I haven't played the Palm OS version of Fish Tycoon, so I don't have anything to compare the Pocket PC version's game play to, but now that I've played the game for many hours, I have noticed a few things that, if changed just a bit, could significantly improve game play.

1. After several generations of fish breeding, the tank can get very crowded. Since fish move around, it can be very difficult to count them (especially when there are babies, teens and adults in the same tank). We are limited to 20 fish in each tank, so it would be really nice to know how many fish are currently in the tank. I know there's a variable for each tank to track the number of fish there (otherwise you couldn't tell when it was full). Maybe you could add that information to the text line when you click on a tank tab: "You are in Tank 1, which has n fish" It would save a lot of time and effort trying to make sure we don't have our baby fish eaten because there wasn't enough room for the offspring of our breeding efforts.

2. Explain Ick and Fungal treatment more clearly (maybe in the tip the first time a fish gets sick). It appears to me that the treatments work on a single fish (like the insect spray in Plant Tycoon). If that's the case, it would be much easier to treat the infected fish in the isolation tank, which is not possible now. That way, it would be far easier to medicate the correct fish, especially in a crowded tank.

3. Provide an explanation for that nice little musical tone that occurs once in awhile. At first I thought it had something to do with the fish getting older, but that didn't seem to be the case. Then I thought maybe it marked certain events, but I couldn't determine what event. Then I noticed that it happened even when the game was paused, which completely threw me. It's cute, but what's it telling me?

The Ick treatments will also just work if you blast the tank with the stuff. the instructuions talk about 'every half an hour' but I find no such delay necessary.

I noticed that about the isolation tank, too. Having owned many aquariums with real fish in my time, you should always isolate the fish for medical treatment anyway. It would just make it more realistic to treat them in the isolation tank.

You do know that you can move your baby and teen fish into the for sale tank if you need more room but can't buy the second tank yet. They can't be sold until they are full grown, so you don't have to worry about that.

Why are the effects of the chemicals not consistant? When I speed the growth of my fish, sometimes they grow very fast. Sometimes it hardly speeds their growth at all.

Is there some place I can find a list of what the 7 look like? How do I know if I am close or just chasing a dead end?

Are there any tricks to learning the immensly complicated formulae for breeding the 500+ breeds?

I have played about 400 hours (I'm sure I'm still a newbie) and have only found 3 of 7.

The effects of the chemicals involve some 'fuzzy logic'. Fish won't respond quite the same each time they are used.

3 of 7 Magic Fish is not terrible! There are some charts out there that detail which fish lead to which hybrids. I've also seen a chart with several hundred fish documented on it.

Maybe someone will post one of these...

Arthur

does anybody know what fish are not dead ends?

the haplochromis is not.
the B. splendins is not
the the yellow platy is a good avenue
the pseudochromis i think must be a dead end

(sorry I may have spelled some of those wrong. i don't feel like pulling out the latin dictionary. I breed fish for a living and love this game. I wish the hybrids were more realistic though. but, it is the easiest breeding tank I own.)

Wow. I was always concerned when I was designing Fish Tycoon that fish breeders and enthusiasts might play and potentially be upset at the many 'liberties' that were taken with the breeds, and breeding in general.

Now I'd have to look up the real species names you listed and see the picture to remember who they are in the game. In general though there are not too many dead ends. A better way to describe them would be 'more and less direct routes' to the Magic Fish.

Arthur

it would be absolutely wonderful if someone would either post or email a chart detailing the breeding for the magic fish! i've re started the game 4 times, played over 1000 hours, and i can only find 5 of the seven magic fish! any help would be wonderful!
xiztanz@hotmail.com

In some ways you are better off with no -fish- experience. Some of the magic breeds are very counter intuative. That is - the fins don't match the fish.

Why not use the common names for the fish? Why call the puffer/boxfish a grouper? Wouldn't have been just as easy to call it a puffer?

AAAARRRGH! I do that every time. Every time I discover a new fish i touch the screen before I read. Then I have to try to figure out what the fish does. I discovered the mutation and growth fish within two minutes of each other and can only guess at what they do. I think the growth fish makes babies mature faster. But, what does that mutation fish do?

I've been playing for 313 hours and have discovered 6/7 of the magic fish. I'm not bragging -- trust me, there was no logic to it...it was all purely by accident.

One that wasn't by accident is that once I discovered how to breed the "main" fish (The Golden Guppy of Isola, also known as the Canary Fire-Arrow) and found out that it sells for $222 (and you can boost that), I made sure to keep two of those breeding in one of my tanks at all times, as well as the two parent fish that created it in the first place. I just kept popping out Canary Fire-Arrow babies in one tank and selling them for $222 a pop. You quickly get enough money to do just about anything you want to do in the game.

I'm having fun, but I admit to getting a big annoyed that I just can't seem to get that last magic fish. I really don't want to cheat and look at the chart, but it is driving me crazy.

