A New Kind of Reef Equipment Company
Austin Oceans is the exclusively licensed collaboration between Barr Aquatic Systems, considered by many to be one of the best aquarium equipment designers in the world, and the technical manufacturing team of John and Bill Lee, brothers with extensive experience in construction, manufacturing, technological systems and a passion for helping deliver the highest quality reef environment to captive marine systems.
Our Hands On Experience.
We've been maintaining marine and reef aquariums off and on since our first 29 gallon saltwater fish tank in 1976 to the custom 480 gallon reef tank we most recently set up. We could go on and on about this great avocation but we'll try and resist (Mom, we know you like to hear everything - click here for more details and some photos). In any case, after our tank crashed while we were on a business trip we started looking for better ways to maintain the reef environment, particularly with a high bioload. As we looked for high performance water quality gear, we discovered Brent Barr of Barr Aquatic Systems and the amazing product line he had developed.
Rocket Science.
Brent is an engineer by training, having developed very high performance ASICs/chips and networking equipment systems, and he brings a finely honed eye for high performance designs and the utmost in quality. He built his first skimmer in '91 and has been refining his designs ever since. We started working with Brent early in 2006 to license his designs and to make them more widely available so Brent could concentrate on the design side that he loves and we could focus on delivering those designs to all the customers that wanted one of his systems but couldn't get far enough up in the waiting list to get one.
We continue to collaborate with Brent on developing new products that bring a new level of performance and quality to the reef aquarium space. Don't expect to see me-too or ho-hum products from Austin Oceans. You'll hear about some of these new products as they get closer to production - we can't tell you now because we don't want to announce things that we can't deliver on. Although we are in different locations, we talk with Brent frequently, usually via email or Skype. The Internet has made this level of close collaboration much easier and we expect it to pay off in some fascinating new products.
Quality is our #1 Concern.
If you are thinking about a new protein skimmer, calcium reactor, kalk reactor, or any of the other products we have available in our online store, please take a look at our commitment to Quality. It will give you better insight in how we intend to develop and deliver products that will greatly enhance your reef environment. We firmly believe in the adage "If you can find a better product, buy it". We intend to make sure that if you are looking for that "better product" then you'll end up buying one that says Austin Oceans. And if you need a custom version of one of our products send us email. We make almost everything we sell in our own workshop so we can make custom changes at a pretty reasonable cost if that's what it will take to deliver what you need. We also can support some very interesting large and high end systems. If you don't see what you want on our web page but think we are close to what you are looking for, give John a call and he may just be able to make it happen.
We're still Austin Oceans even though we are now in California.
We moved our production facility to California to be closer to some key suppliers and partners. We think this will work out well, particularly for some new projects we have underway. But we aren't changing the name to California Oceans. We started in Austin so we plan to stay Austin Oceans, no matter where we are located.
John & Bill
P.S. People keep asking us "What ocean is in Austin, Texas?". The answer is, of course, there is no ocean in Austin. What we mean is that our mission is to help you re-create the high quality water that is typical on ocean reefs. If you are trying to duplicate that high quality aquatic environment for your slice of the coral reef then we can help bring the ocean to you and help you create your own Milwaukee Oceans, or Spokane Oceans, or wherever you are trying create your own reef environment where ever you live.
