Use Koi Pond to display fish swimming over a pebbled pond bed, seen from directly above, with bright light patterns (caustics) moving across the bottom. Choose a scene, choose how many fish appear, change their color family and markings, and adjust the water separately from the swimming. Now and then a rare, rainbow-colored fish joins the pond.
Before you start
- A browser with WebGL available. The pond uses graphics acceleration to draw its fish and water. If the page reports that WebGL is needed, enable hardware acceleration in your browser and reopen it.
- A screen for the pond. Use your computer display, or connect a monitor or TV and move the browser onto it before entering fullscreen.
- A clear view of the screen. Reflections can obscure the dark water and fish markings. Adjust the screen position or nearby lighting before compensating with the effect's brightness.
Set it up
- Open Koi Pond on the display you want to use.
- Choose a Scene: Classic pond, Chinese garden or Japanese garden.
- Set Fish count. Start with 6–9 so you can judge the spacing before adding more.
- Choose Koi mix. Mixed combines color families; the other options keep the collection within one family.
- Change Pattern seed until you have a collection you like. Each number generates different markings, individual sizes, and starting positions.
- Adjust Fish size for your viewing distance.
- Set Swimming speed and Water movement independently. Slower fish can still swim beneath moving reflections.
- Select Play Fullscreen.
- Open the settings using the gear button and adjust Brightness from your usual viewing position.
You'll know it worked when you can distinguish the individual koi and see them turning beneath the water reflections.
The same controls are available beside the preview and in fullscreen. Move the mouse to reveal the fullscreen buttons; press Escape to leave fullscreen.
Scenes
- Classic pond. An open pond with lily pads near two corners.
- Chinese garden. Pale scholar's rocks with carved hollows stand at the edges and rise out of the water, with round lotus leaves and pink lotus flowers. The fish steer around the rocks.
- Japanese garden. A small waterfall pours in between mossy stones on the left. Its current runs across the pond, carrying foam, bubbles and red, orange and gold maple leaves. Fish near the fall turn to face upstream.
Pads and flowers turns the floating plants on or off in every scene. Rocks, the waterfall and the maple leaves stay.
Music
Turn on Music in the Sound group to play calm, drum-free music that suits the scene:
- Classic pond: warm pads, singing bowls and sparse piano.
- Chinese garden: guzheng and dizi bamboo flute.
- Japanese garden: shakuhachi flute, koto and temple bell.
Each scene has two tracks of two to three minutes that play in turn, so the music runs about five minutes before it repeats. Changing Scene switches to that scene's music. Volume appears once Music is on. The music pauses while you are on another browser tab or the pond is scrolled out of view, and carries on when you come back.
Rare fish
With Rare fish on, a fish can hatch as one of four rare varieties instead of an ordinary koi:
- Rainbow: blue-violet, with a shimmering sheen and a few large holographic scales.
- Platinum: metallic silver.
- Opal: pearly white with a soft pastel sheen.
- Sunset: magenta fading to gold.
All four have iridescent fins and scales that glint as they swim. On Rare, a pond of nine fish usually has none or one, so change Pattern seed to go looking for them; more fish means more chances. Plenty makes about a third of the fish rare, and Off keeps the pond to ordinary koi. Changing Rare fish only decides which fish are rare: the ordinary fish keep their markings and sizes, although the whole collection starts again from its starting positions.
What each control does
| Control | Range | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Brightness | 0–100% | Dims the whole scene. At 0, the display is black. |
| Scene | Classic pond, Chinese garden, Japanese garden | Changes the pond's setting, rocks, plants and water. See Scenes above. |
| Pads and flowers | on/off | Shows or hides the lily pads, or the lotus leaves and flowers in the Chinese garden. |
| Fish count | 1–24 | Number of koi in the pond. More fish leave less open water between them. |
| Fish size | 60–160 | Scales the fish without enlarging the pond bed or lily pads. Individual fish still differ in size. |
| Swimming speed | 0–150 | Changes movement and tail motion together. At 0, the fish stop. |
| Koi mix | Mixed, Red & white, Gold, Tricolor | Selects the fish color family. Mixed also includes black-and-white koi. Changing the mix creates a new collection. |
| Pattern seed | 1–100 | Generates another collection of fish and markings. It is a variation number, not a measure of pattern complexity. |
| Rare fish | Off, Rare, Plenty | How often rare Rainbow, Platinum, Opal and Sunset fish appear. See Rare fish above. |
| Water movement | 0–100 | Changes how quickly the light patterns, reflections, the Japanese garden's current and its drifting leaves move. At 0, the water holds still. |
| Water clarity | 20–100 | Higher values reveal more of the pebbled bed and brighten the light patterns. Lower values make the water look deeper and greener, and deeper fish fade into it. |
| Light patterns | 0–100 | How strongly the rippling sunlight patterns (caustics) show on the pond bed and on the fish. At 0 the bed is evenly lit. |
| Music | on/off | Plays calm music matched to the scene. Off by default. See Music above. |
| Volume | 0–100% | Music volume. Shown only while Music is on. |
Scene and Pads and flowers are grouped under Scene, fish controls under Koi, water controls under Water, Music and its Volume under Sound, and Brightness under Light. Use Fish size to make individual koi easier to see without changing the pond bed or plants.
Common setups
- A slow pond on a TV. Try Fish count 6, Fish size 110, Swimming speed 35, Water movement 25, and Water clarity 80.
- A monitor viewed from across the room. Start with Fish count 8, Fish size 140, Swimming speed 50, and Water clarity 90. Larger fish make the markings easier to distinguish at a distance.
- A fuller, colorful pond. Choose Mixed, Fish count 18, Fish size 80, Swimming speed 70, and Water movement 45. Smaller fish leave more room between the moving bodies.
- A flowing garden stream. Choose Japanese garden, Fish count 8, Swimming speed 60, Water movement 60, and Water clarity 90, so the current and the pebbles under it stay easy to see.
- A lotus pond with a rare fish or two. Choose Chinese garden and set Rare fish to Plenty, then try a few Pattern seed numbers.
- A still composition. Set both Swimming speed and Water movement to 0. Choose the mix and seed before stopping the animation if you want to watch the collection spread out first.
Troubleshooting
The pond is black. A Brightness value of 0 hides the entire scene. Raise it to make the pond visible. If a WebGL message appears, follow its graphics-acceleration instructions instead.
The fish are moving, but the water looks frozen. Water movement is independent of Swimming speed. Raise Water movement above 0; changing the swimming slider alone does not animate the water.
The pond feels crowded. Reduce Fish count to leave more open water, or lower Fish size to fit smaller koi into the same view. Try six fish at size 100 before adding more. Turn off Pads and flowers if you want an unobstructed view near the corners.
The pond bed is hard to see. Raise Water clarity toward 90 to reveal more of the pebbles. If the whole scene is dim, raise Brightness as well. When a bright reflection covers part of the screen, adjust the screen position or nearby lighting.
I can't find any rare fish. Check that Rare fish is set to Rare or Plenty. On Rare, many seeds have none, so try several Pattern seed numbers, or choose Plenty.
Music is on but I can't hear anything. Browsers can block sound until you interact with the page. If a message says playback was blocked, switch Music off and on again. Check that Volume is above 0 and that your device and browser tab aren't muted.
The maple leaves and foam aren't moving. They move with the water, so raise Water movement above 0.
Changing the seed moved all the fish. Pattern seed creates a new collection, including its starting positions. Keep the seed unchanged while adjusting count, size, speed, or water if you want to continue watching the current collection.
Next steps
For display connections and viewing-distance adjustments, follow the koi pond TV setup guide.