Tank tour

[Robb in Austin]

Anyone up for an ARC tank tour? Maybe as (part of) a meeting?

I imagine a weekend day would be best for everyone(looks like I'll need to schedule some time off).

Who's up for it?

[+mcallahan]

Anyone up for an ARC tank tour? Maybe as (part of) a meeting?

I imagine a weekend day would be best for everyone(looks like I'll need to schedule some time off).

Who's up for it?

Like go from house to house..?

[Robb in Austin]

Yeah! It's been done in the past(before I joined up.)

I think another go at Dudester(Mike)'s office tank would be nice too!

[+mcallahan]

You'd have to get past my yellow lab and pug. Ask Gabriel...they'll both lick you to death.

[Robb in Austin]

I aint scared!

[blindside]

Get past my pit bull

[blindside]

[beefytang]

Supposedly we had a new meeting organizer assigned back in October. But apathy runs deep in Austin and nothing ever came of it. Probably best not to even bother with meetings. It's too small of a town with nothing going on really. I think meetings like the one at Mike's office is about as good as it gets, due to ample parking space etc. No dogs to deal with or tiny tanks.

All the serious reefing seems to be going on up north or perhaps near the coast. The LFS are far more serious than they are here. In places like Arlington you have two LFS within a few miles of each other with massive 500 gallon tanks and corals etc you rarely find available here. In Dallas you have the World aquarium which puts anything Austin has to offer to utter shame. Not trying to be a downer or anything. That's just the way it is.

[cheetum]

Supposedly we had a new meeting organizer assigned back in October. But apathy runs deep in Austin and nothing ever came of it. Probably best not to even bother with meetings. It's too small of a town with nothing going on really. I think meetings like the one at Mike's office is about as good as it gets, due to ample parking space etc. No dogs to deal with or tiny tanks.

All the serious reefing seems to be going on up north or perhaps near the coast. The LFS are far more serious than they are here. In places like Arlington you have two LFS within a few miles of each other with massive 500 gallon tanks and corals etc you rarely find available here. In Dallas you have the World aquarium which puts anything Austin has to offer to utter shame. Not trying to be a downer or anything. That's just the way it is.

Well Beefy! I agree there are some nice stores in the Dallas area, but don't sell the Austin stores short I live in Temple and the stores in Austin are Pretty good compared to what we have here Years ago I lived in cal. and just like you I couldn't see the forest for the trees Until I moved back to Texas I didn't realize how good the stores where there,& you have some great store in Austin Its just that they are there with you so to you their nothing special !

[beefytang]

I love our LFS here in Austin. You make do with what you have. But I don't think they are as much on top of reefing trends as they are up north. I'm not much of a customer anyway with a puny 20 gallon tank. But my point, and not well-articulated earlier, is that Austin is a REALLY small market. And the saltwater fish/reef market is especially small here. We don't even have a city aquarium and we're the capital of Texas. It's kind of a bummer.

Getting together at people's houses for a meeting? I think it's a bad idea. All it takes is for one unfortunate incident and a cloud could hover around the "club". For example, someone steals something and next thing you know, everyone is suspect. Or someone gets mauled by a dog. Any number of things could go wrong. Plus, if you're going to have a meeting at someone's house, there better be a REALLY good tank involved or it'll be boring. I guess if people are willing to take a risk, it's their right. To each their own. If people want to fork off and do their own thing, more power to them. But I question whether doing such things under ARC would be a liability for Andrew. Personally, I like visiting people to view their tanks one on one. Most houses aren't all that great for big crowds. Even if you have a 100+ gallon tank, with 30-50 or more people it's impossible to view with any degree of comfort.

What might be ideal is a frag swap at a community center but I'm sure something like that has it's own unique hurdles.

[Hamp]

I understand the liability involved, but I think it would be really cool to see some tanks around town, and have a few people around to give some advice on mine. Seems like something could work. Not sure what, but something. ha

[beefytang]

That's where reef networking comes in handy. Make a friend and get a personal invite. Marc Levinson did a tour here and made an interesting article of it on his site.

http://melevsreef.com/pics/07/09/austin_tank_tour.html

[+ACampbell]

EcclesiastesTang, Everyone was invited to our last tank tour. It was great fun. I have been apart of a munch smaller club in a much smaller market that had successful monthly meetings. It just takes the right person to get things coordinated. Preferably someone that doesn't disappear months at at time.

