Wishlist for Marine Aquarium 3 and Future

[Yellow Tang]

Originally posted by Tiny Turtle on 05-01-2001
When the fishes get different behavioral patterns, will the Regal Tang start swimming in that special way it does which looks like it's flying using the pectoral fins as wings?

Any chance to do this feature before finishing the freshwater, 3d background...? In my eyes that would be a big improvement to make it more real.

[Wild Bill]

A giant squid attacking as in Disney's version of Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Will require snapping parrot-like beak, of course.


WB



QUOTE]Originally posted by
I think the octipus will be great! [/quote]

[Jim Sachs]

Yellow Tang - Maybe.

Wild Bill - The scale of a giant squid might be just a tad off for this little aquarium.

[RBEmerson]

Originally posted by RBEmerson
Er, wading through this thread is a little intense (about 2+ years of notes, right?). How about perhaps re-starting it or at least summarizing the main points somewhere?

As to fish suggestions, being mainly a Caribbean diver, I'd like to see more Caribbean species, of course. Sargeant Majors would be neat as would blue chromis, and... well, all of Paul Humann's Caribbean books (gotta include the invertabrates and corals, of course) would nice, please.

A couple of details which, I suspect, are easier to ask for than to complete but... 1) a small amount of "whale snot" (general floating debris) in the water would help give a better illusion of depth of field; 2) even in a relatively shallow (i.e., "front to back", not "top to bottom") tank, fish further from the viewer are ever so slightly faded compared to closer fish, adding this effect would also help with the illusion of depth.

Someone touched on the bubble sound being repetitive. IMHO it's pretty good at avoiding repetition unless you listen closely but... perhaps mixing multiple bubble tracks so the "seams", where they repeat, don't always match up predictably would help here. The brain is pretty good at picking out patterns (even where they don't really exist); enhanced randomness in the sound track is the goal here.

Finally, beware of the truck-sized Swiss Army knife! I worked with a group that developed an astronomical image enhancement program (Registax - uses wavlet processing - ask me about it off-list, pls) and the greatest challenge was avoiding adding so many features [...] the program would only run on the biggest and fastest of PC's [(hence the term "truck-sized Swiss Army knife")].

Looking through this thread, or at least the back end of it, I thought I'd advance the idea of Caribbean fish and then decided to search on "Caribbean". My note from May '03 popped up and, b'gosh, it's pretty much what I was going to write this time soooooo... I recycled it (with one minor editorial change).

[Jim Sachs]

There were some good ideas in that post the first time around, and they're still good. Carribean fish are already represented to some extent in the Aquarium (The French Angel, Queen Angel, and Rock Beauty), but I do plan to add more.

Whale snot - no. If the water in this 12-inch-front-to-back tank is cloudy, then the filter is broken.

Bubble sound - yes, I do plan to improve it on the next pass.

[RBEmerson]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs
There were some good ideas in that post the first time around, and they're still good. Carribean fish are already represented to some extent in the Aquarium (The French Angel, Queen Angel, and Rock Beauty), but I do plan to add more.

Whale snot - no. If the water in this 12-inch-front-to-back tank is cloudy, then the filter is broken.

Bubble sound - yes, I do plan to improve it on the next pass.

It may help to think that I approach MA from a diver's standpoint of "if I can't be diving, at least I can see some of the same thing" instead of, in a sense, adding another tank to the collection. Since my diving is Caribbean or southern Atlantic coast, my interest is in species I'd see there.

I understand that having a lot of particles circulating in a tank is, per se, a bad thing but as a depth of field cue, it might be a useful gimmick to help make the virtual tank seem to extend back from the plane of the display. Referring tothe particles as a little bit of uneaten food, in place of "whale snot", might help sell the notion.

Finally, while diving, one of the more enjoyable sights is watching really small juveniles darting around. They sometimes take a sharp eye to spot but there's something appealing about these miniature fish. I'd like to see them in MA, too.

[vm27]

Yes, definitely the invertebrates will be great boost to the program.

[starfish10]

Hi,

Can't we PLEASE have seahorses? Reef seahorses come in bright red and bright yellow if you're wanting color, although I'm partial to the graygreen ones, too. I think it would be a super coup to have the first marine aquarium screensaver with a pregnant daddy sea horse, and then watch him giving birth.

And...in keeping with the serene idea, none of the other fish would eat the babies, right?

Pipefish are nice, too. The male gives birth the same as a daddy sea horse does.

And how about Boston Baked Beans?---the little exoskeleton cow fish and trunk fish that in juvenile form are nearly round.

And how about a spiny boxfish? They were the clowns of my aquariums.

And maybe a baby barracuda? Why not? I had one that was two inches long when we caught him. And he grew to six inches before his demise. It would be easy to program the movement for a little 'cuda, because they hang in the water at an angle and don't move much at all until it's time to feed.

And...something nobody has mentioned, I think. Some sargassum weed, complete with sargassum fish...they are anglers and have a little dangling "bait" hanging from their upper lip. Sargassum weed also has wonderful yellow and brown Spanish mantles, and little spotted yellow and brown crabs.

[starfish10]

Here are a couple of seahorse pics:

[starfish10]

Hi,

A few nudibranch pictures. There movement is so spectacular, that a tank full of them wouldn't need fishes.

[DeepSeaFan]

I hope there can be a polyp-form jellyfish. Ppl usually see the medusa form of jellies, and while there are some that only have that life form, most have two, polyp and medusa. I was hoping that sometime an adult polyp-form jelly will apppear. Sorry i don't have a pic, having trouble loading one, but Google should get something.

[DeepSeaFan]

Here is link to a pic I tried to load. I don't know if its the right kind of jelly, but this to give you the basic idea: http://www.aquamarine.unsw.edu.au/tS...ia_polyp1.html

[Marian Nichols]

That looks like an invasion of the body snatchers.

[johnblommers]

This is all great stuff. We need to see some cool new stuff coming from Mister Jim Sachs. I've got some cash burning a hole in my pocket - left over from Christmas. I'd just as soon spend it on a nice aquarium screen saver - FOR MACINTOSH, or you won't see a dime ;-)

[Jim Sachs]

Still waiting for suggestions regarding aquarium stores to visit. Have camera - willing to fly.

So far, the only person to come up with a potenial source for material is Jim O'Conner. I'm trying to put together a trip to Dallas at the end of the month.

I'll be going to Chicago next week, so if anyone knows of stores with a great selection of invertebrates in that area, please chime in. (Taking my daughter to visit the University of Chicago, where she will start in Sept.)

[drfish]

Will you be going to Shedd?

[Jim Sachs]

Yes, but I have generally been very disappointed with public aquariums. The crowds, the dirty glass, the age of the displays, the algae. It would be a miracle if there's anything I can use.

[drfish]

I'm not sure about stuff you can use, but I'm continually impressed by Shedd compared to other public aquariums... Just two weekends ago I was at the New Orleans aquarium and it wasn't half as nice as Shedd... Granted it's now been a few years since the last time I was there...

Take a picture of the alligator snapping turtle will ya? I want to see if he's moved yet...

[DeepSeaFan]

Here's another jellyfish polyp picture:

[feldon34]

The middle one looks disturbingly like a human rhinovirus.