---
title: "Adorable ASCII Aquarium Lives On Your Desk"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/adorable-ascii-aquarium-lives-on-your-desk-5eaidclwd
source_url: https://hackaday.com/2026/05/24/adorable-ascii-aquarium-lives-on-your-desk
type: article
source: "Hackaday"
published: 2026-05-24T17:16:37.828Z
updated: 2026-05-24T17:16:56.137Z
tags: ["iot", "embedded"]
reading_time: 1
upvotes: 148
comments: 14
language: en
---

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# Adorable ASCII Aquarium Lives On Your Desk

**[Hackaday](https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday)** · 1 min read · 148 upvotes · 14 comments

## Summary

Kert Gartner's ASCII Aquarium project transforms a cheap ESP32-based CYD (Cheap Yellow Display) into a desk toy simulated aquarium. ASCII sea creatures each have individual behaviors and respond to touch-based feeding. The project includes a hidden configuration menu, bitmap export, timekeeping functionality, and support for a 3D-printed enclosure. A display flip mode even supports beamsplitter setups for a unique visual effect.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://hackaday.com/2026/05/24/adorable-ascii-aquarium-lives-on-your-desk>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@andradei** · 10 upvotes

> This is one of the cool projects people make just because.

**@ksolomon** · 5 upvotes

> ![ascii-aquarium.jpg](https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--BH6JieTe--/f_auto/v1780666111/ugc/content_e8c63fe0-e662-4373-8e77-ba59621ac968?_a=BAMAMiWQ0)
>
> I just put one together the other day. Is it useful? No, not really, but that's ok. Sometimes the reason for a project is to do something silly that doesn't solve any real problem except to scratch an itch to make something.

**@buguno** · 2 upvotes

> I need it
>
> ![GIF](https://static.klipy.com/ii/925f17378dd1893b674a723c07535afe/69/f0/BaG6T64L.gif)

**@ksolomon** · 1 upvotes

> Just ordered A CYD...this will be going on my desk at work in the very near future! 😁

**@byteslayer** · 1 upvotes

> Need it on nix! 🤓

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---

Tags: [#iot](https://daily.dev/tags/iot), [#embedded](https://daily.dev/tags/embedded)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/adorable-ascii-aquarium-lives-on-your-desk-5eaidclwd)