I’m perfectly happy to have a bathroom devoid of life. But I suppose it can get lonely in there, at times… All of that cold, sterile linoleum and tile. I guess then it could possibly make a tiny little bit of sense to stuff all your bathroom fixtures full of fish, maybe. I mean, a lot of your bathroom fixtures are submerged to some extent much of the time anyway, right? So why not let a bunch of fish enjoy it? Doesn’t that sort of make sense?
Or maybe it’s just weird.
Either way, people have done it, and if you want to, you can completely fishify your water closet with integrated fish tanks in your sink, bathtub, and toilet.
The Moody Aquarium Sink comes with a sand bed and built-in lighting and filtration to keep your fish happy and healthy. The soap dishes on either side lift out to give you access to the tank. Cost: $4700.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “what the heck is this? Fish Tank Fridays used to be cool.” Well, this is a USB hub. With fish in it. Again. I can’t help it, people just keep on makin’ these things! And I can only assume that people (other people) keep on buying them. This one has a magnetic paper clip holder on top and four USB ports in the bottom, with 2 fake fish, some LEDs, and…
And…
Sigh. You know what? You’re right. This is NOT a cool Fish Tank Friday. I’m in the mood for something bizarre and random, not a lame fake fish USB hub that holds paper clips. Soooo, how about this:
As the three or four regular readers of OhGizmo (you know who you are) may have noticed, I’ve been gone for the past few weeks. No, I wasn’t kidnapped by robots (I wish), but I was on a much deserved and entirely un-relaxing vacation in the middle of the biggest fish tank in the world, the pacific ocean. Specifically, in the Galapagos, a small group of islands some 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. The Galapagos are most well known for their unique and in many cases totally bizarre terrestrial fauna, but their location smack dab in the middle of the Humboldt Current makes them a haven for all sorts of marine life. I spent a few days diving while I was there, and after the jump, I’ve posted a gallery of a few of my favorite pics. Enjoy… Read the rest of this entry »
When it comes down to it, fish tanks aren’t really the greatest place for fish any more than cages are the greatest place for birds. Many of the fish tanks we’ve featured on Fish Tank Friday try really damn hard to give the fish a unique place to call home, but unfortunately, not all fish tanks are created equal, and some are created downright unequal. This Friday, we’re showing you some evil fish tanks to help raise awareness and benefit fish everywhere.
These keychains are being sold by vendors in Qingdao, China. It’s not a little bag to take your goldfish for a walk in; the fish is sealed inside and sold as a souvenir. The logo on the bag? Yeah, that’s one of the Chinese Olympic mascots. It’s unofficial, of course, but you have to wonder who exactly sees one of these things and decides that yes, that is exactly the Olympic souvenir that they’ve been looking for.
This is the iPond. It’s a portable speaker system attached to a tiny fish tank, designed to work with iPods and the like. It’s actually for sale (for $60) in retail stores in Australia. Inside the tank is a Betta fish, which (according to officials from the Melbourne aquarium) needs at least 10 liters of water to live in, as opposed to the 650 milliliters of water in the iPond. And I’m sure the fish doesn’t appreciate having its living quarters attached to a speaker playing crappy music. According to the people selling the iPond, however, sales have been “brisk” and “fish in iPonds seemed to flourish.”
So just remember, as you continue to enjoy Fish Tank Fridays, that not all fish have it so good, and give your fish an extra shake of flakes today on my behalf.
This is another one of those awesome and weird fish tanks that manages to suspend a whole bunch (in this case, 220 liters) of water vertically without it all spilling out. Once a gate is opened, the fish in the tank have free passage between the top and the bottom parts, and making the transition doesn’t seem to bother them in the least. Not that I’m one to know what really bothers a fish.
As far as the physics goes, my guess is that even though there’s air circulating through the top of the tank, if it’s a closed system, the volume is still constant and the water can’t get out. That’s my guess, anyway. The guy who makes these tanks lives in Singapore, but there’s a lot more info (and more videos) on his YouTube channel.
I’m not sure what it is about fish that inspires people to create technologically bizarre fish tanks to try and elicit some sort of deeper meaning from their movements. This particular example is the Rhythmfish system, designed by Sangmin Bae. Webcams surrounding the tank record the movements of the fish, and the images are combined with data from flow sensors inside the tank which measure the currents generated by the swimming fish. The results are translated (somehow) into an audiovisual, uh, something, which is performed through an LCD screen and speakers mounted on the tank. The designer says: “even if the fish can’t speak and express its feelings in a human way, it has an energy and communication skill in its own way. Vibration is the medium of interaction, and I chose it for its universality in the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms.” Hm. I wonder if the fish feel the same way, or maybe they’re just trying to figure out what the heck all this weird electronic stuff is doing in their tank.
If you’ve got a hankering for a seriously big fish tank but you don’t want to have to worry about the icky stuff (like water and fish), why not invest $32 million in 30 meters by 250 meters (!) worth of LED screen and then play fish videos all over it? You’ll find this monster six stories in the air between two malls in Beijing, with fish the size of Volkswagens swimming around on it. For scale, a football field is a paltry 5500 square meters, while this thing hits 7500 square meters of oceany LED goodness. Video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
The Infinity Aquarium, subtitled “swimming around in circles,” was designed by BCXSY Design Studio to create “a visual metaphor to life in the fish bowl.” If that’s what life is like, I don’t feel so bad about being totally lost most of the time. I’m not well versed enough in hyperspatial pandimensional neogeometry to even hazard a guess as to what shape this in fact is, and to be completely honest, I can’t even tell from the pictures where all the sides and corners are. But forget about me, what about the fish? It must be like they’re permanently entrapped in an endless series of incomprehensible rooms, corridors, and dead ends… Kinda like this movie. Except more twisted, and less deadly. Poor fishies.
Poor goldfish. Nobody really respects their intelligence. They get kept in tiny little aquariums, fed occasionally, and otherwise ignored. But, they’re capable of so much more, as this video shows. Three second memory? Think again. With the R2 Fish School, you can use simple operant conditioning and positive reinforcement to train your fish to perform tricks, including basketball, football, soccer, slalom, limbo, and other amazing feats. Prepare to be astounded:
Remember, the R2 Fish School isn’t just about making your life more exciting… It makes your little fishy friend’s life more exciting too. It’s $30 from Amazon.
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