There's a Fine Manual! And I read it!

Geeks tend to leap into things without actually reading the manual because... well... it takes longer to read about the thing than it does to figure it out, if you're a "hands on" kind of geek.  With Aqua Pets on Facebook rather coyly hinting about pellets and poles, an option that I only skimmed in the "help" section suddenly caught my eye.

The store actually gives you the approximate percentages of catches on your bait purchases. (d'oh!)


Spotted worms catch rare creatures 5% of the time (and uncommon creatures at least 20% of the time.
Orange worms catch them 3% of the time
Green bugs catch them 1.5% of the time
Yellow bugs catch uncommon creatures more than black bugs do (no surprise)

On the high end, blue glowing pellets catch rare creatures 20% of the time and legendary creatures 10% of the time.
Red glowing pellets catch rares 25% of the time and legendary creatures 20% of the time -- at a cost of 3 pearls per ten.
Rainbow pellets, which cost 4 pearls, catch rares 30% of the time and legendary creatures 30% of the time.


Helpful hints are also found in the fish food area




So I set up a tank with 25 common fish (size 1) -- Lawnmower Blennies, Harlequin Basselets, and Orange Spotted Gobys -- and am feeding them "Fancy Treats."  They weren't to impressed with the Basic Food Pellet, giving me 2 coins per fish, with the occasional big tipper giving me 3 coins.  I thought about making them all the same kind of fish, but realized that I wouldn't know if I'd fed them all if they all looked alike.  I'll see what the results are tomorrow.

Reading the labels on the "fish food" suggests that you do better if you have one type of creature in the tank when you're feeding -- in other words, all mammals or all carnivores or all mechanical pets.  I haven't had any of them get excited and flash when they get fed yet.  We'll see what the results look like tomorrow.