We say NO to Storm shrimp products from Vin Fish Taiwan

This article was written on 5th November 2022

If you are looking for information regarding the name of fancy tigers that we have been accused off, please have a read at this blog:

https://www.shrimpcorner.co.uk/info/our-fancy-tiger-shrimp-vs-vin.html

To everyone who have NOT used these STORM products before, or have recently started to use, please ignore this article because you are not yet in the position to understand most of the parts we’ve mentioned below. Furthermore, this article is directly address what WE have been through, this may not apply to everyone out there, as this is our bad experiences when dealing with Ching Tung Vin Tsay (nick name VIN) as one of his authorised agent to sell his STOM products.

Before we are going further, let's get these facts right:

We were only selling STORM & Blizzard products from Vin. And we were an authorised agent in the United Kingdom.
We have NEVER bought shrimp from Vin to sell in the UK - as we have witnessed what they are like in several Shrimp Exhibitions.
This article is about STORM liquid - it does NOT apply to the Blizzard shrimp food. Because Blizzard shrimp food was made from a wholesaler in Taiwan, where they also make for other brands as well.
In this article, all the photos & videos & chat records were taken in 2020 at the time of this incident happened. The right hand side of the chat records was our messages.
The lab report is an official report from the Biotech company who make these products for Vin. This is a legal requirements for most of BioTech company to provide this with 100% accuracy.

More important, if you have NOT been dealing with Vin in person before, then please stay neutral. Read our articles and please don't be a fan boy as one day this problem could be happening to you, without you knowing it. Once you've found out - it is too late and you would be on your own.

What has went wrong with STORM products ?

In the 2^nd quarter of 2019, we have started importing STORM products from Ching Tung Vin Tsay (Vin Fish) in Taiwan to provide to the UK’s shrimp hobby. Within the scope that this product brand would have been a boost to the current shrimp hobby in the UK, especially from a well-marketed shrimp breeder. However, things don’t go as black and white when it comes to money & problems arise!

The original few batches of stocks went well at the beginning, and with our recommendations, more and more UK shrimp keepers started to use Storm products in our shrimp community.

After we've joined couple of Shrimp Contests which Vin was also involved. Up to August 2020, after we received new batch of stocks from Vin, immediately we noticed that the main 2 products (Storm GH and Activator Double Concentrate) were substituted with different ingredients.

Here is what we have found out:

So, the new stock of Storm Double Concentration was completely clear and transparent. There was hardly any strain of bacterial inside at all. It is more like water bottle rather than being a microorganism bacterial type liquid. And being Double Concentration as well, comparing to the old stock. 100% cost cutting or corners have been cut here in order to make quick profits on these.

Notice: we opened the seal of the new stock's bottle to inspect inside the bottle for smell & texture differences, in addition to the visual check. Plus also this is what Vin advised to try - we tried in 2 of our tanks (please see the next screenshots part)

By placing the 2 bottles under direct lightning. The differences are day and night. Old Stock definitely contain more bacterials inside, and being only the Standard version of Activator. The New Stock is almost transparent and is a x2 version, which means it has to contain double the amount of bacterial.

Vin was saying the old bottle is cloudy and new one is always transparent. Which this has never been the case. All our previous stocks of Activator always been a cloudy version, with plenty of bacterial strains. Only the new stock starting to be clear & transparent - with very little amount of bacterial inside.

In this photo, you can see the different when putting against some text as background. The new stock is clear and you can read the letters behind it. At this point, we got in touch with Vin to question about this. We were told he was busy to explain and told us to go and speak to 2 of his other sellers instead. And this photo below is what they have provided us - with their current stocks

This is what they should be. Similar to what we have been receiving in the last few stock orders.

Why there has been such a major changes ? and we have noticed, only us out of the 3 agents in the European is having this problem. Is there any quality control with this Chung Ting Vin Tsay's business at all ? Or is it all because of the profits ? Taken our money and leaving us to deal with the problem ? Why not own up and admit there has been a problem with the batch ?

There are many questions to ask here and we will leave the answers for you to decide. This surely was a plotting scheme for whatever the reasons behind it We cannot rule out one of the reason is that Vin wanted to slow us down too.

At this point, we immediately know we have been dubbed & receiving sub-standard product, either unintentionally or deliberately doesn't matter. We were questioning Vin as he is the owner of this brand and the stocks came directly from him. This problem is clearly visible to naked eyes and yet being denied by Vin.

