Immortal Fish, Phosphor Bubbles

Friday, December 4, 2009

These fish will never go hungry, never dig up the gravel and cloud the water, never poop and never die.  Because they’re 3D digital constructs, that’s why!

This is a sample of Dream Aquarium, a virtual aquarium screensaver – and apparently one of myriads available nowadays.  As someone who likes to stare into an aquarium especially when I get writers’ block, having a digital aquarium right on my desktop is a nifty and relaxing convenience, without the problems of a real aquarium. 

Yes, I’ll never have the satisfaction of seeing my fish grow or breed, but on the other hand I won’t have to clean the glass, nor worry about the Ph of the water, or who’ll feed my pets when I go out of town.  I won’t have to worry that the new fish I introduced considers my current tank residents part of the menu or vice versa, or that Fish A likes its water acidic and Fish B likes it alkaline.  And these Archer Fish will never shoot out the lights – I’ve seen  that happen once with a real archer fish, it spotted a bug on the light bulb and zzzap! No more lights. 

Best of all, though, I’m not encouraging anyone to damage the coral reefs. Given my requirements and lifestyle, this virtual aquarium thing seems to be just the ticket for me.  If there’s just one thing I wish Dream Aquarium had, it would be the option to have saltwater fish models and a coral reef-themed tank.