Aquariums are a pain

This is the right size of aquarium to have.

Okay, that’s too general. Maybe with a couple of caveats:

This is the right size of aquarium to have, unless you are (A) a fish enthusiast who is willing to spend half your life futzing with water tests and tank cleaning or (B) an ostentatious rapper who wants a wall of sharks in the living room.

For everyone else, anything bigger or more involved is really more trouble than it’s worth.

This, on the other hand, is basically no trouble at all. That’s because it’s more than just an aquarium that happens to be pretty small. It’s actually a self-contained ecosystem (that happens to be pretty small). Basically, you’ll have your fish hanging out in its two or three-gallon fish cube, but instead of you having to clean the water all the time like a sucker, you’ll have a small squad of natural plants and hydroponic filtration that will take care of that for you.

The result is this mostly self-sufficient habitat, that just…exists. Kind of like a pond. Nobody has to clean pond water unless someone dumps illegal toxic waste and/or hard seltzer cans in there. Other than that, ponds pretty much run on autopilot, as can your rad new desktop fish setup.

Once it’s up and running, you can focus on regular cleaning of other things, like your filthy, disgusting, germ-ridden phone.