Bear in mind, we have NOT order any normal Activator for the last 3 orders as the Double Concentration seems to be more value for the money. On the video on the left, you can see despite how hard we have shaken the bottle, there is literally tiny amount of bacterial inside the new Double Activator.

As many sellers already aware, the dry goods market does NOT give the big profit margin. Therefore, instead of keeping the products as consistent as it is, Vin may have opted to cut down on the process, but still selling at the same price for bigger profit margins. Food for thought anyone ? See the end of this article for the lab report on these products and you can find out more.

Now, the most important aspect of shrimp keeping & breeding - GH liquid

As you are aware that GH remineralisation is the most important thing in shrimp keeping. This is the one giving your shrimp the opportunity to moult successfully, hence growing & breeding normally. And the GH plays the big part in keeping the shrimp & offspring alive. If the GH product you are using is messed up, your shrimp will stand no chance against their survival's rates.

Being an experienced shrimp breeder, with over 10 years of breeding and selling our own bred shrimp in the UK. We’ve noticed the differences day and night when we received recent stocks from Vin. We’ve used them in some of our breeding tanks. We know exactly what we are using. Therefore, we are not talking garbage here

We then looked at the stocks of STORM GH liquid that we have and found out the following :

1. In the old stock, the liquid is light yellow colour, only a yellow tint. No distinctive smell at all.

2. In the new stock, the liquid is proper dark yellow colour. The smell is very strong of chemicals – to the point where it smell fragrance like perfume. Testing this liquid once touch dry on our fingers, are covered in oily substance.

3. Shrimp in tanks using Storm GH has huge mass deaths (this is including our tanks and also our customers) - and this occurred daily. How do we know in our case ? We colour coded our tanks so we know exactly what we used in each tanks.

3 bottles of the 2L version of STORM GH Liquid, 3 different colours for this same product!

Surely either deliberately doing so and sending these stocks to us, or perhaps Vin has ZERO quality controls in his work's ethic. The new stock bottle is extremely darker in yellow colour, and with very strong fragrance smell, similar to the smell of cinnamon, but in a chemical way. The texture when we touch this liquid is that it is oily and sticky once dried.

If you have been following many Taiwan’s breeders Facebook pages, you will know the majority of them using the Japanese brand – this is a well know brand from a big company and their liquid is also in yellow colour. We have noticed that this Storm GH liquid is either imitating or trying to imitating this Japanese brand.

As a duty of care, we had to mention these problems to other breeders in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Romania (whom we have SOLD these products to) etc that it was giving us problem, so these breeders can use it with caution. Apart from these people, we have NEVER spoken to anyone that has not bought these from us.

What we did was the right thing for a decent retailer; to do what they have to do when problem like this arise. As you wouldn’t want your customers to be facing a huge problem and loosing many expensive shrimp.

We’ve thought this good gesture would be appreciated by a certain person, however, this person reported it back to Vin at Aqua Expo Dortmund 2022 – this is when all the shrimp dramas have started by Vin.

Below are the feedbacks and reports from well-known & big breeders in Europe about this STORM GH liquid. Each screenshot was from one person, the left column was their chat and the right column was ours. Please note: we have covered all the names and we can 100% guarantee that we NEVER did and NEVER will give Vin anyone's details, so you all are safe with us. Also please notice the date & time on these chats. This happened over 2 years ago.

On the other hand, by refusing to give Vin these screenshots so he cannot attack the people being mentioned - was one of the reason why Vin started kicking a fuss with us and posting so many foul languages posts on his social media recently (October 2022).

Which supports do we get from Vin as a brand owner, manufacture, and main supplier ?

Quite shocking really, here is our chat with Vin regarding this problem. Pay attention to the parts where red arrows pointing.

Apparently from what we can understand from Vin, is that something has been removed from the Activator's and label has not been changed.

If you have met Vin in person, you already know Vin can speak & understand English fluently. Therefore it is not hard for him to explain about this problem to us. The answers we received from him seems like a way to cover up some shady activities. Remove what from stickers ? Already remarked what ?

The more we questioned him on these Activators, he then started to say the colour is blue, etc. And then we got fobbed off by saying he is busy, and told us to go and speak to the other 2 agents in Netherland & Poland about this. Seriously, what the hornet is going on here? Avoiding to answer and sending us away ?

