Do the bubbles seem a touch fake to you?
 

In no way do I mean to criticize but to me the bubbles do not seem as realistic as they could be.

The fish are so great, the bubbles seem to let the whole thing down a tad as they, to my humble perspective, look a tiny bit "cartoony".

Just my 3.5c (Australian) worth,
Paul.

I dunno......I kinda like the bubbles. Sure, it would be neat if they would react to their enviorment more (i.e., be disrupted when fish swin through...etc) but if I had to choose between having them or not - I'd choose to have 'em.

They'll probably improve some day.

Again, it's farther than anyone has ever come before, but there's still room to grow. :)

It's been talked about a few times. I think it was mentioned once that doing them ultra-real would make the whole thing eat more resources.

It would be totally cool. But the thing is that in my old saltwater tank I had power heads, and undergravel filter, and a canister with a filtered scooping end on it. None of them really made all that many bubbles. So for pure realism for that set up, turning them off may be the way to go

Personally I like to watch them racing up - real or not they are sort of calming when I am hyped up about something.

Some of the old style filters, had much smaller streams of bubbles that were in each corner. Those are probably the ones that people are thinking about. That was the way my old tank was set up. But, I also had an Eheim filter running.

Ive never owned an aquarium, although i do intend to, so i have no idea what the difference is between all the aformentioned filters. I just thought that all aqua'ms just needed bubbles to 'work'. I still have alot to learn before i build my aquarium (and not a boring goldfish one!)

Anyway, i do agree with chaoswarrior, the bubbles are a little bit fake....ive been scuba diving a few times and the biggest thing ive noticed is that not all bubbles are even round. Some are almost semi-circular, and follow absolutely no pattern. (i noticed the SS bubbles tend to bounce of invisible lines)

Still, i think its very cool how there are three lines of different bubbles, going at different speeds and not just a single stream. Of course, then it suffers a sort-of 'overlay' effect where they just looked stacked...not one stream of different size bubbles. (i think im going in circles)

As has been sugested before, it'd be truly cool if the fish would affect how the bubbles flow, like breaking them apart and stuff when they go through.

I dont think so, the screensaver takes up pretty little as it is (10% of my system), so that wont be a problem (my comp is in its 3rd year of life...harldy top of the line).

Perhaps for low-end users there can be a "Simple Bubbles" check box option or something.

Keeping a saltwater aquarium 5-8 years ago was a nightmare.

Since then, technology has caught up and it's much cheaper and easier to keep saltwater fish alive and happy.

That's why the discussion of filters, bubbles, etc. :)

I retired my salt water in like 1987 or 1988.

I just found out last night that a friend of mine can get me a line on a super cheap living rock straight from a guy that grows (or whatever they do) in his garage and sells it to stores.

Now, he didn't really know all the details, but seemed to think living rock makes saltwater a lot easier to keep.

Making the bubbles more realistic would be a very hard job and it would take a lot resources I think...

The bubbles were a last-minute addition, thrown in the day before I releasd the Aquarium. As I've always said, they will be replaced as soon as I get a spare minute.

I agree that the bubbles look fake and most modern marine aquariums don't have any bubbles (except when something goes wrong).

BTW, Socrates, live rock does make marine aquaruims easier to keep.

Jim,

I didn't know that you had any of those anymore. :) :)

I don't seem to. In fact, I'm currently in the middle of my annual Catastrophic Total Hardware/Software Meltdown.

LOL!

that reminds me, im going to go and post in the coffee house about a screensaver that resets ure computer when u leave its option menu.

p.s. You know his name in the films is Axel right? :)

Yer, ive know that since i first chose this handle. Theres a bit of a story behind it........if u wanna hear it i can explain.

I'd like to hear it! BTW, I've been to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef & it was amazing!!! I know this was mentioned in another topic (I can't remember which one), but I'm putting my reply here with this.:)
Anyway....Aloha,
Gerty