[GKarshens]

We used to have meetings at people's houses about every other month. Problem is some of the best tanks in town either got torn down or their owners quit visiting this site. I hosted one back before I had to redo my tank. I don't think anyone was bored. I would be willing to do it again, but my tank is still very young so it may be boring this time around.

[beefytang]

Yeah tanks fresh out of a cycle or under 100 gallons seems a little underwhelming for a group tour. Maybe people like looking at bare live rock in small confines....OMG HEY LOOK A STOMATELLA! =)

The really interesting tanks seem to be large, well aged and encrusted. Didn't know Marc's tour included the club. I didn't see any group shots in his article or anything so it gave the appearance of one-on-one visits. What happened to Headless? Did he enroll in reeferholics anonymous?

[JamesL]

We used to have meetings at people's houses about every other month. Problem is some of the best tanks in town either got torn down or their owners quit visiting this site. I hosted one back before I had to redo my tank. I don't think anyone was bored. I would be willing to do it again, but my tank is still very young so it may be boring this time around.

Your tank was awesome when you had the meeting at your house. For the most part, people where broke apart into groups talking to each other... so I don't really think the size of a tank matters a ton (ok, I know I would not have wanted to have it at my house when I only had the 24g tank ).

Tours would be tough, especially since people on this board are scattered from as far north as Temple, and south past Buda/Kyle. My suggestion for a tank tour would be to break it apart into a specific region (say n. austin) to contain the driving for people. I have done pond tours in the past, and it gets tiring tracking through both north and south austin areas.

Just tossing in my thoughts....

[Beretta]

It think tank tours would be good, but maybe in the near future. It seems some great tanks have been taken down and/or are currently being redone. My 29 SPS tank is barely 6 months old, and I'm just starting to get some good growth. You'd basically be staring at a lot of bare rock and frags.

[beefytang]

Tours would be tough, especially since people on this board are scattered from as far north as Temple, and south past Buda/Kyle. My suggestion for a tank tour would be to break it apart into a specific region (say n. austin) to contain the driving for people. I have done pond tours in the past, and it gets tiring tracking through both north and south austin areas.

True. Two of the nicest tanks I've seen from ARC'ers aren't even in Austin. Mike Delgato in Salado and the Mannings in Leander. At the very least, if a tour never happens, maybe someone will start a full tank shot thread soon.

[thedude]

Beefy,

While I appreciate your opinions, I think you're being pretty darn harsh. We had more meetings last year then we have ever had in Austin before and while recently the site has been slow, it's only the 8th of January. Every meeting, whether the tank is 500 gallons or 30 gallons, is still fun with the right planning.

I for one am open to taking ya'll to some of our tanks for a tour. We'll have to plan plenty in advance as it takes the ENTIRE day (Marc's tour was from like 8am to 10pm). I still think monthly meetings are the way to do things because as you said, Austin is scattered. To go to one tank for a meeting for 2-3 hours isn't as big a deal to me as spending an entire Saturday looking at aquariums.

As Andrew said, it just takes a coordinator to setup the place, refreshments, and speaker.

John

[+mcallahan]

Why don't we rent a party bus and let it drive us around? No one will have to drive and we'd all be together the whole time.

[beefytang]

Beefy,

While I appreciate your opinions, I think you're being pretty darn harsh.

I like small tanks, myself. But you have to think of the experience a large group of people would have trying to cram around a little tank in a person's home. It's like inviting a bunch of people over to watch a movie at youtube on a little computer screen. That's the nicest way I think I can express how I perceive the idea. I hope it isn't too harsh. I don't want to hurt your feelings. =D

[Robb in Austin]

I like the party bus approach!

I agree that driving all over town all day would get tedious though. I can't imagine 30-50 people partaking, but you never know.

Maybe the FTS thread would be a good starting point. It would give us some ideas as to which tanks to look at.

