--- title: "Roku is switching off its Aquatic Life fish tank screensaver on Dec. 1 and moving viewers to Roku City" url: https://badiyaa.com/roku-aquatic-life-screensaver-removed-roku-city/ published: 2026-11-05T13:10:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-05T13:10:00+00:00 section: Tech publisher: Badiyaa --- # Roku is switching off its Aquatic Life fish tank screensaver on Dec. 1 and moving viewers to Roku City The free reef tank, a version of Jim Sachs' Marine Aquarium that has run on 4K Roku players since 2017, ends as Fox's $22 billion Roku purchase moves toward closing. Roku is pulling the plug on its digital fish tank. From December 1, 2026, the Aquatic Life screensaver will disappear from Roku players and TVs, and anyone who uses it will be moved automatically to Roku City, the company’s animated purple skyline. Owners are learning about it from the screensaver itself. A notice now appears over the aquarium telling viewers the tank goes away on December 1, that their screensaver will switch to Roku City, and that they can pick something else from the Theme Store under Settings. Roku has not published a reason on its support pages. ## What is actually going away Aquatic Life is a computer-rendered saltwater reef, not a camera feed. Roku describes it as a salt water aquarium simulation and has only ever offered it, free, on its 4K streaming devices. It is Roku’s version of Marine Aquarium, a screensaver made by the artist Jim Sachs and his company SereneScreen, and it arrived as the default screensaver on Roku’s 4K players in December 2017. The giveaway that it is fake: a clear rock in the middle of the tank with the Roku logo carved into it. A third-party screensaver guide identified 31 species in the Roku tank, 30 fish plus a starfish, including a percula clownfish, a regal tang, two kinds of lionfish and a moray eel in its own cave. Roku itself has never published a species list. ## Why Roku City wins Roku City has a commercial job the fish never had. Since it launched in 2017 it has carried branded billboards and buildings, from a Barbie sign to McDonald’s arches, plus concert-style “Live from Roku City” events and, since April 2026, a game called Roku City Dash. A screensaver that runs whenever your TV sits idle is ad space, and Roku City is built to sell it. The change also lands mid-merger. Fox Corporation agreed in June to buy Roku in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $22 billion, which is expected to close in the first half of 2027. Badiyaa covered the shareholder votes on that deal in [our report on Fox’s Roku takeover](https://badiyaa.com/fox-roku-takeover-shareholder-vote/). Neither company has linked the screensaver decision to the sale. ## How to pick your own screensaver before December 1 If you would rather not wake up to Roku City, you can choose a replacement now. The menu path on current Roku software: - Press Home on the remote and open Settings. - Choose Theme, then Screensavers. - Pick one already under My screensavers, or browse further down to download a new one. Free ones show Get screensaver; paid ones show a price. - Select Set as screensaver. In the same Theme menu, Screensaver wait time controls how long the TV sits idle first, or turns the screensaver off. Other ocean and nature options were still listed without a removal warning at the time of writing, including a Nautical screensaver and a Jungle screensaver, plus Star Trek: The Original Series and seasonal holiday themes. If your account has a PIN, Roku may ask for it before installing anything. ## Keeping the fish The reef itself is not gone. Marine Aquarium is still on sale from SereneScreen for $14.95 on Windows and Mac, with a free trial for Mac, Windows and Android, so the tank can live on a computer or a laptop hooked up to the TV. Compare that with $0 on a 4K Roku until November 30. Its iPhone and iPad app only runs up to iOS 10, so it will not work on a current Apple phone or tablet. On Roku devices, the last day for Aquatic Life is November 30. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Roku, Inc.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku,_Inc.) *Image: Itchy Melvin, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*