Oceatics: a free virtual saltwater aquarium in your browser

Oceatics (oceatics.com) is a living reef tank rendered in real time in your web browser. There is nothing to download or install: open the page and a saltwater aquarium is running, complete with the sound of bubbles and a low air-pump hum. Everything in the tank, from every fish to every grain of sound, is generated by code.

A living ecosystem

The tank holds blue tangs, yellow tangs, ocellaris clownfish hosted by a swaying anemone, royal grammas, pajama cardinalfish, a schooling cloud of blue-green chromis, and yellow watchman gobies on the sand. A cleanup crew works around them: turbo snails graze the algae film that grows on the back glass, nassarius snails plough the sand and climb the rocks, and an emerald crab walks the bottom on articulated legs collecting leftover food. Fish school, startle, chase food, and avoid the rocks; nothing is a looping animation.

Interactive and ambient

Left-click the glass and the fish scatter away from your tap. Shift-click any fish or critter to see its species card. Press Space to drop food flakes and watch the feeding frenzy; heavier crumbs sink to the bottom crew. Drag to walk around the front three sides of the tank. Press F for fullscreen and leave it alone: the controls and cursor fade away and Oceatics becomes a pure ambient aquarium display for a TV, monitor, or wall screen. It also installs as a progressive web app and runs offline.

About

Oceatics is built and maintained by Advancing Development. It is free to use; if it brightens your room you can tip the aquarist at ko-fi.com/advancing.