TankLook

Vivarium visualizer · beta

Download or share
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This replaces your current scape

Ctrl+Z (Undo) brings it back straight after.
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Start a new tank?

Starting new replaces your current tank. It will be lost unless you save it first.

Save keeps it in this browser (Open… brings it back).

Tank sizes

Sizes are outer dimensions as sold. Makers often shave or add an inch to the generic size, so pick the brand you will buy. Prices are typical new US prices and move often.

New tank

Guided

Tell us what you know and we'll propose a complete, healthy setup that fits, with the tradeoffs shown.

Sandbox

Start with an empty tank and build it your way. We'll flag anything that could hurt your animals.

Sandbox: what kind of tank?

Guardrails

Brief items switched off in this tank. Turn one back on and the tank is checked against it again. Animal welfare checks are not on this list: they cannot be switched off.

TankLook

Starter kits and tank-and-stand sets on sale: pick one, then make it yours.

Starter kits (tank, hood, light, filter, often a heater) and tank-and-stand sets sold as one package: pick one, then make it yours.

Ready-made tanks to look at or start from: each opens as a new, unsaved tank.

Saved in this browser only: clearing site data removes them, and Safari clears them after 7 days without a visit. Download keeps a file.

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Drag (one finger on a phone) to look around, wheel or pinch to zoom; How to use at the top of the panel has the rest.
Opening…
How to use
  • Drag empty space to look around the tank; wheel zooms; click empty space to deselect, double-click it for straight-on.
  • Drag a fish to move it: parallel to the glass when viewed from the front, across the floor plan from above, front/back from the side.
  • Split tank (Compare) makes an independent copy beside this one; tick Edit on a view to edit that tank (both ticked: both change). The padlock between the views links or frees their cameras. Save and Download keep both tanks together; Download on a view's tab saves that tank on its own.
  • On a phone or tablet: drag with one finger to look around, pinch with two to zoom, drag with two to move the picture.
  • Shift + wheel moves the selected fish forward/back. Del deletes, F flips, Ctrl+D duplicates, Ctrl+Z undoes.
  • Fish are drawn at adult size. A fish further back looks smaller exactly as it would through real glass at the viewing distance below.
  • Your current tank is kept in this browser automatically. Save adds it, with a picture, to the tanks Open… lists; Download keeps a file to back up or share (browser saves are lost if site data is cleared).

Setup brief

My equipment

Tank
Sides
Style
Glass outlines
Lid
Front doors
On sides
Pictures

Room
Tank sits on
Stand
No stand on this tank yet. The budget counts a typical stand until you choose.
Table top
Place tank
Cabinet and frame stands match the tank's footprint; a custom-size cabinet or a table can be bigger, with the tank anywhere on it, and the wall and person keep clear of its edge. Peninsula puts the tank's end against the wall; the background moves to that end and the long back glass is clear.

Quick Setup
Shuffle
Animals
Sets the substrate, hardscape and plants together. Then reshape the ground under Substrate and move, add or remove any piece under Hardscape and Plants; or skip this and build the tank there by hand.

Substrate
Grain
Blend with
Mixing: none = separate patches of each, full = mixed grain by grain, between = clumps of each in mixed ground.
Choose a substrate above to set its depth.
Depth at each corner, laid out as seen from above (back at the top):
Pools
Custom terrain turns the floor into a grid of points you can push down or pull up, with a smooth surface through them. It starts from the current floor.
Lumps and ripples in the surface, like sand raked or settled around the rocks. Looks only: the corner depths and custom terrain stay as set.
Leaf litter

Hardscape
Move
Click a piece in the tank to select it; drag it to move it. It rests on the ground or on the piece under it, and carries whatever rests on it. Shift + wheel or R turns it; + and − resize it; the arrow keys move it left / right and forward / back, Page Up / Down up and down. Moved that way it stays put anywhere in the water, passing through other pieces if you like.

Plants
Keep these changes?

Animals
AqAdvisorAqAdvisor ↗
Sex
Pair
Sex

Water
Off = a dry terrarium (reptiles, amphibians, insects); fish are hidden, not deleted.
TypeTurn Water on to choose
Tint is how much of the colour shows through 30 cm (12″) of water, so a deeper tank looks more tinted. Fish stay below the surface.
Condition shows the tank weeks after a clean, or neglected: spot algae and film on the glass, brown diatoms, then green algae on the lit tops of rock and wood. Saltwater grows red cyano and bubble algae instead. Plants stay clean for now.

Tech
The gear that runs the tank, Walstad to high-tech: each choice with its cost, upkeep, the time it takes and what it buys, for this tank.

Lighting
▸ PAR guide
Set Total Power above to find dark spots: they need the light in PAR or lux.
The colours land on the substrate, and this tank has a bare bottom: .
A visual approximation: light falls off with distance and beam angle from fixtures above the water. No real optics, shadows or ripples.

Viewer
Show

Compare

Display & export
Export PNG
Scene data (JSON)
Lengths in mm; "units" is only how the panel shows them.

  
Illustrated placeholder art. Sizes are typical adult total length in aquaria (snails: crawling length).





  
Choose a tank

  

    

    

    

    
Sizes are outer dimensions as sold. Prices are typical new US prices and move often.

  

  

    
Where does it stand? It starts on the floor; the room changes as you choose.

    

    

  





  

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
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Ctrl+Z takes them back; Make copies again for a different roll.

    

  

  
  
  
Building the tank…