Behind Glass: Aquarium Simulator
A Crabby Update
We've addressed feedback regarding the fish limit, which exists primarily for performance reasons on slower devices. You can now double the maximum number of creatures via the settings menu. Please proceed with caution, as this will increase the computational load on your device.
As always, we've fixed several minor bugs based on your reports.
New Fish Arrivals
To put it simply: Our focus has been on fish diversity, and we're delighted to introduce 81 new fish species. Enjoy!
For a list of all 193 species, please see the pinned post in Discussions.
New species:
African banded barb
Arabian butterflyfish
Assasi triggerfish
Bicolor blenny
Bicolor dottyback
Blackbar soldierfish
Blackspot angelfish
Blackspotted wrasse
Blackstriped angelfish
Blood Parrot Cichlid
Bloodtail Tetra
Bluecheek butterflyfish
Cardinal Tetra
Carpenter’s wrasse
Checked swallowtail
Checkerboard barb
Clarion angelfish
Clown barb
Clown tang
Cocoa damselfish
Convict Cichlid
Denison barb
Dispar anthias
Flameback Angelfish
Foxface
Gem tang
Giraffe Cichlid
Glowlight Tetra
Golden Mbuna
Golden Pencilfish
Goldspotted Spinefoot
Grants Peacock
Half-and-half chromis
Imaculate damsel
Japanese angelfish
Lined Barb
Magnificent rabbitfish
Margined coralfish
Marliers Julie
Melon Barb
Narc angelfish
Neon damsel
Neon goby
Onestripe anthias
Parallel striped mbuna
Pyramid butterflyfish
Queen triggerfish
Raccoon butterflyfish
Red phantom tetra
Redtail butterflyfish
Rhombo Barb
Rosy Tetra
Scarlet soldierfish
Silver Tip Tetra
Spanner barb
Springer’s damsel
Squareback anthias
Starcks damsel
Stoliczkae's Barb
Striped Lamprologus
Striped squirrelfish
Stripey
Sunset anthias
Swordtail
Tanganyika clown
Titan Triggerfish
Tropheus Bulu
Tropheus Moorii ikola
Two barred rabbitfish
Undulate triggerfish
Vanderbilt Chromis
White Cloud Minnow
White spotted cichlid
Whitetail dascyllus
Whitetip soldierfish
Wide-band anemonefish
Yellow clown goby
Yellow coris wrasse
Yellow Sunshine Peacock
Yellowtail damsel
Yellowtail Tang
Update notes 04/07/2023
- We are introducing the new plant engine, which brings a fresh look to planted aquariums in Behind Glass. Be prepared for a visual upgrade and some changes: all plants, including existing ones, have been given a makeover.
- We feature four new plant species: Tiger Lotus, Red Water Lily, Water Wisteria, and Hygrophila Pinnatifida.
- We've added new handles for smoother movement and rotation controls for your decoration. The existing rotation buttons are still around as well.
- Get ready to immerse yourself in dense underwater forests with our new shadow setting, "Extreme". This setting significantly improves the visuals but comes with a heavy performance impact. It is thus not enabled by default.
- We've made changes to the photo mode, ensuring that screenshots are now captured in the highest quality, regardless of your in-game settings.
- The aquarium select screen now serves as the main entry point in the game (as opposed to the aquarium view).
- You can now adjust your resolution settings on the fly without the need to restart Behind Glass.
- We've addressed several bugs, including fixes for malfunctioning checklists.
Fixes and additions
Additions:
- New scattered item: seashells
- New deco: new life rock and 2 new types of wood
- You can now view the interplay of different water properties and water-chemistry concepts: There is a second tab in the (individual) charting window
Fixes:
- Fixed unresponsiveness of tabs in Help window
- Reduced memory issue on first startup (when various thumbnails are computed). This should reduce / eliminate startup crashes!
- Further reduction of micro stutters -- please give us feedback whether we improved further!
- Fixed Depth of Field issue
- Fixed rounding issue when using specific gravity as salinity unit
- Fixed hanging on very wide screens
All-new interface
Get ready to meet new aquatic creatures: Guppy, Domino Damselfish, Six Line Wrasse, Coral Beauty Angelfish, and Maroon Clownfish.
We have added more decoration options (stones, root), meaning more possibilities for your aquascape.
See your fish in a whole new light with upgraded movement and behavior (e.g., schooling behaviour, fish getting trapped).