I'm down to just one magical fish left. Anyone know how to get the Greenfin Spotanus (#1/7) -- as in what parents? I'm going bonkers!

Unfortunately, that Greenfin Spotanus is the one fish that you can't really breed "from scratch". As I recall, the Greenfin fin cannot be bred from anything but two other Greenfin fins. So, you just need to keep buying common fish until you find it, or until you find two or more Greenfin fins and breed them togther and get lucky enough to find the Spotanus body.

I bred a Greenfin Spotanus from two other fish. I'd say which ones, but I don't want to put a spoiler right here in the forum!

I have a couple questions:
1. I have been doing a sort of "noah's arc" technique, but I quickly run out of space in my tanks. I am afraid to "sell-off" the last of each fish, but I know that with 500+ fish, I have to keep doing that. Any suggestions on what fish to sell-off and what to keep?
2. Why can I ONLY sell while in the "store" view? Aren't fish for sale always?

I have more questions but will post them later.

-Andrew

1. It's really hard to recommend certain fish to keep. I have found that the best approach (for me) is to keep track of how I got certain fish, and then I can breed them whenever I want. The only fish I tend to keep are the magic fish.

2. It's actually a good thing that you can only sell fish while you are in the store. That way you can use the selling tank as a breeding tank, giving you more room to breed fish without your breeding stock "disappearing" on you.

Does it matter if the fish are "purebred", i.e. continued breeding until both parents are same type?

After you have gotten all the Magic Fish the next challenge is to come up with the 21 Perfect Fish.

Good Luck!

I don't think it matters. I haven't seen a difference in the results between "purebred" and hybrids, but I haven't really charted this yet to test it. It might be kind of fun to see if the results are the same or not.

Can we have more than 3 tanks in the next version? I am always runnning out of space. How do I manage to breed so many fish and not have to sell the rare ones I already have to make space? This is getting frustrating. I am trying to keep at least one of each body type around...

OK I admit it. I'm useless at this game. I'm not getting anywhere. The baby fish are all dead. I'm broke. How do you know what is best to breed with what. I'm bored and need inspiration to keep going on Fish Tycoon. Help......

Here's a step by step guide to get started successfully in Fish Tycoon:

Drop the starter eggs into Tank 1. Go to the supplies area and buy some common eggs for $160. Drop them into Tank 1 and wait for them to hatch. If you want them to grow up quickly, you can set the game speed to fast, but you'll have to check your fish often to make sure that they are fed. They will grow up in less than 2 hours.

Once they are adults, try to find two fish EXACTLY the same. You can breed them successfully. Their babies will not lose health and die. If you can't find two fish exactly alike, choose two fish that are very similar (the same type of fish - for example Spotanus or Beta). If you breed these, even though their fins might be different, they will probably live to be adults. If you don't get any fish similar enough to breed successfully, you can always start a new game and try again. It's important not to cross breed species early in the game, because they will die and you won't have any money to buy more eggs.

If any of your fish get sick early in the game, you should probably not spend money on medicine until you have extra money. Once your new fish are grown up, you should move them to the selling tank (Tank $), and click the Sell Fish button. You will see the store screen. When a customer buys one of your fish the species, picture and price of that fish will be displayed in the information area below the store.

Keep breeding fish as described above until you have enough money to buy a second tank. Tank 2 will give you more room to breed fish and you will make money faster. Drag some of your fish to Tank 2 and keep breeding the same fish to make enough money to research tank improvements.

Remember to keep making money by breeding fish and selling them. Once you have made enough money to research Fish Environment, you will be able to breed more expensive species of fish.

Thanks for the reply Barbara. I'll do as you suggest. Cheers
Joolz

i jus played this game for one week. and i m totally hooked! they are jus like wonderful babies. i got so worried when they get sick. but i m really curious abt the magic fish. i only owned one. wat abt a list of the 7 magic fish? i know when i own a magic fish as it leaves sparkles. but it's a headache at times when new breed kept dying at age of 18 days!

Thank you for this! Totally made me feel better about how to start this game. I have an hx4700 too - this game looks great on it. Hopefully my fish will keep alive!

OOOOOOPS I didn't realise about the sparkles around the magic fish. I thought it was Ick and tried treating it and then trashed the fish three times before I found this forum. boy is my face red now

If I were a real fish breeder and I had upwards of $2500 (which I do in Fish Tycoon), then I would probably buy more than 3 measly little tanks. Is there any way to get more space to breed these fish? I have only been playing for something like 300hrs. What are the more experienced players doing? I have found 2 of the 7 magic breeds, but I have slowed my playing down recently because I don't want to sell off any potential paths towards the rest of the magic fish. Sure, I COULD re-breed to get any of the ones I have, but that seems like a waste of time. What to do? Keep one of each? Then I STILL have overcrowded tanks.

Alright i hope that this helps you out! it depends on what you are trying to do, discover new species or get to the 7 magic fish! OK! There are a few key fish that will get you there, i dont want to spoil the fun for everyone but you can PM me and ill help you more if this doesnt! I wont tell the exact ones but this should get you going in the right path, You have to stick with these breeds until you unlock the new magics! your COMETS, BETA, AND GOLDBULBS. Play with these three wonders and youll find what your looking for!

