Can the fish multiply? If so I have failed them
They can! It takes a while for them to grow to adulthood though
Orb Farm
81–90 of 106 posts
Re: Orb Farm
#82[deleted]
Re: Orb Farm
#83The balancing seems a bit off. But oh man, this thing is so mesmerizing and addictive :) Daphnia are too aggressive eating algae and produce too many eggs when doing so, so the algae population gets constantly suppressed in most settings. Fish also barely eat daphnia so it is hard to control their population with them. It is also too hard for daphnia to eat grass. It slowly grows uncontrolled to fill a lot of the tan…
You have to tinker a bit. I haven't figured out the role that the bacteria play yet, but too low of oxygen means you need more algae/grass to generate more O2 during daylight hours. (And yes, it will crash at night when there's less photosynthesis) Don't put too many critters in there either. Mine is pretty stable for a few hours now with 3 fish, and ample grass and algae. Side question: Is it in my head, or are the…
Yeah, they grow.
Re: Orb Farm
#84What are the bacteria supposed to eat? Unless they are cyanobacteria?
They eat waste from algae, but they seems to devour it too quickly, and may even spur more algae growth. The balance and influences seems to be a bit of a mystery, despite the documentation.
If you create an isolated section where the top 1/3rd is algae and there's a tiny bit of bacteria at the bottom it's trivially self sustaining, until CO2 runs out. So these can be sort of "Oxygen generators" to power the rest of your system.
This seems to form the overall basis of the system since during the day the O2 rises and during the night the O2 falls. Further, at night the daphnea awaken to eat the algea, and the fish can eat the daphnea. In theory this should balance but in my experience daphnea are absolute monsters and need to be tightly controlled.
I create small stable environments and then a larger middle environment. The small stable environments regulate O2 and CO2 with algea and bacteria.
The middle environment is then some sand, grass, and fish. There's also algea, a very very small number of daphnea, and bacteria.
The middle is the chaotic one but if your 'regulators' are doing their jobs you can keep things stable. Make sure there's some shade so that your fish can hide from the sun (a thing?) and so far I think my system is ~indefinitely stable. I have 4 or 5 fish at a given time, although I have 7 at the moment but I suspect that's a peak value. edit: OK, I have 9 fish actually, so maybe I can sustain more than I had though. I may need a bit more O2 output for this many, but there's plenty of grass for them to eat.
Re: Orb Farm
#85cooool
Re: Orb Farm
#86The balancing seems a bit off. But oh man, this thing is so mesmerizing and addictive :) Daphnia are too aggressive eating algae and produce too many eggs when doing so, so the algae population gets constantly suppressed in most settings. Fish also barely eat daphnia so it is hard to control their population with them. It is also too hard for daphnia to eat grass. It slowly grows uncontrolled to fill a lot of the tan…
I figured out you can limit the living area of Daphnia using glass and sand, and then feed the fishes with only grass.
I tried this out and it works, but it felt like cheating. The algae production counts towards o2 balance, but that doesn't make sense if their water is sectioned off.
Re: Orb Farm
#87I got a little microchip. Maybe an easter egg? Put it in my farm although it doesn't seem to do anything.
I think on every reload it's a different item. It seems to be an ornament, like a castle or ship one might put in a fishbowl.
Re: Orb Farm
#88I got a placeable Earth globe after playing for a while. Anyone knows what it means?
I got a placeable fax machine...
Re: Orb Farm
#89The balancing seems a bit off. But oh man, this thing is so mesmerizing and addictive :) Daphnia are too aggressive eating algae and produce too many eggs when doing so, so the algae population gets constantly suppressed in most settings. Fish also barely eat daphnia so it is hard to control their population with them. It is also too hard for daphnia to eat grass. It slowly grows uncontrolled to fill a lot of the tan…
Adding a lot of algae always makes daphnia reproduce a lot and eventually they eat all the algae.
But I think I figured out the solution: many fish. With enough fish you can keep that initial wave of daphnia under control, so that they don't eat all the algae and crash the oxygen, so the fish don't die.
This seems to last, although it is still right on the edge of oxygen.
Re: Orb Farm
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to tinker a bit. I haven't figured out the role that the bacteria play yet, but too low of oxygen means you need more algae/grass to generate more O2 during daylight hours. (And yes, it will crash at night when there's less photosynthesis) Don't put too many critters in there either. Mine is pretty stable for a few hours now with 3 fish, and ample grass and algae. Side question: Is it in my head, or are the…
For bacteria: I believe their role is to provide nitrogen in the sand by eating algae poop. Nitrogen in the sand is required for plants in that sand to grow. You can test this a bit: 1. Create a new sphere and fill it with water. Add a bit of sand at the bottom 2. Add algae and fastforward. 3. The algae will multiply, causing the o2 to shoot up. 4. The algae will die off because of the high o2. Their dead bodies (pur…
Yes the sand seems to darken a bit under where bacteria were eating, that might be the nitrogen, although it doesn't seem to spread over the rest of the sand, not sure if the plants are getting it.
Also you need to keep adding bacteria because the keep dying off. They don't have the mobility to find all the dead algae, so they are gone pretty quickly.