XFISHTANK(1)

💖 XFISHTANK(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the General Commands Manual section, because we're about to talk about the most iconic little aquarium situation you can put on your X desktop 🐠✨

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🐟 NAME

xfishtank — fish swimming across your desktop. literally just fish. swimming. across your desktop. no cap 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS

xfishtank [-c <color>] [-b <limit>] [-f <limit>] [-i <mult>] [-r <rate>]
[-m <num>] [-C <num>] [-d] [-p <file>] [host:display]

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🌊 DESCRIPTION

xfishtank is a animation program to simulate an Aquarium on your X desktop. that's it. that's the vibe. you get a whole aquarium, it's on your desktop, it's giving main character energy 🫶

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💅 OPTIONS

• -b number — Number of bubbles (Default: 32) 🫧
• -f limit — Number of fishes (Default: 10) 🐠
• -bc color — Color of bubbles (Default: lightblue) ✨
• -bgc color — Color background (Default: darkblue) (NOTE: works only when running under xscreensaver. yes bestie, only under xscreensaver, don't come for me 💀)
• -speed number — Speed of fishes (Default: 100) 🔥
• -defaults — Use default options
• -nomenu — Minimize the interactive menu
• -display DISPLAY — Use this display to draw in (Default: "")
• -root — Use root-window or xscreensaver-provided window to draw in 👑
• --root — Same as -root
• -h — Show usage information
• -v — Show version
• -allworkspaces n — n = 0: show fishes only in current workspace. n = 1: show fishes on all workspaces. 🌈
• -monitor n — n >= 0: show fishes only in monitor n. n = -1: show fishes in all monitors. 🖥️
• -changelog — Show ChangeLog and exit
• -selfrep — Output gzipped tar file of the source and exit

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🌸 XSCREENSAVER

If you want to run xfishtank under xscreensaver, add a line like this to $HOME/.xscreensaver:

xfishtank -root  \n\

that's the whole thing bestie, just drop that line in and let the fishies do their thing 🐡

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📁 FILES

• $HOME/.xfishtankrc — Settings are read from and written to this file. so like, your fish preferences live here. remember that. 💜

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👀 SEE ALSO

X(1), xsetroot(1x), xsnow(6), xroach(1), xroachng(1), xpenguins(1)

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🎀 AUTHORS

• Eric Bina, <ebina@ncsa.uiuc.edu> (Original author)
• Dave Black, <dlbb0@amdahl.com> (Linux port)
• TJ Phan, <phan@aur.alcatel.com> (TrueColor Support)
• Vincent Renardias <vincent@waw.com> (man page, Debian packaging)
• Willem Vermin (adaption to modern desktops / double buffering)

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖✨ this whole thing is version 3.3.2, dated February 2026, and honestly? iconic of them. go forth and populate your desktop with fish 🐠🦋💅 periodt.