sometime you need to pay a little more for quality

[LKSDiscus]

Thought I show you what I order from them, it finish me from ordering from online.

This one died the same day I got him




This one eventually died a few days later in QT tank



I did not get restitution he just ignore my email and calls.

Linda