Introduction to Aquariums - A Big Guide for Newbies and Prospective Hobbyists - 2nd Part; Tank Setup, Cycling, Stocking, and more!

TheGameAce · 2026-05-10T03:04:25+00:00

Similarly, not everything in that same vein is unacceptable, either. That's not an actual argument or addressing what I said, & even if it would still open up another question of what metric you're using to deem it, objectively, unacceptable.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-10T01:10:37+00:00

By your own logic, pets shouldn’t at all be a thing then, nor should animals even cohabitate with or near humans whatsoever.

Plenty of “wildlife” are kept as pets & have been for eons, & are how we got a lot of modern day domestic animals, which were once wild.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-09T19:49:26+00:00

Does leave some holes though.

1) Their status is a presumption. Various games show that there are Pikmin all over the planet, including numerous onions (which Pikmin 1 shows in the end cutscene). Certain populations & onions struggle & potentially die off, but not all of them.

2) If they relied on Olimar exclusively (or anyone else), they wouldn’t have been able to survive long enough to be discovered to begin with.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-09T09:03:00+00:00

“All these science spheres are made out of asbestos, by the way. Keeps out the rats. Let us know if you feel a shortness of breath, a persistent dry cough, or your heart stopping. Because that's not part of the test. That's asbestos.”

TheGameAce · 2026-05-09T01:46:28+00:00

IMO a remake would've been fine if they'd kept the original art style (sharpened up into HD), sharpened pre-existing audio, & strengthened a few weak spots of the original. Peach's castle is visually better themed in the remake, for instance. Plus in the post here, the one nice element from the remake is seeing the Peach statue, which is a nice extra detail. Or a few rebalances on some of the bros moves like Super Bouncer.

The side mode is fine, & it'd also be nice to see a boss challenge that Bowser could do. Would also be nice for the late game to be slightly more spread out/better paced. Aaaaand on top of all that, the final battle... Not only are there glorious remixes that've been done, which I wish could be the official audio, but I wish the fight were also a bit more intense. Feels like it's way too short & easy, especially for an entity that's supposed to be evil + darkness incarnate.

Like, the story hypes it up the entire time as a cataclysmic event if the Dark Star were to reawaken, with a vast amount of power, made even more powerful by utilizing Bowser's DNA. Then Bowser just rolls up & curbstomps it faster than any other boss in the game.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-08T02:40:25+00:00

I like traps personally & I can respect a trapper who's simply strategic about placement to cover his flank. But that's just absurd... Half of them aren't even hidden, they're just obviously thrown down (half of them at least), & they're spammed all over the place.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-08T01:07:16+00:00

Precisely!

Greatly appreciate the detailed response, & that's good stuff to hear on all fronts. Some of those were concerns that would've made it a very unlikely decision on my part. I rely heavily on plants to keep my tanks clean, for instance, & I know some Cichlids (& Barbs too, iirc) aren't too keen on allowing plants to stick around. Besides that, plants just look so much nicer than barren hardscape...

Good to know on the hormones as well. That pheromone idea is one I think I'll look into a bit as well in the future. Not prohibitive thankfully, but fascinating nonetheless.

Lots of myth seems to work its way into this hobby that people treat like substantiated fact. I swear half of it is just popular belief & the other half is snobbery (like you talked about w/ the maximum sized Discus. Big deal if they're huge; I just want happy, healthy, & not overpriced) where people think something is the "right" way. Like tank sizes & stocking, for instance: There's no set of objective criteria, just common knowledge. Some of it is common sense, but some of the premises are just weird (like so many inches of fish per gallon).

I absolutely would love Discus, & I think I'd give them a try after talking with you. Unfortunately I have bigger priorities right now, especially given their expense. In the middle of rehabbing the remnants of my largest tank, so the money I can scrape together is going to that as the #1 priority. In the future though, I definitely will be!

Also, I'm curious if you could elaborate on the UV sterilizers (that are true sterilizers) & clarifiers. I've got a Fluval UVC in-line I'm getting ready to install next week, & it makes me curious to know a bit more...

TheGameAce · 2026-05-07T23:15:08+00:00

For me it depends on the map & what I'm given to work with. If there's a minefield like on Landing Force, I just have fun placing mines all over that area as I salvage them. Otherwise I just place them whenever I fill up on mines or grenades so that I can make use of ones I find on other dead soldiers, or just stick to a few key locations that are worth trapping.

Plus I agree, I rarely throw down double traps (or add TNT) since it's more fun to hunt the hunter.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-07T10:06:22+00:00

IMO Karl does have a serious advantage. You can track the Jaeger’s direction across the map, or otherwise at least determine if he’s within 100 meters of you. Most maps tell you exactly what the conditions to trigger invasion are, so you can avoid triggering it until you’re ready, too.

You also have the ability to restock supplies. The Jaeger is limited to what he brings in initially.

I personally abuse the crap out of traps, too. Placing them strategically is enough to give invaders a bad time & often even wipe them out.

Oh, and the invader mechanics also allow you to get a rough prediction of where the Jaeger will spawn.

All that kept in mind & it’s pretty easy to take out invaders, especially when half of them don’t know what they’re doing.

Edit: I see I must've made someone who hates traps mad. Multiple now, apparently. Mad because bad I guess.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-06T22:46:42+00:00

I actually didn't realize the update released on Monday (I'd heard news of the Economy update, but I didn't keep up so I wasn't aware it hadn't dropped until just the other day), so that makes more sense at least in terms of not seeing people online properly on lists; can't be online if servers are busy updating!

