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An in game screenshot of a full fish tank in Chillquarium.
Screenshot by Dot Esports

Chillquarium guide: 5 tips and tricks to get started

The game may be chill, but you don't have to be.

Chillquarium has no business being as enjoyable as it is, but there’s something so satisfying about raising rare fish and earning the big bucks. Conveniently, there are tons of ways that you can significantly reduce the time it takes to start racking up thousands of dollars.

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Sure, idle games usually aren’t designed to be min-maxed, but where’s the fun in that? Here are some quick and easy ways you can maximize your profits in Chillquarium.

The first five things you should do in Chillquarium

1) Enable Fewer Clicks

The first thing you should do in Chillquarium takes less than five seconds, and it will make raising fish substantially easier. In case you don’t already know, fish can reach adulthood in one of two ways:

  • By reaching a predetermined time milestone.
  • By earning enough XP through being fed.

If you don’t want to wait hours or even days for your fish to age up, you should take the feeding route. By default, right clicking anywhere on the screen places a single food pellet. But simply tinkering with the Settings allows for an unlimited and automatic constant supply of fish food.

An in game screenshot of the Settings menu in Chillquarium.
An absolute game-changer. Screenshot by Dot Esports

All you have to do is open your Settings menu by clicking on the gear on the top right of your screen and then enable the Fewer Clicks option. This isn’t stated in the menu, but Fewer Clicks makes it so a single right click will continuously place food pellets until you right click again. It’s akin to putting your fastest button-masher friend on a non-stop shift at the keyboard.

2) Herd your fish

Once you’re using the Fewer Clicks setting to keep distributing a constant stream of fish food, the next most important thing is proper mouse placement. Yes, the location of the tank that you drop food pellets in matters. This is because when your fish go to grab food, they overshoot the food and spend time turning around before they can make another pass—unless, of course, a barrier prevents them from swimming past the food.

If you place your mouse right up against the edge of the screen, your fish can’t zoom past the food, and the barrier bumps them right back in front of the pellets. This makes it so that each fish can effectively retain a constant feeding supply, instead of their usual frequency of about one pellet every two seconds.

It’s a feeding frenzy. Video by Dot Esports

3) Purchase Food Upgrades

In your shop, you can purchase upgrades that increase the amount of XP earned per piece of food. The default amount of XP is five per pellet. The first Food Upgrade only costs $100, and it increases the XP per pellet by five. In other words, it doubles the amount of XP earned for only $100. This is without question where your first hundred bucks should go.

An in game screenshot of the Upgrades shop in Chillquarium.
A 1,000 percent markup from the first to second upgrade. Screenshot by Dot Esports

The second Food Upgrade is $10,000, which is 100 times more money than the first, so while you should get it as soon as you can, it may take a while.

4) Keep selling adult fish

You shouldn’t get attached to any of your fish early on if you want to maximize profits as quickly as possible. A good way to approach this to begin with is by selling any fish that earns less than $10 per day the exact second that fish reaches adulthood. Use the money earned from selling these low-earning adult fish to keep buying more packs with the goal of increasing your average rarity.

By repeating this process, you’ll quickly start seeing an increase in the average daily income of your fish. Once you have about 10 fish that are earning $20 per day, make this your new cut-off point and start selling off any adult fish that earn less than this. Keep pushing those averages higher and higher, and before you know it, you’ll be rolling in dough.

5) Always max out tank capacity

One of the most important things for building a solid base in Chillquarium is keeping as many new fish coming in as possible. Food pellets do not only feed a single fish: They feed as many fish as are nearby. This means a single piece of food can feed one fish, or it can feed 60. Every time you sell off adult fish that aren’t earning enough money, you should fill the empty tank slot with more baby fish. The only limit to the number of babies you can raise at once is based on tank capacity, not feeding limits.

Feeding 50 fish to adulthood takes no longer than feeding five fish to adulthood, so you should always make sure you’re raising as many fish as your tank allows at any given time. In fact, while you’re starting out, roughly 75 percent of your fish should be babies. The only adults that should make the cut to stick around in your early days are your absolute top earners.


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Pierce Bunch
Freelance writer and jack-of-all-games.