Summer has officially ended, and the weather is getting colder. But does that also happen under the sea? I am no aquatic expert, but I do know that during winter the oceanwater feels warmer even than in summer. However the deeper you dive into the waters of the world, the colder it gets. This Fishblast we will be looking into the cold water of Megaquarium. So gear up and dive right in!
Community build
Last month we did have an amazing challenge for you all that celebrated the 3 year anniversary of Megaquarium. However only one could win this challenge. In the end ClaghornTull took the victory with their complete aquarium.
ClaghornTull took the challenge in their hands and decided to create larger areas that displayed animals for each theme we gave them. The modded area was created in a way to represent a museum and that just blew us away! A very spacious and minimalistic concept that really shows off the animals in the build. Congratulations ClaghornTull!
Try and build this!
Often people are looking for challenges. Sometimes having no idea what to create. This short segment will give you some guides to unfold your very own creativity. Are you ready to give it a try?
Try and build this: A dive into the ocean themed aquarium
How to build this:
- Start with shallow tanks and slowly make them deeper the further your guests go into your aquarium.
- Use darker paints the deeper the guests go.
- Do research on what fish live in each layer of the ocean to make them fitting to the place your guests are at.
- Use a lot of corners to keep your guests surprised to see what is coming next.
- Large tanks often need seating area for guests to sit down and watch your fish go by.
Goodluck with building!
Mod Spotlight
By now we all know that the community can create insane things that really help your builds to another level. But some mod creators boost this even further. They create expansion packs that hold everything you would ever need in that theme. An example of this is...
Northern Plunge by Flishster
Adding over 30 new freshwater species, new scenery and even a campaign for you to play through!
[Click here to discover this awesome mod]
Fishypedia
Common Name: Wolf Eel or Wolffish
Scientific Name: Anarhichas lupus
Range: Atlantic Ocean
Habitat: Bottom of the ocean floor near rocks and caves
Size: up to 150cm (5ft)
Diet: Molluscs and crustaceans
Needs in Megaquarium:
- Cold waters
- Water quality at least 75%
- Crustacean Eater
- Feeding Skill: 1
- Likes Cave: 7
Fun facts:
- They sometimes get “itchy” skin and can be seen swimming upside down rubbing their backs on rocks to scratch the itch.
- Wolf eels are very friendly to divers, despite their dangerous looks.
- Wolf eels are not real eels, they are long skinny fish.
- Young are brick red with bright orange and purple highlights.
- Octopus and wolf eels often compete for den space.
How does it work?
In this segment we are looking into the life behind the scenes of machinery or tasks that happen in public aquariums. We might ponder the question: How do UV filters work? Or investigate the breeding progress of a certain species.
For this month’s “How does it work” we will be looking into how a Chiller works in tanks.
In tanks a chiller is used to keep the temperature of the water down to a specific level. In the hobby, chillers are also used to stabilize the temperatures of tropical tanks to prevent overheating and killing the corals active in that tank. But how do they work? They work in a similar way as a refrigerator. Water is pumped through the chiller. All heat is removed via a heat exchanger that pumps out the warm air through a vent in the back. The water is being pumped in via a hose and pumped out through another hose. In small tanks often they must be linked to an external filter, but in big public aquaria the filter is often included in the chilling machine.
Luckily, we do not have to link a chiller to a filter/pump first in Megaquarium. In real life you set a temperature to the machine that you wish to keep your tank at. The bigger your tank is, the larger your chiller has to be as well to keep the temperature down. In Megaquarium we would sometimes have to build a second chiller to keep our fish in a lovely, chilled tank.
Chillers are quite expensive as cooling something down is much harder than heating it up. But considering they help your expensive collections alive; it might just be worth the investment.
Just know that a heater and chiller do fight! They will both try to get their pre-set temperature through the tank and if it differs from the other they might just be turned on at all times and cost a lot of electricity or even defects that could harm your tanks. But even for those issues, there are machines to help control that.
Hope you learned something new on how chillers work. What would you like to learn about in public aquaria next time?
Want to be more involved in our community? Join our [Discord] and share your works, we love seeing what you created and maybe we will feature your work in the next FishBlast.
See you in the next one!
Your community liaison, Timmiegun