GARF

[printerdown01]

So I placed an order with GARF for their Bag-o-Bugs. I remember people slamming them back in the day for their grunge being ugly... I didn't really care if my bugs were ugly... Then after I placed the order I looked up review from their Bag-o-Bugs... The reviews were terrible! People complained there was little to nothing in the bag and that most of the stuff was dead... I was nervous!

 

...Fast forward to today when the mail man arrived and delivered my box (two bags were included). They were FILLED with stuff. I was blown away.

 

Let's start with pods:

Tons of amphipods tiny, small, and large

Copepods galore -I could actually distinctly separate out 3 different types by naked eye (so I cannot imagine how many types there really were). Note that -by bio mass- the vast majority were T. Cali which I actually culture so I could have grabbed a few hounded from my own cultures... But if I were anyone else I would have been STOKED to have had them in my order. They will disappear in most reef aquariums -unless you have very very porous rock work. They don't really dye off but just get picked off by every living thing in your tank. But there were FAR more in my GARF order than you get when you order them from Reef Nutrition and pay $20 a bottle ($30 at my LFS). I was still impressed they sent so many.

 

Starfish:

1) Two astrea stars.

2) Two different types of mini-brittle stars. I stopped counting at 10. Some of them were super tiny -I have no idea how many of those I did not count. Last time I checked the only place I could find them on the web sold them 6 for $25... So I got way more than $40 worth of large ones!

 

Worms:

1) There were several species of bristle worms in the pack. Some were super lean and some were the thickest shortest worms I have ever seen. The thick short guys seemed to hate being on the sand and nearly seemed inept at crawling over it (the mostly just blew around on top of the sand looking hopeless). When placed in a rock crevice they sprang to life and hid. I have never seen them before (and I have been keeping reef aquariums for over 15 years).

2) Spaghetti worms. I was really hoping to snag some of these guys in the order! And I was not disappointed. I counted two (there were probably more). Both looked very fat and happy. One sprang to life as soon as the lights clicked off in the tank. These guys usually go for $3-4 a head online.

 

Everything was basically "packaged" in little chunks of Chaeto. The worms, brittlestars (which are seriously delicate shippers a couple did not make it), and amphipods seemed to love it. Chaeto breaks up in shipping and it took me a while to pull fragments out of the bag before I added it to my tank. Despite being a pain to pull fragments from the shipment I actually thought it was a great shipping method and helped a lot more arrive alive! Easy, creative, most people would welcome a little free Chaeto clipping, and helps ensure that more stays alive during shipping... Not bad.

 

I know these guys get slammed in reviews all the time, but I actually thought it was a really good deal and they are not lying about the diversity they ship out. For $18 plus shipping this thing was steal for anyone just setting up a tank -especially if you are starting with dry base rock.

 

[Eisernes]

I got a bag of bugs delivered today. My eyes aren't that sharp so I'm not sure what all was in there. I know there was about 20 bristle worms. I saw one very small dead mini brittle so I'm hoping there are some living ones in there somewhere. I dropped one ball in my display and one in my fuge. The bags smelled good and I didn't see any die off aside from that one star so hopefully I added some nice diversity.

[hey]

garf really needs a website update its painful to browse it... I am interested in some of their biodiversity stuff aswell as tyrees crypto stuff definitely on my to buy list.

[atrox]

Yeah the mid 90's website is in serious need of overhaul.

[Visualscapes]

Really glad to hear this. I will be buying some bugs for my new build and wasn't sure if GARF was even still in business. Their website is seriously not helping...