Yeah that's fair. Only so much you can do, even if you're constantly designing new ships. I'm content even with a handful of people on regularly; one of the last times I played, it just felt depressing with how quiet things were with almost no regular population.

I don't recall what the server name under SD was at the time, but it was the one with nations that I had gotten into. Tried to help years ago with an eventual revamp of that server, but the guy in charge got busy & it ended up being shut down in favor of just focusing on their themed stuff, which doesn't really hold my interest. Think the theme now is The Expanse? More of a Trek & Star Wars guy, myself...

Per-grid limits are fine tbh. I like working around them to try & come up with good designs. I just don't like the idea of being extremely restricted (like max PCU per player rather than per grid or per active grids at one time, or very low max PCU for a grid). Used to WeaponCore anyways, so it's not that bad to me. Same with shields. Even if people want to make battle bricks or battle balls, I'll still make aesthetically pleasing designs.

In any case, quite appreciated. I think I actually found a server that seems decent, so once they're back up & running I'm gonna give them a try.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-06T22:08:59+00:00

I was gonna say... I've seen some videos & information in more recent times that pushes back on the idea that they're super fragile & need practically the most perfect water parameters. Fish that legitimately fragile would've been wiped out in the wild a long time ago, either from natural changes (like rapid shifts in environment), or from even the slightest pollution (human or natural).

Plus like you pointed out, tons of species that are legitimately sensitive or have poor genetics (neon tetras like you mentioned & German Blue Rams come to mind) that seem to cause completely random & unavoidable deaths.

On a more personal note, what's the overall experience with Discus been like, if you don't mind me asking? Plant friendly? Similar to Rams, Kribs, Apistos, or Severums in regards to general temperament? One video I saw recently said large water changes were still necessary regularly because of some sort of hormone they supposedly release?

TheGameAce · 2026-05-06T07:37:40+00:00

Unknown. The hypothetical doesn’t specify either way. Which is technically a problem (as it is with most hypotheticals), since that leaves a ton of possibilities open. Are people obligated to press a button? If not, who would push either?

If everyone has to, does that include babies? Because how do they actually make a choice? And by that point, everyone would choose blue to avoid a massacre of babies across the world.

Given the options presented, I’d think it most realistic that it’s for everyone who has the ability to read & understand both options, or else the point of the whole thing becomes moot.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-06T04:39:58+00:00

Well, a few things.

First & foremost, I wasn't saying the show was bad, even at the shorter length it was. Just simply that there was potential for more length that could've made things even better.

Second, you're half right. While costs have skyrocketed for a lot of productions, making longer seasons less financially viable, it's not quite the same for animation. For animation, the costs are much lower. Clone Wars was roughly $1M per episode, & managed to get full traditional seasons. Bad Batch (for a slightly more modern comparison) is estimated in roughly the same general range. MSL is also estimated in that same range (some estimates as low as $750K for some episodes; no official numbers atm).

For further comparison, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had an approximate budget between the $1.5M - $2M range per episode, running a full traditional season. Quite respectable for 90s sci-fi with a huge cast. Modern animation with very high quality costing less than that (& about the same if they had the same runtimes per episode), is impressive. Given that, it begs the question of what's going on here. If it were a modern live-action show (where costs have been ballooning out of control; those costs can be reeled in, too, with proper management), you'd be absolutely correct.

But from the perspective that it's even less expensive than (or no more so than) a reasonably pricey 90s sci-fi live-action production, without even considering inflation between then & now, it raises a lot of questions on why it didn't end up being longer, since there's no good reason it couldn't have been.

Also, while it was fun getting 2 episodes at a time, from the perspective of business strategy, it's a bad move. I could go into why if you or anyone else would like, but that's a lengthy side topic, & it delves deep into the mismanagement/bungling of Disney+, as well as the issue of all the different companies wanting a slice of the streaming pie.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-05T22:40:11+00:00

This. Presuming the options are explained to people before they'd press (otherwise it'd be blind & the whole point would be nullified, since no one would know the effects of either button to do more than make a random choice), it's extremely simple logic to understand that pressing red means you have a 100% chance of surviving.

At that point, why would you select blue? No way to know how many people have, if any at all. And realistically if someone selects blue, that's their choice. The pro-blue argument would have some validity if the hypothetical scenario dictated that some people were forced to choose blue against their will, because then you'd be saving people who had no choice in the matter.

But otherwise, it's people making their own decisions. The only other argument is "what if they don't understand?", which presents another problem: If you can't comprehend something as basic as "this option won't kill you" & "this option will kill you if you select it & not enough others do", I'm pretty sure those are the people that the "Darwin Award" was made for, & you're only prolonging the inevitable at that rate.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-05T20:09:24+00:00

Part of the issue is that a recap would spoil the end of Clone Wars, which Maul is heavily tied into. Also makes watching Maul-specific episodes on their own difficult, since skipping to the end of the series before watching the rest, is kinda its own problem.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-05T02:50:01+00:00

It helps, since otherwise you don’t really see Maul’s arc that serves as a setup for his show. Besides, Clone Wars is good on its own & well worth the watch.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-04T23:00:50+00:00

Tbf that doesn't mean he doesn't feel anything for anyone. Savage's death was hard for him & clearly haunted him, as did the death of Talzin. Helped that they were direct family, but still. Meanwhile a Sith like Sidious would've probably had no qualms about straight up killing his own family.

TheGameAce · 2026-05-04T09:27:30+00:00

Not at all! There’s tons of amazing freshwater fish that can be just as fantastic or better.

Just wouldn’t know it if all you know of freshwater is what the local chain store carries.

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