The blotched anthias Bowling bred after the broken air conditioner are listed for $700 on his company’s website. Fish bred by Su also sell for hundreds of dollars online.

Like the most of its genus, the blotched butterfly orchid is epiphytic, or an air plant: without roots, they absorb water from the air.

It took a broken air conditioner for Tom Bowling to figure out — after nearly eight months of failure — how to breed the coveted pink-yellow tropical fish known as blotched anthias. Bowling, an ...

It took a broken air conditioner for Tom Bowling to figure out — after nearly eight months of failure — how to breed the coveted pink-yellow tropical fish known as blotched anthias.