Most importantly, we bring you an all-new user interface. Here are some details:
- We unified and improved the whole UI after having made various changes and having added various features with recent updates
- Reordering tanks and your creature library is now done via drag and drop
- The simulation mode, now being a mature part of the game, got a fitting UI
- The simulation mode, for ease of use, now allows (exactly) one dosing pump, one CO2 diffuser, and one O2 diffuser; the heater and chiller have been merged
Other changes (among much more) triggered by user feedback:
- The default water change amount is 10%
- There is a setting to disable auto-hiding the HUD
Update notes 16 January 2023
General:
- We have added some new coral species
- Improved ambient occlusion (can be switched off in Setting menu)
Simulation:
- You now need to clean/replace your filter media, as well as clean your filter. This option can be disabled in the Settings menu (it is a game setting, not an overall setting)
- We added a purifying filter medium
- Charts now show the current reading directly, so no need to hover over the green/yellow/red bar or click the small question mark anymore
- The water changer now allows you to specify changes up to 100%. There is also a "Change Now" button to manually trigger a change according to your configuration
- Hovering over a water parameter's red bar or clicking the small question mark now also shows what can be done to fix this issue. You can also press the big, red (i) next to the property to get this help
- To avoid your (healthy) plants growing, growing, and growing, you can now trim them in the right HUD
- Corals now get stressed (similar to plants) if their requirements are not met; there is also a list of all corals (similar to fish and plants)
- Fish now eat algae, depending on their species
- Fixes to green/yellow ranges of some fish and plants
- The fish and plant overview (and the new coral overview) do not show individual and general parameters anymore. Parameters are now shown individually based on their impact on stress
We have completely removed the distinction between freshwater and saltwater in simulation mode (you can just choose the initial water when buying a tank). To change the water, simply do a 100% water change with your water of choice -- make sure to not do this with a filled tank though!
Having removed the water type means there is no distinction in the UI for both types, e.g., coralline algae are now always reported, and dosing pumps now let you choose any chemical you like.
We now always report salinity. Before the update, salinity was not shown and internally ignored in freshwater tanks. It could thus now be too high for your freshwater tanks (this should only happen if you applied heaps of salinity-impacting chemicals).
Please be aware that the chemistry simulation might now be slightly different than before the update. This means a previously balanced tank now might not be fully balanced anymore but need slight tweaking. Also, the need for cleaning/replacing your filters is the default now, so you need to disable in the Settings menu to have the same state as you had before the update.
Update notes 09/12/2022
Some notes to get you transitioned:
When executing Behind Glass, you will now get a launch screen, letting you choose between different save games, and letting you start a new game in two different sandbox modes:
Designer -- this is what you know until now, our aquascaping tool, letting you create your favorite tanks! Your previous game session is running in this mode.
Simulator -- this is the new simulation mode, involving water chemistry. Please note that the current state is just the beginning of this new mode, so expect improvements and additions over time! The simulation mode is currently intended for "aquarists knowing what they need to do" -- there is no tutorial and no extensive documentation as of now.
Some notes about the simulation mode:
There is no need to place deco/background/gravel coverings in simulation mode: algae will grow automatically once it finds the right conditions.
After you have placed a fish or a plant in your tank, you cannot alter their size anymore: fish and plants will grow automatically.
Most simulation-related information is shown in the new simulation window.
In the simulation window, you can add filters, dosing pumps, heaters, chillers, water changers, oxygen sources, and carbon dioxide sources to your tank, and configure these equipments individually.
In the simulation window (but also in the main HUD), you can jump a day or a week to the future at any time -- this is where the actual simulation takes place, altering your water parameters, as well as your tank and its contents.
In the simulation window, you can view various water parameters and their historical changes, either individually or in fixed/self-defined parameter groups.
We have currently integrated a variety of water parameters. We obviously cannot model all aspects of water chemistry, so please kindly tell us if you think some missing parameters are of utmost importance.
Parameters currently modeled are (depending on water type): PH, Carbonate Hardness, General Hardness, Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Surface Motion, Organic Waste, Effective Light, Nitrobacter Bacteria, Nitrosomonas Bacteria, Denitrifying Bacteria, Tannins, Salinity, Chlorine, Chloramine, Green Algae, Coralline Algae, Calcium, and Magnesium.
Concepts that are currently modeled, among others, are: nitrogen cycle with three kinds of bacteria, two types of algae, KH/CO2/PH relationship, black water due to tannins, lighting, coral calcification, fish and plant growth, impact of surface motion on aeration, and impact of various chemicals.
Fish and plants require species-depended water parameters to thrive. They will become stressed if their requirements are not met. You can see this stress in their appearance -- they might even swim on their back if fully stressed. But no worries: if the stress disappears, they will become healthy again.
As in real life, it might be impossible to keep different species happily together, as they have opposing ranges of, e.g., PH, they can cope with.
The already known fish and plants info window (clicking on fish/plants before placing them in a tank, or clicking on the (i) after having placed them) now additionally contains details on fish/plant requirements and their potential/current stress. There are also new fish/plant overview windows, featuring lists of all fish/plants, their requirements, and current condition.
