First of all, I did buy the real version, on Mac – if you like the game, you should support the makers. But by then I got really attached to the tank of fish I have and I cannot just add the serial to unlock all the limited access items in the Supplies store. So this is what I did. First, I made a tonne of money selling fish which I can breed and keep alive, like Speckled Leaffish which I sold for $45. Buy everything you can from the shop. Aerator, Snail, Temperature Regulator, Research environment and the 2 Plants first. Leave the ornaments til last. You'll find THE list of fish you need and the step by step guide of breeding them on the net. Just google "Golden Goldbulb". Print it out and highlight the primary fish you need for breeding – all of them comes from common fish eggs. Keep any fish hatched that match the list, and sell the rest. I add 30-50 per cent to the suggested price for a better sale price. The sale tank is fantastic for breeding, just make sure every fish you wanna keep has a four digit price tag and you won't ever sell them by accident. I simply add another two zeros at the end of their price to stop them from selling. This attracts customer with a full sale tank. And when you want to sell them you just take the zeros off and that's the right price for selling. Keep your Magical Fish of Fertility with fish that got pregnant first. Even with ick it works. Some fish takes longer to deliver, but as a general rule, if a fish swam with the Magical Fish of Fertility just before it gives birth, it will make 2 babies. Move it around to get the most babies this way. Do not start breeding until you've saved at least $10,000, and you've bought everything you can. Sick fish with the ick can be sold, just drop the price and try to sell it asap. If you need it to breed, breed another fish with it and sell it real quick.
Now you've collected all the common fish you need, bought everything, and got at least $10,000. You're ready to start to win the game. It's terribly exciting. You need to keep a real close eye on every new fish's health every minute as they can be deteriorating really quick. You'll be juggling tank space so sell any fish you're sure you no longer need. Any fish whose health is deteriorating from baby stage you will need to breed more of. The only way to keep these sensitive fish alive is to give them fish vitamins. These will boost their health temporarily – not long at all. They will still get ick however. That's why you need to breed more of these fish. Do not overuse Vitamins – you'll need thousands of dollars worth of vitamins to finish the game. Wait till their health have dropped by 25 per cent and move all sensitive fish, especially babies that needs vitamin into one tank, and does them once. Keep doing it to keep their health above 50 per cent. And only re-dose when you see a 25 to 30 per cent drop in health. Sell less healthy ones. Breed the Magic Fish of Mutation last, as all the other fish will give random babies when swimming in the same tank. Follow the rest of the breeding process and you'll get some beautiful magical fish. If you havn't used your only dose of Fish Hormones that came with the game, it can help when one fish you need to breed is dying while the other is still coming of age. Move the dying/ sensitive ones into a different tank, and give your baby fish the hormone to speed up their growth. And watch their health even more closely. Administer vitamins if needed. And don't forget to feed.
I got all the 7 Magical Fish for a little while, even bred some more, and sold them to buy more vitamins. But they'll eventually die when you run out of money. That is unavoidable. But the thrill of the challenge of winning against the odds is really worth it. One more thing, if any time after you start breeding magical fish you were to exit, or stop time for a while, be careful. Going from exit/ stop time to double speed can kill a fish through cruel inaccurate calculations of their birth years. I lost thousands of dollars in vitamins this way when I have to re-breed fish that died from 90 per cent health when I left them. Always make sure your fish is over 90% health on exit. Always exit on half time/ stop time, and come back on stop time/ half time, check your fish, then change to normal time, check fish again, and then change to double time. Happy breeding – may you create abundant magical fish and lots of Isola bucks!
