The novel tank diving test is a drug screening paradigm between in vivo and cellular assays, which is specially designed for the anxiety behavioral response of zebrafish or other small fish. This paradigm was derived from the maze model in rodents and has advantages in terms of the convenience of behavior assays. Zebrafish shares high gene homology with humans. Chemically triggered anxiety and aggression in zebrafish are closely related to the hypothalamicpituitary-renal gland axis in the endocrine system, which is parallel to the effect of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in humans. The novel tank diving test is an efficient and reliable high-throughput behavioral screening model mainly used in studying animal sociality, addiction, sleeping, learning, and memory. The novel tank diving test has been widely used in various scenarios from initiative to continuous improvement in the previous 15 years. This article reviews the origin, measurement parameters, usage, existing problems, and perspectives of this paradigm compared with the light/ dark test to broaden the anxiety behavior evaluation paradigm and application scope.