I got tired of the fish that I had because they didn't seem to be going anywhere. I sold all but the 2 magic fish I had found and a couple of personal favorites. I bought all new eggs, one set of each and started breeding agian. Whithin an hour or so I had found a new magic fish. I think that we, subconciously, choose who to breed with who and just wind up with the same fish over and over again. If you totally change the stock you have to change your breeding habits

Anyone know any "money" codes for this game. I've been playing for 10 days and can't seem to earn more than about $70 before I have to cure some fish of ick or fungus and then I'm back to square one. And so many of the babies die I never get enough to sell. HELP!!!

Thanks!
Redsuze@aol.com

Yeah thats easy just read through the forum!

Has anyone noticed when you have upgraded the fish food to level 3, that when you push the fish food icon there are 2 checkmarks visable

Sounds like a bug. I don't completely understand when you are seeing two checkmarks. Could you PM me here with a bit more detail?

Thanks
Arthur

Well I PM'ed you. I don't know if it went throug. I seem to have a problem posting hear. Mabe I'm doing somthing wrong.

Arthur, I see this too. Once you have reached level 3 of Fish Environment, Fish Food, or Advertising, those icons have a check mark on them. If you click on any of them after you have reached level 3, another check mark appears slightly offset from the first.

Ok it's definately a bug. We'll make sure that its fixed in the first revision that goes out.

Arthur

Did you get my email?

Yes thanks. We'll have this glitch fixed in subsequent revisions of the Pocket PC version. It's an 'easy' bug. Thanks for the screenshot, again.

Arthur

Just checkin out when you may have an updated version, and are the people who already bought the first version going to be able to upgrade for free? This is really a cool game. Just started playing it and decided to read through all the forums to get some hints. Lotsa good ideas in here!

Eva

What do you mean by the 21 "PERFECT FISH" ? Thanks!

What two fish make the Crimson Comet? I had several and "lost" them and cannot seem to remake them.
Any help would be much appreciated!

Do you remember which two fish created the Golden Guppy?
I had several and "lost" them.

Thanks!
RedSuze

There are many, many ways to breed Comets and Fire-Arrows. I'll give hints to help narrow the search! To get the Crimson Comet, try breeding various Goldsharks and Betas. To get the Golden Guppy of Isola, start with Stickfish and Arrowfish. The fins that you will need for both magic fish can be bred from common fin types.

When are we going to be able to trade fish via IR on the Pocket PC?

You can check out what Arthur posted on the subject by clicking here.

Thank you very much. I work for a software development company myself and understand about not wanting to set timelines and how bad projects can slip. Keep up the good work, love the game (have gone through and got all 7 magic fish a couple of times now and am settling into making my own body/fin matrix).
Good Luck.

I've found it's a good tactic to keep one of each type of fish body (goldbulb, firearrow, carp etc etc) and then try to arrange it so that each type of fish has a different fin (e.g. pink goldbulb, crimson firearrow, oriental carp etc etc). That's (I think) 21 fish in total). If you can manage to make that collection, you'll be able to breed just about anything you want from those fish. Of course, you may not know exactly HOW to breed anything you want, but it will be possible ;-)

I have just started playing, and have managed to sell 2 fish (after quite a bit of a price drop). However, I cannot see the picture and price of the sold fish displayed in the information area below the store. Have I done something wrong? I was hoping that breeds I create/find will be displayed in the program somewhere, but so far haven't seen this anywhere. I'm using a Tungsten T3

treefern? i thought u were an expert!!!

This was my first post ever.....posted almost 3 months ago and 600+ posts ago!!!

It is true, that was me, but you can still see from the post, I was unregistered on the forum at that stage.

what is magic fish #5 ?and how do i get it?

I can't remember exactly which one #5 is, however if you search for one of the many online databases, I'm sure that you can find the answers you want.
-spaceman

Sometimes it takes a few tries to get the hang of the game. I posted a step-by-step guide to being successful at the early part of the game in this post. It's certainly not the only way to succeed, but it will work and you'll be able to breed any fish you want before long.

The way to get the magic fish is to cross breed , the fish.
Hope you get the last one without looking!!

What are the 21 perfect fish?

You could search the Fish Tycoon forum for "perfect fish," but to get you started, you could look at this post.

DEAD LINK...

It works when I click on it. Clicking on links in these forums opens a new browser window. Perhaps a popup stopper is preventing that?

I got it when I used some of the normal eggs...

You mate a Spined Spotanus and with a Twin-fin one. You can hatch these from common fish eggs, at least you can with the Twin-fin Spotanus; I started with the Spined at the beginning of the game.

I'm sooo excited!! Ifound all 7 fish in 104 hrs!!! This game is sooo fun!! Good Luck to everyone!!

Congratulations!