Chillquarium is a chill, idle aquarium game where you buy fish, sell fish, and buy them again. It’s a simple game, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few things I wish I understood a little better before selling fish willy-nilly.
Chillquarium is a relaxing experience designed for gamers to enjoy just passively running on their desktop. Whether you want to have this game as a neat little screen saver or as another idle game running in your long list of idle games on a second monitor, there are a few tips and tricks that you can employ to make your experience that much more streamlined. The beginning of the game is slow, but with our advice, you can get to bigger, cooler fish in no time.
Tip 1: Don’t Sell Golden Fish (No Matter How Much They’re Worth)
If you encounter a gold or rainbow fish, don’t sell them! These are the equivalent of shiny Pokemon in this game, having just above a 1 out of 1000 chance of spawning from your fish packs when you summon them into existence after buying them from the shop. Once you’ve opened about 2,000 packs, you’ll have a guaranteed gold or rainbow fish come into your tank, so keep a lookout for them. I was lucky enough to get one quite early on, so my passive income is going to be just a little bit better from here on out.
To prevent yourself from accidentally selling your precious golden or rainbow-colored variations of fish, try pressing the Lock button on your fish by either clicking it in the tank and finding the Lock button or going to your fish list and clicking the Lock button there. If a fish is locked, you can’t sell it, even if you accidentally click the sell button. Golden fish may be worth a ton of money, but the passive income they earn you is much more valuable.
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Tip 2: Sell Every Other Fish Possible As Soon As Possible
The point of the game is to sell fish and buy fish if you want to progress in the game as quickly as you can. While Chillquarium is definitely not the kind of game to be rushing through at breakneck speed, the beginning can be pretty slow. To help yourself reach more fish variations as soon as you can, sell fish as soon as they reach maturity. While they may be making you a bit of passive income, any fish from freshwater don’t make that much money, even when you have a tank full of them.
The goal at the beginning of the game is to make money as quickly as you can in order to get yourself a Saltwater Tank. Once you have enough spare cash, you can buy Saltwater fish in the Reef Fellas, Marine Dwellers, and Giants categories. Until you get to that point, though, you’ll have to stick to Rivers and Ponds, as well as your Freshwater Friends category. Once you start owning any kind of Saltwater friend, you’ll begin having fish that are worth way more than the Freshwater variants, earning you more money and paving the way for expensive purchases like cosmetics to decorate your tank.
Tip 3: Use Alt + Tab to Auto Feed Fish
While fish grow on their own by earning 1 EXP every second, you can feed your fish to gain 5 EXP each time they eat. By holding down the right click, you can feed your fish continuously to have them grow into adults as fast as they can so that you can sell them. However, if you want to make this idle game even more idle than it was before, try holding right-click while Alt Tabbing out of the window. If you do so successfully, the right click will stay right-clicking in-game even though your mouse is not there anymore, continuously feeding your fish in the spot where you left it. Doing this in a lower corner can help after gathering all your fish in one place, helping grow the entire tank at the same time. It’s not exactly a game mechanic, more like a glitch, but you can use it either way to supplement your fish-feeding frenzy needs.
Tip 4: Before You Leave, Fill Your Tank
If you’ll leave the idle game running for a bit as a screensaver on your computer, try not to leave an empty tank when you go. While selling fish is the name of the game here, fish earn passive income when they are adults. So, if you’re just about done playing and are tempted to sell your tank for a quick last-dash buck, consider leaving your most profitable fish passively swimming around so that your hours of idle screen saving are used efficiently. If you want to create a little calm ambiance for yourself, turning on the setting Sparse Music can turn the constant soft guitar into an occasional (unedited recording of) soft acoustic guitar that plays every couple of minutes to help interrupt the soothing drone of the aquarium tank.