[caferacermike]

Ok what you all fail to see is that beeftang is being sarcastic, he doesn't mean any of it. You can see that in his first post. Just pick it apart. He says that Austin is full of apathetic folks, we all know how willing the members here are to help each other. Nobody being lazy there. Then you'll see his light hearted touch to say that Austin is to small and has nothing going on. The first part of that can be picked apart by others saying that the Austin area is to big to drive around, so who is actually right? The second part of the sentence shows his own apathy (not that he is since he is just poking fun right?), since if Austin sucked so much he would have moved instead of just wallowing in his own pity party. He's a better person than to just stay in a town that sucks. If he stayed here and hated it that much, wouldn't that make him the biggest loser of this site? And is he serious that Arlington has only 2 LFS? In the Austin area there are more than a dozen (you just have to know where to find them), most are within a few miles of each other. Heck Aquatek and Kingfish are within about a mile of each other and capped off with 2 really nice reptile stores and a home brew shop. That 2 miles of Burnett are really nice. He is also goofing on the fact that there are not any 500g tanks to look at when he only has a 20g. Don't you see his humor? You can come and check out my 400g tank as part of the tour if you'd like BT.

So folks maybe you don't see his sarcasm is an attempt to use reverse psychology upon all of us. What he is trying to say is that if we had a member that would actually put together the meetings, sorry Jason, he would love to go around to see tanks. He is just scared to actually voice himself instead of cracking wise. I also think it's his attempt to draw attention to the fact that secretly he would like to be the meeting coordinator and have the first meeting at his home.

Personally I would be willing to be the meeting coordinator and/or allow any member into my home to see my many tanks. Sign me up.

[beefytang]

Austin isn't really big at all. Just TONS of traffic. And I wasn't kidding about the market up north being larger than Austin. There are more than 2 LSF in Arlington (I'm not even factoring in the entire metroplex). It's just that 2 were so exceptional I had to mention it. It's a numbers thing, I guess. There are more consumers, therefore more choice.

I think all the LFS should check out their competition in other cities to improve their local offerings. It's a good thing. But often, businesses become complacent or blinded with the love of their own brand that they don't notice others might be doing it better elsewhere. Or they're just in it for the money. Also, in my observations, the LFS here in town seem more focused towards freshwater, with the reef stuff as somewhat of an add-on. 100% understandable. Freshwater is so much easier to deal with. You know that reefing is a lot more complicated and involved. It takes a certain level of dedication (and crazy) to set up a reef tank. Special equipment that costs a fortune. Hard to keep some of this stuff on the shelf in a small town because of the cost. But no one should be defensive about north vs south. We benefit from competition, not complacency or inaccessibility.

At one LFS here in town I was asking about reef frags awhile back. The employee (perhaps an owner) scoffed at frags saying no one wanted them...only big colonies. To me that seemed really out of touch with the customer base. Not naming names because in spite of, I still love them and give them my money whenever possible. But sometimes I'm left wanting. I'm not alone either. Anytime anyone tries to set up a group buy, it's for these reasons.

But the stores I was referring to up north were both big on the frag scene. One in particular actually had frag tanks low enough that you could view them from above (aka a real frag tank). Haven't seen that in Austin yet, except at Deep Blue (RIP). Lots of Chalice, Acans, Zoas, etc I rarely see here. They were REALLY into it. Also, you don't have to make a reservation to go into these stores. They keep regular hours, open at least 6 days a week. PM me and I'll give you directions and you can go see for yourself. You'll be blown away. And in turn, send me the names/locations of all the reef stores you mentioned here in town, Austin proper. I love going to a LFS! I've been to AquaDome, Aquatek, Gallery of Pets, and RCA. So if you say there are 12 in Austin, then there are 8 I haven't been to.

Not interested in coordinating meetings at all. I do my part on ARC in other ways. And I give away a lot of free frags through ARC. Thankfully some reciprocate, others do not. Just playing devil's advocate on the meetings. Sometimes you can't get a ball rolling without making some noise. I mean come on. We don't have a meeting in eons and all of a sudden we're going to have a tour that one could argue consists of multiple meetings in a single day? When it rains it pours, eh?

FYI I've lived in Austin, left Austin, came back. Thinking about leaving again. It isn't what it used to be. There isn't a lot to do here sometimes. Costs a lot. Traffic stinks. Trying to remember why I moved back. But you certainly remind me why I left the first time. That good ol' Austin is king attitude. Ugh. ;-)

[cmanning]

Interesting thread got started here!! By the way, so much for analyzing "Beefytang's" post LOL. I can't help it but its way too funny, kind of late to be up at this time and I didn't have my java today No offense just had to point out the funny side.

-Cindy-