Why I no longer Support BRS and Neptune Systems 

Correct re the video re Ryan - one of my subs flagged it to me and I watched it before they took it down. It only had a few thousand views from memory but plenty of people still saw it and it's weird to me that they've tried to pretend it didn't happen. Anyway, enjoyed listening to your perspective - good vid.

Venture capital is not customer friendly or oriented, they’re about short term profits for their investors. I have first hand experience with VC taking over (I’m in healthcare) and it’s not pretty. My fear is BRS’s core mission and original goals will be sacrificed for fast $ gains, and we as reefers (much like patients) will lose in the end. Hope I’m wrong on this one…

BRS is more about marketing and selling overpriced products for taking care of reef tanks. I don't use the Neptune systems no more as they are too expensive, and makes the system too complex. Their tutorial videos are great but I found that the best way to keep a reef tank is to be patient and keep things simple.

Brs is really going down the drain . Their inventory is not like what it used to be . Lot of products are discontinued and it’s hard to find replacement parts

I also heard that Ryan is leaving BRS for personal reasons, but I don't know if it's true or not. Only time will tell.

I now own that hydros 4 that Jason internally tested before selling it. After testing out the hydros system at BRS they broke the tank down and it was sold used to someone that worked there. He stored it then sold it to me and I then stored it for a year before setting it up on my current tank. I hate that BRS that is not far from me used to be a wealth of knowledge and was impartial because they didn’t own and of the brands they sold and now they only sell stuff they own. You can’t trust them to be impartial on their reviews anymore.😢

I got back into the hobby about 3 years ago. Brs was my number one channel for knowledge. But once the merger happened. They push selling stuff over the truth. I never watch anything of there’s now and I really never buy anything from them anymore. The merger in my eyes wrecked brs and what they are. Big company is doing what a big company will do.

Won a competition with BRS on RU-vid for about £600 of equipment a few years back, i was over the moon as i was going through extreme ill health and desperately needed a boost......only they then refused to ship it to England despite not stating it was US only i was devastated and haven't watched or read anything by them since as it just brings it all back

I am not sure I would thank Ryan for what he has done. He sold BRS and made sure Neptune and EcoTech were acquired as well. All of the people who worked for these companies and claimed this would be a positive thing for the hobby were paid to leave and it seems paid to not talk about it. Ryan will be speaking at RAP NY soon. I wish I could be in the room and question his thoughts on what has become of these companies.

They are focused on selling their own brands because they aren’t making money on their 3rd party brands . They also limit their market by not shipping abroad… crazy

BRS has done so much for the hobby from an education standpoint, I don’t mind just shopping elsewhere for competing products I wouldn’t go anything but Hydros anyway. I don’t like how bulky Neptune stuff is. All these companies do some good things and bad things and you just have to cherry pick what you like and discard the rest

I feel they are destroying three of the best brands in the industry and me personally wish they never merged .

I’m really disenchanted w BRS. It’s fine to push your own products but they’ve moved from selling the best items for the right reasons to selling their own things for selfish reasons.

eh, someone else some come and take their spot. brs isn't anything special.

Hopefully all the work and dreams Ryan put into starting/growing BRS into what it was, has financially paid off for him with VC coming in. He can move on and do something else, I'm sure.

Sad to see a once great company grown from a basement with a great following turn to a giant infomercial sales ad. I've commented on other forums about the constant weekly sales on map items. Those only happened once or twice a year. Covid shipping issues caused alot of inflated prices and now they are stuck with a bunch of overpriced stock that they can't get rid of! Recipe for bankruptcy

I started buying local again, and realize its actually the same price and in my case its delivered same or next day. Theres a small store called clear Choice Aquatics in NJ that does local delivery in my area.

I was thinking of switching over to Hydros, but I have Ecotech powerheads and lights and not sure how to use them with Hydros. Do you just plug them into the hydros power strips? It's been the last thing I need to find out before making the switch over.

Heard whispers Brs may be going under in the coming months 🤷🏼‍♂️

I agree brs used to be info and unbiased goods now it’s just like everything wrong with corporate America

My apex does the same thing disconnects from fusion like 4 times a day not as bad as you,but when I want to check and I can’t it’s annoying. New sub here 👋

I agree and feel there costumer service has gone to crap

The two comments I see a ton lately are pop up sales, which is the way of marketing across retail since Covid. Similar to Kohls, everything is always on sale. The second is selling other brands, its an interesting one cause you dont go to Chevy to buy a Ford. If it was my and I was buying a hydros, I would get it from the source, Coral Vue.

Preach, I'm sorry but I think Hydros has way better engineering, but I'm a tech nerd

If they didn’t respond to your last email that’s likely just someone forgot to message you back. I’ve had times where I typed a whole email and forgot to hit send. I wouldn’t discredit any company cause they forgot to respond to one message.

I think apex and all the sister companies are garbage. Little do people know people on the Internet don't have to legally disclose they're getting paid for a sponsorship or review. I personally will not be buying anything from brs anymore, dollar voting is key. I'm not the biggest fan of corporations screwing people over. Thanks for making this video public!

Didn't Ryan start BRS?

Weird, but a buddy of mine and myself just ordered a few products from BRS a few weeks back. He had a bit of a delay getting an answer for his question. Myself, i asked a question too (Private Question) and until today i got no answer. By the way, we are both living abroad, in Asia. So yeah customer service has gone down!

I remember Ryan’s last interview with Than from tidal gardens.. it was his the last appearance before his “announcement”. Something seemed off with him. No enthusiasm, talking drab and lazy. Something is clearly going on behind the scenes with brs.

I’ve had both and apex feels like a cheap toy vs the hydros. Give hydros a couple more years and I’m sure they will dominate the controller market

screw BRS,i'll shop at aquacave or saltwater aquarium!!

I ain’t seen Randy in a minute so I was always wondering where he’s at

So this is why my Marine Pure gems order got refunded a couple weeks ago? This sucks their videos were so informative

Neptune apex is outdated overpriced controller 😂

BRS has changed in a not so pleasant way.

You certainly should feel unhappy your Neptune issue was not resolved but much of the rest of this is just the same negative trolling and conspiracy being thrown around these days. I have sold Aquarium controllers for 20 years all the major brands and the reality is they all have issues from time to time as you will also find out with Hydros. I used to sell GHL I dropped it in the end probably for the same reason as BRS it is a low-margin product, arcane in operation and with way too many SKU's mostly of which you sell once every couple of years. As for laying off good people, Terrence was a great advocate for Neptune but he never was a team player unless it was Team Terrence. Ryan still seems to be making guest appearances at events talking to hobbyists and decompressing after what I tend to think is simply creator burnout loads of You Tubers suffer from it. I also like the idea that in the good old days, it was non-corporate just Ryan and Randy sitting about going shall we go packs some orders nah let's play with the tanks. It was always corporate you dont get to sell if you run a loss-making basket case of a company. Good journalism needs to investigate and be more than rehashing the work of trolls.

I posted this on reef2reef when Ai and Neptune were bought. Hahah

One question, you said at the state of the video they announced they were no longer carrying Hydros and GHL. Didn't it just happen quietly? Was there an actual announcement? I used to listen in on everything that was going on with these companies, but no longer do.

As you know I am a apex user and also work in tech. Purely from a technical point of viee the product is s vastly out dated model for software. The hardware imho is good. I am watching people leave this product daily. After the recent rash of bad updates littersly destroting units I find myself wishing I had gone a different direction.

Neptune is junk

What do you expect when they are the same company as Neptune Apex….