Wishlist for Marine Aquarium 3 and Future

[Digital Lungfish]

Here's a wild one for the wish list. Not likely to be one that is taken seriously, but I just thought I would drop it into the list for the fun of it.

Anyway, it's a shame that Jim doesn't have plans to make another aquarium, it would be pretty cool to see an aquarium based on a prehistoric underwater eco-system like that of the Devonian period or "Age of Fishes". I know that he obviously wouldn't have the needed references for this type of aquarium (fish movements, textures, etc.), but with his talents who knows what's possible?

I've always had an active interest in pretty much anything prehistoric, especially fish. In fact, I used to own a 3 ft. long African Lungfish (considered to be a true "Living Fossil") for many years until I got married and had to give him up.

Here's an idea though, there actually is a fish that I could add to Morgan's Wishlist that happens to be a "Living Fossil" and a salt water fish, it's called the Coelacanth. It was thought to have died off around 65 million years ago, that is until a live specimen was caught on December 23rd, 1938 near the mouth of the Chalumna River. Since then several other live specimens have been caught in deep water locations near and around Africa. If you've ever seen a picture of a live Coelacanth, it's truly an amazing fish, 100% completely unchanged since prehistoric times (65 million year old fossils were compared to living specimens, identical in every way). Really wild stuff to say the least...

- DL

P.S.
What do you say Morgan, should we ad it to the list?

[feldon34]

Yeah, but is the Coelacanth cute?

Beauty sells

And my lesson on the Coelacanth came from a Volkswagen describing the full-sized spare included in the Beetle (the mechanic describes it as a thought-to-be-extinct thing)

and from a low level question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire that the guy miffed up. (He should read the paper more).

[Jav400]

Jim or Morgan,
I don't know if you can do this or not, but it never hurts to ask. I was wondering if you could input a command into the program and make it run "Always on Top" like the option given in allot of Instant Message programs? Maybe as an additional check box option. As I sit here and work on other things, and have looked at your aquarium in a window in the past, I wanted to be able to do both. The way it is now it disappears in the background if you have to do anything else. While it works great as a screen saver, it would be nice to be able to use it both ways, and of course if you can accomplish this I promise not to blame you for all the wasted time I will spend watching fish instead of concentrating on work.

How about some cow fish? I will be really happy once the perculas are added next week.

Cheers,
-Shaan

[Jim Sachs]

So you want it always on top when in windowed mode? I can probably do that.

--- Jim Sachs

[Pyros9]

Digital Lungfish: After reading your post about the Coelacanth I did a little looking at Google. I found a great web site called Dino Fish www.dinofish.com/ that has a wealth of info about them. They are kind of pretty, but how big are they. Acording to the web site they only live very deep and in caves. If you go to the dinofish web site be sure to click on "DESCENT TO CAVE 4" about half way down in the middle. It has great information and actual pictures from a dive last November.

Pyros

[Digital Lungfish]

Pyros,

Actually, that's a site I frequent quite a bit. I would have included the link in my last post, but I didn't want to advertise other sites. Anyway, it's certainly a great source of information with regards to the Coelacanth and all the conservation efforts that are on going.

Morgan,

As for how the fish looks, it's a very striking blue and looks every bit the "Dino-fish" that it is. Depending on how you look at it, it can be considered very beautiful, but it can also look pretty dang vicious from a frontal view, after all it is a REAL prehistoric fish. As for size, they can grow quite huge (some bigger than a man), but the point is we wouldn't want to have an adult in the Sachs Aquarium anyway, just a juvenile like the Queen Angel already in there. Hey, if you're willing, I really would like to have it added to the list. Just let me know and I'll supply a good pic.

- DL

[Pyros9]

Digital Lung,

I kind of figured you might have already found the site considering it's content. I didn't really consider it advertising another site to pass on information about a prospective aquarium fish. Anyway, I found it very interesting also.

Is the juvenile Coelacanth as striking in color as the adult in the pictures?

Pyros

[Digital Lungfish]

To date I've only seen 1 juvenile and it was unborn unfortunately. The conservationists had tried to save a large dying female (pregnant), but since the Coelacanth has a very delicate physiology she didn't make it. Anyway, the image of the "pup" was after it was removed from the mother's belly. It was already dried up and dead when they took the picture so I'm not 100% sure if they have the same bright coloration at birth.

