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- Ventura Frag Swap ,Ventura ,CA on Dec 5th -09
The beginning of 2003 was a good year to be a livestock slinger in the marine aquarium industry. The reef aquarium hobby was ballooning and new collecting locations were opening up left and right. The ratio of buyers to sellers was extremely skewed in favor of the market and it seemed like new online vendors were popping up every week. In April 2003, Reefer Madness was launched and it can be argued that they single handedly reinvented the high-end coral scene. They had the best wysiwyg and every few days it would be updated with the most mind-blowing corals anyone had ever seen. For the SPS lover, the RM wysiwyg was an obsession to be shared with fellow SPS nuts. Even if you couldn’t afford to buy their top-shelf corals (at top-shelf RM prices), at least you could see what kind of corals were being imported from week to week and you could be on the lookout for species from certain regions. Additionally, the RM staff had an eye for the most unusual coral species and NO ONE could touch their selection for the sheer number of oddball corals that they could pick out from the more commonly seen species. Also, RM didnt invent the over marketing of coral names but with a different colorful, descriptive name for every single coral for sale, RM took the goofy naming convention to new heights. For about two or three years RM was the top dawg in the online coral vending world but beginning around 2006, the markets began to saturate with corals and prices for even the choice colonies were going for much more reasonable prices. Early in 2008 the company was sold to owners which very poorly managed what was left of RM into the sand bed. We are unsure as to when the site was officially shuttered, but RIP ReeferMadness and Monty, Poseidon knows we still have some of your corals and even more of the crazy pics you used to share with us every week.
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This thing has 3 Comments
Jake,
I am now on a new team with the same goals, product and most importatly customer service as we once new at RMI. Ironically We have just purchased all the old Reefer Madness Coral, and Live Rock Systems. I am now working for Blue Zoo Aqautics.com. There is a great team here with good intentions, ethics, and morals that reminds me of the old RMI. We are currently in the process of setting back up all the awesome Coral Sytems for those crazy SPS and LPS items we all love. I am excited for the future here. I look forward to hearing from you and thank you from all of us old RMI lovers for the kind words from your Eulogy 
RIP Reefer Madness…….
It has been a long time my friend! Been some time since I was in Coloarado looking at all the cool rock formations, fossilized Dinosour foot prints and such.
Yes, Reefer Madness has officailly gone to the waste side:( I’m sure by now Monty has found his true love out in the South Pacific somehwere
RMI had some major issues once new ownership took over in late 07′. It was hard for me to leave in March of 08′, but I simply couldn’t be a part of the rapid sinking of customer service, product, website feel and look, and overall integrity of the company that new ownership was pounding away on me. It was hard to have your top clients call you and ask, “What’s happening with Reefer?” I was starting to have to defend something that I didn’t agree with in the first place, could you imagine? Our staff was in the same boat, they resigned the day I was let go. Since then It has been sickening, depressing and baseically impossible to look at the site, let alone be a part of it. The entire staff literally blead and sweated RMI day and night, and took serious pride in everything we did, to only have it taken away like that was hard to swallow.
After all these hardships this past year, there is hope
-Kris W.
Thats good to hear Kris. I hope Blue Zoo can actually have corals to offer now instaed of just having pictures of them. Good luck! Ill be checking the Zoo sight out frequently now.
Ahhh the memories!!!
Clicking refresh constantly while at work to see if the website was updated with those new and amazing SPS once I had saved a few hundred to make a big order. The selection at RM was absolutely the best and customer service was top-notch.
RM help me start my very first reef tank with the live rock + a % off the next purchase deal for new tanks. I still have all of the amazing tonga live rock from that first order that included one of the single most amazing piece of tonga LR I have every seen. A true “center piece” in itself.
I miss the old days of RM, since then I had to move to DFS to receive similiar excitement when it comes to WYSIWYG updates to coral selection. In many ways they had taken what RM started and continued to refine it.
After finding this artcle to help explain what had happened to RM, I will now check out Blue Zoo Aqautics.com. Excellent post.
-Ken