Hello and welcome to this advice guide. I put this together to try and create a one-stop place for simple advice and some more advanced guidance on how you can run a successful aquarium. A couple things you will want to know before starting.

1. This guide does assume you have completed the campaign and may repeat some of the points mentioned in the campaign levels. It will not cover basic game play.

2. These are mostly suggestions based on what I found worked for me, they are not a comprehensive list of strategies and play styles.

3. This is made as of version 1.1.5

Okay let's get started!

NOTE: This section is highly subject to change, the developer has indicated many times that Staff Management is likely to be updated and enhanced in the future, but in the meantime, please feel free to use these tips and tricks.

1. Use Zones for Feeding Staff from the Start of Your Aquarium.
Using zones from the start helps with planning your expansion and allows you to use less Staff to accomplish all your feeding for the day. I've found that a single "Feeder" with 2 Feed skill can handle 2-3 tanks daily, and even more once they increase their Feed skill. The reason I specify using zones for feeding staff is to reduce your Zone micromanagement, feel free to use zones for all your staff as you like. It is very possible to get to rank 12 only using zones for Feeding.

2. Disable and Prioritize Your Staff Skills.
This can be done by selecting a staff member, and clicking on the green bar next to the skill, the less bars, the higher priority the skill, but 0 bars means the skill is disabled. This can allow you to highly specialize your staff members, and helps you avoid issues of low skilled staff trying to do the jobs of your high skill staff.

3. Look at Talents When Hiring Staff.
This is a thing that I'm sure the campaign mentions, but I want to stress it here, Fitness is super important to look at for your staff. Not only does it determine the bonus to Clean and Gift Shop skills, it also determines your staff member's walking speed, and will greatly impact the effectiveness of your Staff members. I generally try to keep low Fitness staff in small zones, while high fitness staff I will usually let roam the whole aquarium.
Memory is also another underrated talent as it will determine how quickly your staff level up and gain more skill levels. Think long term with Memory when hiring staff.

4. Don't Overhire Staff.
A well managed zone can reduce the number of staff needed, and if you can save those staff members for later expansions, it cuts down on the micromanagement you will need in order to run your aquarium. NOTE: You may wish you hire additional staff in order to train them up earlier, this works well if you are fine with managing more staff at the start of your game.

Tips and tricks to reduce Staff "Wastefulness"
- Place food bins as close as possible to the tanks. Duplicate them if you need to, especially if the Staff member has low Fitness. It can sometimes take staff members up to 20 in game minutes to simply walk back and forth from a food bin that is placed 5 squares away.
- Review your zones and staff periodically. You will likely move fish around, Staff will skill up, more fish will be added, new tasks may pop up, etc. With these changes you'll want to make sure you are keeping your food bins, zones, and staff assignments updated to reflect your aquariums changing needs.

This section is meant to assist in gaining prestige. Create the aquarium you want to make, they will all work and gain you prestige. Below are some tips for those looking who are looking to quickly climb the ranks of Prestige!

1. Less is More.
Guests don't care as much about the quantity of fish, it's the variety and quality of fish. The game does make this point pretty heavily in a campaign level, but it also holds true in all aspects of the game. You don't need the largest tanks filled to the brim with fish, in order to gain prestige. There IS still a benefit to having duplicate fish, you gain the ecology points and science points of all the fish in the tank.

2. Decorations.
To gain the most prestige from your tank decorations, use the same decoration in one tank, try to keep each tank to having its own combination of two decorations. Keep updating them as you unlock other decorations. This one isn't super important as in the later levels you gain next to no prestige for decorations in comparison to fish and staff talks.

3. Staff Talks.
Once you unlock the podium, you should try to have at least one Talk staff to give talks to the guests. Repeating the same talk over and over again will gain you less prestige. I find the following two methods work well:
- Daily Switching: After each Talk is completed, switch the talk on the podium to another prestige gaining talk. You can simply alternate between two subjects with no prestige loss. This option has more micro management but will gain you more prestige.
- Waiting Period: You can alternatively set a single high prestige talk to have a 2 day waiting period between it. This option will still net you prestige, but not as much as the switching method, however there is no micromanagement in this option. Eventually in bigger aquariums, some guests will be around for the same talk twice, so you may get the occasional -1 prestige from a repeat.

4. Guest Items and Needs.
Try to have areas specifically for the guests to relieve their needs instead of spacing items out all over the aquarium, this not only cuts down on space needs, it also makes it easier to keep your aquarium clean. Building upgraded food and drink dispensaries will also gain you increased prestige. Soft benches and Massage chairs will also gain you increased prestige, so try and upgrade those regular benches when you can. Remember, guests stay in your aquarium longer if their needs are met.

5. Put Bins EVERYWHERE.
Seriously, put bins every 5-6 squares, because these guests don't care about throwing away their trash, but also can't stand the sight of it. I found it very handy to keep Broom closets every 20-30 squares, makes the Clean Staff have to run around less.

Below are some tips for expanding your aquarium as you advance through the ranks.

- Use Zones as a base to expand off of. If you have a zone where your workers are able to get their daily tasks done by 12:00 then you might want to consider expanding from there and add an additional tank, the staff member can likely handle the extra load.

-Keep upgraded tank sizes in mind. Belstat, Large Tunnel, and Mega Tanks usually require dedicated staff and devices to keep running properly. I tend to create new zones specifically for these large tanks, and either move highly skilled staff over to the new area, or I hire appropriate new staff if they are available (If you use the staff management advice, you should always have a good selection to hire from as you expand, remember, don't over hire)

- Consider guest "flow". Try to have guests follow a natural path that takes them in a circle around your displays. The AI doesn't handle doubling-back on itself very well and can sometimes cause guests to get "stuck" in a corner. Using arrows can help with this, but I find just building with enough space to walk around handles most of the pathing issues.

- Go at your own pace. There is no rush or time limit to advancing. Watch your current aquarium's needs before deciding to expand, planning really pays off.