Is My Fish Tank OK? · Showcase

The work

A fish-tank health dashboard Priya built before she had any fish.

Priya's parents said she could have a tank once she proved she understood what taking care of it actually meant. So she built this — a dashboard that reads the five things that matter (pH, temperature, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate), cross-references them against what different fish species need, and tells her in plain language whether her fish would be comfortable or in trouble.

She built it first. Then she showed her parents. Then she got the fish. The dashboard is proof of the thing she was trying to prove.

The thing itself · interactive

Move the sliders. See what the fish would feel.

pH · 7.0 6.5–7.5 is safe for tetras

Temperature · 24°C 22–26°C for most tropical fish

Ammonia · 0.0 ppm Should always be 0. Always.

Nitrite · 0.0 ppm Should also always be 0.

Nitrate · 15 ppm Under 20 is good. Over 40 is bad.

🐠

All good.

Your tetra is comfortable.

She built this so her parents would let her have fish. It worked on both fronts: she can care for the fish, and her parents believed she was ready. Proof of care, delivered in code. I love that she didn't wait for permission to start — she built the argument and the artifact at the same time, and the artifact was the argument. — Prof. Weining Zhang, curator