The Fish Hatchery

Besides raising plants and farm animals, you can also raise fish to sell, cook, or give as gifts. Fish can be raised all year long in the Piedmont district river and will naturally increase their numbers with very little effort.

Finding the Baskets

You will first need to obtain a Fish Hatchery basket to contain your fish stock. You can buy Fish Hatchery baskets from Ashe at Silk Country for 200 G each, but only during the Summer season. The other option is to buy the blueprint for the hatchery from Silk Country for 1000 G (or 700 G in Seedling Mode). You can then make the baskets by combining 5 Lumber and 1 Black Yarn. The Black Yarn can either be crafted in your Sewing Studio or bought from Cabin Country starting in Fall of year 2. The last way to obtain Fish Hatcheries is to complete special shipping requests placed by Silk Country at Jonas' Information booth, where they are given as appreciation for your hard work.

You'll also need a fish that you want to multiply in your Fish Hatchery. You can place any type of fish in the basket that you can catch while fishing or diving. For example, you can breed Small Goby, Willowfish, Horned Turban, or Basket Clams that are commonly requested for the Ship Out Fish requests at Jonas' Information Booth. You could use it to grow prawns to make Tom Yun Goong, which is Kamil's favorite gift, or Mitten Crab for Fritz's Mitten Crab Soup.

Placing Fish

To start raising fish, jump into the water from the dock in Piedmont and swim to the northwest corner. As you swim among the rocks you'll see a prompt titled Fish Hatchery Point. Press the A Button on your Nintendo 3DS to place a Fish Hatchery from your bag into the water.

Next, press the A Button again to select the fish out of your bag. You can only place one fish of a single species into the Fishing Hatchery. After that, you just swim back to shore. That's all you've to do!

The fish will multiply on their own as the days go by, which you can check on by swimming back to the Fish Hatchery and pressing the A Button again. The rate at which they breed will depend on the size of the fish you placed into the basket:

• Small fish, clams, and prawns = 2 fish every day
• Medium fish = 2 fish every other day
• Large and Giant fish = 2 fish every three days

You may also increase the Star Rank of the fish in your Fish Hatchery by feeding them Fish Food every day. Fish Food is for sale at Otmar's store for 50 G each. Each feeding will increase the Star Points of the fish growing in the hatchery by 3 SP; each half star is 30 SP.

Harvesting the Fish

A Fish Hatchery will hold a maximum of 10 fish. If you don't collect the fish when the limit is reached, it will remain at 10 no matter how long you leave the fish to multiply within the basket. When taking fish out of your Fish Hatchery you have the choice of taking all of the fish (leaving the basket with 0 fish) or taking all but one of the fish. When leaving one fish behind, it will start to multiply on its own again.

Since the Fish Hatchery is simply made of wood and yarn, it can fall apart when you remove the fish. The more often you collect from the same basket, the greater the chance it will disintegrate.

• Collecting from the basket twice will have a 25% chance of breaking once you remove the fish.
• Three uses have a 50% chance of the basket.
• Four uses have a 75% chance of falling apart.
• On the fifth use the Fish Hatchery will always break.

Pearl Oysters

You may raise a Pearl Oyster in your Fish Hatchery instead of fish. The Pearl Oyster is a seed object that makes colored pearls typically used for crafting. You can buy Pearl Oysters from Tropical Country or Sakura Country for 300 G each once you have collected at least 30 fish from your hatchery baskets. They are also given as appreciation by Sakura Country for special shipping requests. You won't catch them from diving or fishing. A Pearl Oyster can produce one Blue Pearl, Golden Pearl, Green Pearl, Red Pearl, White Pearl, or Yellow Pearl.

Have the Pearl Oyster in your bag when you press the A Button at the Fish Hatchery, and you'll be prompted to put the Pearl Oyster ("Place a Clam") in the basket. You won't see anything in the basket and you can't remove the Pearl Oyster from the Fish Hatchery until it is ready to harvest in 15 days. The oyster won't accept Fish Food, as it doesn't have a Star Rank to increase.

The Fish Hatchery will sparkle when the pearl is ready to be harvested. The pearl color you receive is determined randomly the night before the pearl can be collected. If you are trying to collect a specific color, save your game before going to bed. If the color of the pearl collect the next morning isn't the one you want, reload back to the night before and try again.

A faster way to obtain colored pearls is to simply buy them, but only if they are available for purchase:

• Blue Pearls can be bought from Sakura Country starting in Spring of year 2 for 4000 G or from Mistel's Antique Shop starting in Fall of year 2.
• Golden Pearls are at Sakura Country for 50,000 G starting in Spring of year 3.
• Green Pearls are at Sakura Country for 3900 G starting in year 2.
• Red Pearls are at Sakura Country for 4000 G starting in year 2 or bought at Mistel's Antique Shop for 4000 G starting in Summer of year 2.
• White Pearls can be collected by diving in Eda's section of the farm or in the Safari Park pond, or bought from Sakura Country for 3500 G starting in year 2.
• Yellow Pearls are at Mistel's Antique Shop for 4000 G from the start of the game or you can wait to buy them from Sakura Country starting in year 2.

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