Hi again, I've visited Bobbie's amazing site and it's full of information. One thing it shows is a picture of the nine breeds required to form all other species.
http://www.bobbiemelody.com/newtankblog.htm

But when looking at the pic, i can see at least 11 fish, and i can't work out which fish are which. What is the list of the nine breeder fish required to breed all other species?

Actually, all you need is a twin-fin and a silky of any particular body type to produce all the other fin types of that body type.

clxt7321

I'm glad you like my site, december, ... as you can tell, I'm rather obcessed by Fish Tycoons!

And I've added the names of the fish to that picture you were looking at. They are Betas Sharks and Spotanus - each a Twinfin, Greenfin and Silky. -- I'll add individual pictures of each fish to make the nine clearer.

The other two fish in the picture are Oriental Goldbulbs, which make babies grow faster. I keep on of those to go in each tank when I'm breeding babies to speed things up.

If you are playing a Palm or PocketPC version of the game, the fish look VERY different ... but have the same names and formulas for fish are the same.

I'll have to try the 2x2 and see what happens! COOL!

It may be true that all you need are a twin-fin and a silky of a body type to eventually produce any other fin type, or a shark and a spotanus of a fin type to eventually produce any other body type.

But Bobbie's point is that adding in Greenfins and Betas into the mix makes quicker paths to other fins and bodies...

Yes, I played with the two fish method last night, and eventually you can get all the fish ... but I wouldn't change to breeding that way. It takes more steps than the nine fish method and doesn't seem to follow as valid breeding progression, because you breed rare fish before breeding some common ones.

But ... crossing Spotanus with Stickfish from eggs might be a quicker way to get the Betas for breeding in some cases. --- but usually I don't have much trouble getting them from the eggs while collection the others.

I'm sure there are many many ways to play the game beside the way I do. I developed my way so that I can produce the 441 in a game without driving myself nuts with random breeding.

After finding the 7 Magics and 21 Perfects, I needed more fun! Now having breed the 441 I'm doing fish level research and genetic research. Makes me wish I'd gone into some sort of scientific studies in my younger days!
Never knew I'd love it so much!