Photo: Joe Lingeman

When Danny Bowien opened the first New York location of Mission Chinese in 2012, Angela Dimayuga, his head chef at the time, asked if she could install a fish tank in the dining room. She’d grown up going to Cantonese restaurants, she says, and felt it would be an easy way to reference them. Plus, the whole place felt very ’80s already; sticking a tank — which she filled with Glofish tetras (seen above, $8 at theifishstore.com) and Chen Chen & Kai Williams–designed acrylic pedestals — between the cream-colored banquettes made sense. In the seven years since Mission opened, there’s been an uptick in fish-tank installations across the city, according to Emily Kamelhar of Okeanos Aquascaping, the company responsible for the installation of a “skylight pond” in the recently reopened Brant Foundation. Seawitch, a nautical-inspired dive in Greenwood Heights, built a 120-gallon tank filled with blue-green chromis and yellow tangs; Blue + Black, a Carroll Gardens barbershop, installed a naturalistic, Japanese-inspired aquarium. Last fall, the Playboy Club reopened with a 450-gallon tank, and across town, La Mer at Saks Fifth Avenue recently unveiled a slightly more subdued L-shaped version. Below, all the parts to build a Reagan-era style at-home tank, from gaudy cherry-red beads to LEDs that simulate the moon.

Necessities

Décor

Top Fin Aquarium Decoration $5 Photo: Courtesy of vendor Night + Market puts these glassy red beads in its tank instead of gravel. $5 at PetSmart Buy

Fish

Flameback Angelfish $65 Photo: Courtesy of vendor The Playboy Club imported a school of angelfish from Japan for its saltwater tank. $65 at Live Aquaria Buy

Albino Cory Catfish $3 Photo: Courtesy of vendor/WEB USE ONLY. Dimayuga kept a pair of albino cory catfish, both of which she named Mary-Kate Olsen. $3 at PetSmart Buy

Plants

*This article appears in the May 27, 2019, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

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