Richard G

I’ve got some bright green toadstools available if you’re interested. Located in central Austin. 
 

Best,

Richard

Good evening. Do you still have these clowns?

Best,

Richard

Hi Anthony.. I do have a few frags of these interesting green mico-goniopora. LMK if you are interested. 

Best,

Richard

Best,

I hope this is the beginning of a trend with more people coming back to ARC. It has been a little lonely here lately. I will DM you about a couple pieces. Thanks!

Yes. I have a few frags of these right now, some on frag plugs and some on small rocks.

Making some more room in my frag tank and clearing out some of my best growers. For sale or trade in Central Austin.

* Eagle eye Zoanthids -- $4 per polyp ($3 per polyp for 10 or more)

* Sumperman Rhodactis mushrooms -- $20 each 

* Green Ricordea -- $20 each large/$15 small

* Kenya Trees -- $10 each medium

* Pulsing Xenia -- $20 large / $15 medium

* Blue/green blastomussas -- $5 per head ($4 for 10 or more)

* Extra large green and tan hairy mushrooms -- $20 each

Happy to offer deals on multiples!

Best,

Richard

Green/tan hairy mushroom rocks (some large mushrooms are 6 inches+) in Central Austin

$25 per mushroom ($20 for 3 or more)

Best,

Richard

I believe these are Micro-Goniopora, but not 100% sure (in Central Austin)

$30 for large frag

$20 for small frag

Best,

Richard

Blue/Green Blastomussa in Central Austin

$5 per head ($4 for 10 or more)

Best,

Richard

Green Ricordea in Central Austin

Medium / Large ($15/$20)

($5 less for multiples)

Best,

Richard

Kenya Trees in Central Austin

Medium frag for $20 / Large frag for $30

Best,

Richard

Superman Rhodactis mushrooms in Central Austin

$30 (2 or more for $25 each)

Best,

Richard

Eagle Eye Zoanthids in Central Austin

$4 per polyp ($3 per polyp for 10 or more)

Best,

Richard

Pulsing Xenia frags available in central Austin:

Large - $25 (2 or more or $20 each)

Medium - $20 (2 or more for $15 each)

Thanks,

Richard

I’ve also got a green one that’s maybe about 7-8” if you’re interested.

Best,

Richard

14 hours ago, Nautilas said:

Hi, I would love one of these if they're still available. 

I’m all out for now but will let y’all know if/when my remaining one splits again.
 

What’s going on around town?  So much interest all the sudden, it seems like an anemone shortage!

Yes. I do have a couple still available. 

They are very open right now and range from 3-5+ inches. 

We grew out these beautiful toadstool leathers from frags and they were prominent in our display tank for the last couple of years. Now, however, we are rebooting the tank and want to start over with smaller specimens. Rather than frag these giant colonies, I'd like to send them intact to the right tanks.  

$150 for the green one and $100 for the golden brown one.

Best,

Richard

Bright pink RBTAs available to a good home for $60 each.  We've got them in a breeder tank and they keep splitting.

Thanks,

Richard

Lewis,

So sorry to hear about your saga. You’ve motivated me to share my story and what I learned and to hopefully kick off some discussions about what we can all do in the future to make our aquariums more resilient.

We went through something similar here with a power outage from Monday afternoon through Friday evening. We had solar (plan A) and two Powerwalls (plan B).  The first night, we ran through the Powerwalls in about 11 hours. We made the mistake of leaving one of our home heat pumps running on the battery back-up and at those low temperatures it just drew too much power. The next morning, I expected the solar panels to kick-in, but without the grid and with the Powerwalls drained, we were unable to turn-on the inverters and capture any solar energy. We turned to rechargeable aerators (plan C) and running an extension cord from our van with a pretty big inverter and some large batteries (plan D).

Over the first couple days, the temperature in our house dropped into the low 40s. We managed to keep heaters and pumps running on our 4 aquarium systems most of the time by running power from our van idling in the driveway. I slept on a sofa near the aquariums so I could hear that the return pumps were still running. Eventually, the batteries on the van started to drain and I had to drive the van to maintain enough charge. (This included a few harrowing drives around the neighborhood on ice Friday starting at 3am.) When we couldn’t run the return pumps, we used the rechargeable aerators. Starting on day 2, we covered the tanks with blankets, sleeping bags and various packing materials to provided some insulation, but the heaters were not nearly enough to maintain normal water temperatures. Three of our four tanks dropped into the mid-high 60s and the fourth (our frag tank) dropped into the low 60s.

By the time the power came back on, we were fortunate that all of our fish had survived. We did lose a lot of coral, however, including most of the corals in our frag tank. 

(There were a few humorous moments too, at least in retrospect, including trying to warm the house with candles and a tabletop rubbing-alcohol fueled fire pit, trying to get my van out of the driveway to replenish diesel fuel and my consultations with my neighbors, all of whom are apparently electrical engineers.)

A few lessons for me:

- I ordered a portable generator. While my van was “essentially” a generator, it was not built for that purpose and came with a lot of uncertainty and risk.

- I will be very careful not to run my Powerwalls down to zero next time. I know now that I need to leave a reserve to be able to turn on my solar panels.

- It would have been nice to have a few extra aquarium heaters lying around. No heaters are built for a house in the low 40s, but (assuming I could power them) doubling up might have helped.  It also would have helped to have a heater for my 50-gallon salt water reservoir so I could consider water changes. 

- I didn’t have any working old-fashioned manual aquarium thermometers. This made it hard to really monitor the temperatures in the tanks. The readings I got in the 60s were only after power was restored and the Apexes came online.  I’ve now ordered some for less than $2 each.   

- I think the improvised insulation around the tank helped. I want to look into building some pre-cut foam insulation boards so I could just tape them on the tanks and cabinets in a time of need. This would help keep heat out during a summer-outage too.

- I decided not to run my aquarium lights during this outage in order to preserve power.  If I could power them, however, it might have been better to run the aquarium lights during the outage. It would have probably added a little heat to the tanks and might have helped the chances of my corals.  (And I suspect might have been less stressful on the fish?)

This was a tragic week for many Texans, and a real rough one for most Texans in the aquarium hobby and trade. While we aquarists probably can’t fix ERCOT and the state energy policy, I welcome further discussions about how we can avoid this kind of disaster to our aquariums in the future.

Thanks,

Richard G

Good afternoon.  Are these still available?

Yes. We have both types still available. What are you interested in?

Best,

Richard

FOR SALE:

Two different varieties of RBTAs (I don't know the fancy names):

- intense pink (4 available)

- brownish pink (2 available)

$60 each.  Located in central Austin.

For sale:

2 Ecotech Radion XR30w Gen 2 lights

• manufactured in October 2013
• with power supplies
• both are working great, one has rust on the fan enclosure
• see photo below
• $200 for the pair, sold as is (happy for you to test them at purchase, of course)

Located near 2222 between Mopac and 360.

Thanks,

Richard