&*^@ing starfish

[MadBob]

I have had the Aquarium from the early days well before it was ever released out of beta, and for the last couple of years (since the starfish was added) I have been waiting for the little bugger to climb on the glass.

Yes the "let starfish on glass" is checked, can anyone explain why it has never climbed the glass

I have used it every day for years, it must be on strike or I'm not feeding it correctly, I bought Nemo DVD the other day and all I could think about was why does the dentists starfish climb up the glass and mine doesn't?

[drfish]

Do you or don't you have automatic lights turned on?

[bugsymcd24]

Well.... I have never seen the starfish completely on the glass as i have seen in some screen shots, but have seen on or two of it's star points on the glass, and I tend to run the aquariun with a very dark background during the day and at night I turn the fore ground way down.... but I have yet to see the entire starfish on the glass yet either...

interesting....

[Jav400]

You must have auto lights turned on, and some patience.

[bugsymcd24]

oh...I thought Jim posted in an earlier thread that the tank ad to be dark...maybe I mis read ....

[MadBob]

NOOOO I never use Auto lights, what a bizarre idea? is this some sneaky starfish plot to escape? they only climb in the dark!

next they will be playing the "great escape" tune and riding dodgy old motorbikes over the tank wall.

[Jav400]

Well you can set the lights dark manually and just leave it, or you can use auto and at least its light part of the time until it happens.

[MadBob]

I just don't believe it! I turned the lights off for two minutes and the sneaky little $%£& tried to seak out, first time I have ever seen it on the glass.



this won't last long on my limited bandwidth free hosting site, but someone may get to see it.

made it smaller to give it more time.

[cjmaddy]

Or you could just cheat, and change 'StarfishOnGlass' to '01', in the Registry!

[MadBob]

are you sure that doesn't just do what the checkbox does?

OK I see there is two Starfish Glass Keys, altered the one you said to 01, why I never knew about this before I don't know!

[cjmaddy]

Sure! - That's 'StarfishAllowedGlass'

Edit. - I don't recommend messing with 'StarFishPos' though!

[MadBob]

Ooooh I hadn't seen that one, thanks

[cjmaddy]

If you get hold of a copy of Mountainmasters Fish Picker 2, it will place your Starfish in any of a number of different places on the glass.
I have found that the last version I have (Fish Picker 4.1.2 - for Marine Aquarium 2.0), will still position the Starfish in MA2 MD, but I have not attempted to use the other settings/features.

Those not familiar with Mountainmasters fantastic little program can find details here:-

https://www.feldoncentral.com/forums...r&pagenumber=4

I haven't checked if 4.1.2 is still available, - and I don't know if he is working on anything at the moment!

............. are you? Ron, (Mountainmaster)

[Michael Babin]

The starfish only transitions to or from the glass when the lights are all down. The reason for this condition is that there is no smooth, realistic-looking transition which takes place (the starfish does an instantaneous move). If you could see it take place, it would ruin the illusion of realism which Jim Sachs has worked so hard to create and maintain. Perhaps someday a realistic-looking transition will be added so that this limitation can be removed (but it's not on anyone's current work list, AFAIK).

Well, after having MA for over a year, I finally have caught the starfish on the glass, thanks to your explanations. I didn't realize that the lights had to be all the way off for the transition to take place. Personally, I don't like the automatic lights, but I do like a less well-lit tank, and figured that would be enough. It wasn't, but now I have seen (not the light, but a star anyway).

[James]

They should implement a pop-up dialog when user check the "allow starfish on glass" checkbox saying : [The automatic lighting should be enabled or the foreground light should be turn to dark to make the transition take place], or something similar like this, so the user wouldn't miss the great view of starfish on glass.

Or maybe add that information to that much needed "Read Me" file.

[cjmaddy]

[patscarr]

MadBob and klyntun, now that you have the starfish on the glass, maybe you'd like to see him float back down to the bottom. Just hit the space bar, uncheck "allow starfish on glass," click "ok," and watch what happens.

[cjmaddy]

Ouch! *!#~