What is your goal in simulation mode? Simulation mode is currently a sandbox (as is designer mode). So your goal is to create the tank of your dreams, that is well-balanced and keeps all its inhabitants happy.
What to do first? You need to get the nitrogen cycle running! This can be done by placing biological filters or decoration items being able to house bacteria, then put in lots of ammonia (or, in this simulation only, fish that will initially get stressed but eventually be fine again), and finally let the bacteria grow over some weeks. Afterwards, your water parameters should be fine again.
How can you help?
Let us know what you think about the new simulation mode! Did we miss something of utmost importance -- please let us know!
Are you a water chemistry expert or generally an aquarium expert, and are willing to help us improving? Please contact us!
We surely have some errors in, e.g., the requirements of certain fish species. If you spot some mistakes, please tell us, so we can fix them!
Other news:
You can now delete fish and deco with the delete/backspace key. The HUD opener in the lower right auto-hides after some time.
We have added 10 new species: Boeseman's rainbowfish, Firemouth cichlid, Fiveband barb, Humphead cichlid, Lagoon triggerfish, Old wife, Orange skunk clownfish, Silver dollar, Threadfin pearl perch, White-freckled surgeonfish.
New fish, deco and fixes
- There is 10 new species: Banded angelfish, Convict surgeonfish, Emperor angelfish, Midget sucker catfish, Ornate butterflyfish, Pictus catfish, Spotted bristletooth tang, Sterba's corydoras, Tete sea catfish, and Zebra pleco
- We also have some new decoration items and plants: bricks, clay pots, giant clam, Anubias Barteri
- As requested by some players, you can now mark your workshop aquariums to be copyable by subscribers (this request was actually from subscribers, so not sure if contributors will actually use this)
- Sucker catfish behavior has been improved -- they are now more active on your aquarium glass
- Thanks to various reports, we have fixed a large amount of issues when cross-breeding your favorite species
- We have improved the feeding behavior of your fish (it should be a more realistic experience now)
Update notes 19/05/2022
- You can now choose between day and night mode. Night mode currently disables your lightning. The future might bring further specifications here.
- In Photo mode, we have added the new feature of an underwater drone, allowing you to enjoy and gets shots of your tanks from new perspectives. We hope this feature will trigger lots of new screenshots!
- We now support moving your fish to another tank, so distributing your recolored creations among your tank becomes easily possible.
- Smaller fish can now act as food to large species. You need to actively enable this feature in the Settings menu though!
- We have added 10 new species: Lined Puller, Rosy Barb, Rainbow shark, Marbled Hatchetfish, Bleeding heart tetra, Chili Rasbora, Achilles tang, Mask Cichlid, Convict Julie, and Red Toothed Trigger.
- As usual, we have fixed bugs and done smaller improvements (including longer names for crossbreeds, relaxed restrictions for publishing tanks as workshop items, and improved fish movement (less swimming on their sides)).
Please don't be confused by the various new settings for chemistry units. They are not in use yet, but part of the new chemistry module we are working on. Somehow this module becomes more and more complex at the moment instead of getting finished...
Update notes 09/04/2022
So we have prepared another update for all our loyal players:
- You can now recolor your fish! Recoloring works by replacing up to six colors of your fish with other colors.
For each source color to be replaced, you can define a tolerance, stating what "distance" from the source color is allowed to be replaced.
If you know our previous mobile games, this new recoloring scheme is much more flexible than it was.
Please allow for some time to get used to the recoloring functionality though -- you will soon be able to create colorful fish of your liking!
And it gets even better, as you can obviously recolor your crossbreeds as well.
Please note that recoloring takes place on individual creatures, not species. - There are five new species: Clown Loach, Bluefin Noto, Jack Dempsey, Sunshine Fish, and Powderblue Surgeon. At least those players that suggested these species hopefully recognize that we really note down (nearly all) user input on huge lists (and work on these lists).
Additionally, there is another algae for deco/gravel covering. - You can now copy a fish in your tank -- copying was not really required until now, as you could simple drag a fish to your tank. Having the recoloring feature now, copying is useful to easily duplicate your colorful creations.
- We have added some COMPLETELY OPTIONAL checklists to the Help screen, covering the most important "in-game" concepts.
If you simply scape your tanks, these checklists should fulfil themselves. If you then take a look at the checklists, you might recognize that there is some in-game concept you have not explored yet.
We have mapped the checklists to Steam Achievements, so each checklist you fulfilled corresponds to an achievement.
Please forgive us that we have not put work into determining what parts of the checklist have already been fulfilled by you before this update. So each point in a list is INITIALLY UNCHECKED after this update, even if you have already scaped beautiful tanks! - As usual, smaller bugs have been fixed as well.
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