It shouldn't be a problem for me to find out, I can contact some people I know and I'll either be able to get an image or some information at the very least.

- DL

P.S.
Sorry about the advert comments, I guess I was worried that our forum might end up like others out there. To be honest though, I guess mentioning links to other "fish" related sites should be ok since it's a similar topic, what do you guys think?

[feldon34]

If you see a fish you'd like to add, please post a link or any information about it as you wish.

Also, we'd love to hear stories about people's Aquariums and see links to pictures of people's tanks and prized fish

Single-line links about Direct3D, fish, aquariums, scuba diving, Windows are all copacetic.

[Jav400]

Morgan, I will add 1 more fish to my requests, it is an Angel though and will fit in better with Jim's profiles without any special flow mechanics. This one is the Blue-Faced Angel. It is another semi-rare Angel that is fairly expensive. A photo can be found at etropicals.com/main/aquarium.htm Just use the drop down list under Angel, Blue Face.

[Digital Lungfish]

That one has been on the list for a while now. Just go to the Wishlist and take a look, it's at the very top.

- DL

My mistake! Sorry about that!

[feldon34]

DigitalLungfish,

That was my first reaction. However you have to follow the instructions he gave, which is to pull down the drop-down menu and pull down to 'Blue-Faced Angel'. This is almost identical to an adult Queen Angel. I don't know what the odds are of this fish appearing. Jim?

I wonder if Jim will post his list of planned fish, or if he's going to keep the suspense up

[Jim Sachs]

The main criteria for adding a fish is getting a good sideview shot with the light coming from the top (not flash).

I'm working on the clownfish right now, and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to get a suitable photo of a fish this common. The fish is always bent, or blurry, or the lighting is wrong, or it's half covered by a sea anemone.

--- Jim Sachs

If there are any fish we could help you find pictures of please let us know. I'm sure others would be happy ro help in your serch.

[feldon34]

I've asked Jim before what's involved in the fish photography. The fish must be lit from above, the picture must be an almost perfect side profile. The picture must be high-resolution and clear.

Jim says he has had problems with Aquariums and fish stores asking him to leave for trying to use a camera. So if you have some free time and don't mind taking pictures FOR YOURSELF and sending a copy to Jim of the best ones, go ahead. I wouldn't take a special effort to take the pictures because he may or may not be able to use them.

I hope that doesn't sound like too much of a downer but I don't want people sacrificing a lot of time and effort for something which may or may not be used.

If the fish isn't lit from above, it's possible, but still does not yield the best results, to light the fish manually. Ideally, the reflections from the scales near the top of the fish can only be achieved properly with proper lighting in the first place.

Good luck!

I want a "Defender of the Crown" Background pic :-)
Or at least a hidden function for it :-)

No really, my friend stumbled over this program as he searched around for a good "screensaver" for his upcoming beamer. And the Sachs Aquarium was mentioned on a board there. So he checked it out and then recognized the name and told me about it.

Since we both come from the Amiga, Jim's work is VERY known to us. How many times did we start "Defender" to show the graphical abilities of the Amiga? How many times did I play Ports of Call and watched at the lovely pics? How many times did we look at the "Sachs Castle" ... ah, sweet memories.

And now I have an Aquarium which is not only the best SS I ever had, but also bears the name of a man who "accompied" me a lot of times...

Thanks for all your work, Jim!

Ellegon

"Workbench is looking for fonts. Where are you fonts?"

[Jim Sachs]

Scenes from Defender of the Crown would not look very good as background pics, because they were only 320x200 and 32 colors. They may have looked good 15 years ago, but time has marched on.

--- Jim Sachs

First, sorry for my bad english.
O.K.
Woulnd´t it be great to see the fish in real size?
And wouldn´t it be great to have a tank that is bigger?
For example that you can see about 4-5 metres into the tank like in a zoo. Then, the fish could swim near or far away from screen. So there would be the chance to watch the fish far away diggin´ in the sand or swimming cross the screen (fish could be bigger than screen size) right in front of your eyes.In this case there could be the possibility to add fish like (small) sharks or murays (I don´t know how to write, sorry).

[feldon34]

The fish already go pretty deep into the tank, and if you want real size, get a big TV, like 50".

And I've put these on the wishlist:

-Fish digging in the sand
-Sharks
-Eels (Moray or otherwise)