This is the chat between of one of our customers. He has been breeding shrimp before. Only when he started to use these Activator, his tank started to have problems. We are certainly aware that many other shrimp keepers out there have been having similar problem also, but without knowing the cause. So if this article seems valid to you, please change whatever product you are using right away before disaster can happen in your shrimp tanks.

We've told Vin about this customer's issue. And we opened the new stock of Activator bottle to test, and we also had death shrimp on the exact 2 tanks that we tried the Activator on. This is not a coincidence! We are not an amateur shrimp breeder. Reported these results back to Vin and see what he replied - "why I don't have this question !!!". Simply because they put trust in his products and never did think that is the cause of the problem.

This is absolute poor from Chung Ting Vin Tsay, the only support we received was “just different colour, light etc”. Products have been messed up during manufacturing process and yet not even a single apology, nor a solution to rectify it. Photos & updates were clearly shown to Vin on these occasions, but we got nowhere. We were on our own in this. We even got told to go and speak to the other 2 of his agents instead. God knows why we had to do so.

There is no way we nor anyone can put trust in a business where having ZERO quality controls and ZERO support. Money was taken in full for each orders. Perhaps this business practice only work where Vin is residing.

Is there any other reason why only us receiving the sub-standard ?

Worth mentioning and having a thought, we have noticed all Vin’s other agents were having good quality stocks of these Storm liquid, so why was it only us that have been receiving sub-standard products here ? It has came to our minds that this only happened since Vin realised that we can breed shrimp, we can and we actually breed nice shrimp!

A good shrimp breeder in Scotland, has suggested that Vin could have been deliberately providing us with sub-standard GH liquid, as he knew we’ve always used, tried and tested all the products what we sell. By doing this, it can kill off/ slow down our breeding process. GH liquid or remineraliser is a very important element in shrimp breeding. If this messed up, our shrimp is in trouble.

At the time we wrote this article (today date), and from the way how Vin’s behave and dramas happened recently (October 2022), should we think about this person’s point of view about Vin ? It does now seems pretty much valid. We didn’t believe it back then.

What did we do about this problem ?

For the best of everyone whom putting trust in us, we decided to stop selling any more products from Vin.

And by taking our responsibility, we did not make a scene about these problems (from August 2020 until now)– and rather than fobbing these off to our customers, we did the following:

· Marked all our stocks as out of stock immediately. You can clearly see this on our website at the end of 2020.

· Discarded all these sub-standard products in black waste (non-recycle) bin.

· Notified several breeders in our shrimpy chat (existing customers) about this problem. You can see their feedbacks above.

In order to keep our mutual relationship with Vin in the shrimp hobby, we have always pretended asking for more stocks and asking when Taiwan opening the border again, etc.. However when the border was reopened after Covid 19's restrictions ended. We did not bother asking for any stocks at all nor even messaged Vin. Recently we did not reply to his post about new agent agreements are required.

Experienced shrimp breeder will know what is good and what is bad GH product, and some of them didn’t even bother using STORM. We have also kept this quiet for over 2 years now. We took actions and made that as our own losses rather than making a big scene. However, Vin has never accepted his liability and told us to deal with the problem ourselves (in his recent posts on Facebook)

Why all these dramas all of a sudden ?

In October 2022, Vin attended & participated in Dortmund Shrimp Contest at Aqua Expo 2022 - with mostly all the caridina species categories. We are looking at over 10 categories, with many entries here but he only took home 1 x Gold and 3 x Bronze. Is he putting a blame on us for his losses because we have told EU breeders that the STORM GH liquid is bad?

His Lightning & Thunder fancy tiger did NOT even managed to win 2nd or 3rd place - and boom, 2 weeks later, he was calling us a cheat, a scammer in public, on his own business profile and we cannot sell the shrimp under the name of Lightning & Thunder shrimp in the EU and calling us a cheater etc, (please see our 2nd article for this) with many foul languages posts on his social media.

As we did say there are always 2 sides to the story, so you can choose which side to believe. However the best answer is by facing the same problem like what we have been through, then you can understand our views. There are many breeders & keepers have got in touch with us and they've agreed with what we have written here. So be warned ! If you wanna be the fan boy for Vin then good luck to your shrimp.

Thank you for your time reading this article. We also apologise to anyone out there who has bought these products from us and facing similar problem, we have done our best to stop it from happening by throwing away all the bad stocks as soon as we noticed. However if there has been any slipped through from previous batch, we do apologise once again.