Setting up the Aquarium fish tank in Screensavers

A fish tank is one of the oldest ideas for an idle screen, and still one of the nicest to come back to. Aquarium in Screensavers by Zaweba gives you a calm tank of made-up fish swimming among swaying plants and rising bubbles. None of the fish are real species. There are pebble fish, ribbon fish and moon fish, all invented for the app and drawn by its own code.

It is part of the classic pack and has three settings. That makes it one of the simplest screensavers to set up, though the lighting setting is worth a little thought.

How many fish to have

Number of fish runs from 3 to 30. Three or four gives you an almost empty tank where each fish has room to wander, which is soothing and easy on the eye. Thirty fills the water with movement. Somewhere around ten to fifteen tends to look like a well stocked home aquarium without feeling crowded.

Think about where the screen is. On a monitor beside your desk, a quieter tank is less distracting when it kicks in while you're on the phone. On a PC in a waiting room or a family kitchen, a fuller tank gives people something to watch.

Day, night or the time of day

Lighting has three choices. Always day keeps the tank bright. Always night gives a darker tank, which suits a bedroom or a room where the lights are low. Follow the time of day changes the lighting to match the clock, so the tank is bright in the daytime and darker in the evening.

Follow the time of day is the one to try first. It means you never have a glaring bright tank at midnight, and you don't have to remember to change anything. If the PC is only ever used in the evening, always night is simpler.

Bubbles can be switched on or off. They add a little gentle movement from the bottom of the tank. Some people find a tank looks empty without them. Others prefer the stillness. The live preview in the manager shows the difference straight away.

Why it stays light on your PC

Aquarium is drawn at 75 per cent resolution and stretched to fill the screen. That keeps the processor work low while it runs, and for soft, swaying water the difference is very hard to see. It is one of the reasons it makes a good choice for a PC that sits idle for long stretches.

The app also has a shared frame cap of 30 or 60 frames per second in Install and options, and a battery saver for laptops that simply turns the screen black when the charge drops below a level you choose (25 per cent unless you change it). On a laptop running on battery, a 30 fps cap is more than smooth enough for a fish tank.

Getting it onto your screen

Choose Aquarium in the manager, set the fish, lighting and bubbles while the live preview follows along, then try Preview full screen to see it at its real size. When you're happy, press Use this screensaver. It is built into your profile without needing administrator rights, and Windows' Screen Saver Settings opens so you can choose how long the PC waits before the tank appears.

On a PC with two monitors you can have a tank on each, one wide tank stretched across both, or the tank on the main monitor with the other black. A tank on each screen feels like two separate aquariums. Stretched, the fish can swim from one screen to the other.

A few habits that help

Change one setting at a time and watch the preview for a little while, because fish move slowly and a tank's character only shows after a few seconds. Don't judge the night lighting in a bright room; try it in the evening when it will actually be seen. And if a family member keeps fiddling with the settings, Reset to defaults puts everything back as it was.

Aquarium also pairs well with the other calm scenes. Ticking it alongside Lava lamp and Rain on glass in Install several gives a screensaver that picks one of the three at random each time.