BRStv LIVE Reefing Q&A with Tunze 8/13/26 2PM CST

Roger has been keeping aquariums since childhood. His father kept a 30-gallon aquarium of unusual freshwater fish, including Elephant Nose, Butterfly Fish, and Tire Track Eel. At the age of 8, he started his own 10-gallon community tank.

After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, he founded AquaTek Tropical Fish. Tunze was one of the first product lines he imported. After early local success and a small online business selling the older PowerMagnet cleaner magnets, he was asked to take up distribution for the USA. His mechanical expertise and ability to provide local repairs were especially valuable given the distance from the U.S. to Tunze’s factory.

Roger jumped at the opportunity, as it meant normal work hours and a five-day week compared with the long days and weekends of running a local fish store.

Now, 25 years later, he has worked with all three generations of the Tunze family and has an in-depth understanding of 66 years of product evolution. He continues to keep aquariums and remains deeply involved in the hobby.

His current aquarium is a 265-gallon soft coral reef with a colony of four Heteractis magnifica anemones as the centerpiece. The anemones have divided 11 times over the nine years since he purchased the original anemone.

His other interests include native Texas plants, exploring the Edwards Plateau and South Texas terrain while hiking, fishing, hunting, and spending time with his wife and two kids.