Before delving into the specifics of the impact of gardening, if you prefer a video format, you may want to check out my general strategy guide;

First, let's understand how to grow Plants and increase the Crop Levels.


When you see new plots, you will be able to choose an organism to grow. You will often get to choose one of three or four crops, based on the type of plot.


Growing this plant will count as 1 instance of that plant.
Since it costs favour, make sure to choose the right type of plants.


After the Gardener Crabling grows the organism, you can click on it and spend favour to Upgrade Plant.


Each level will increase the count of that plant. for example, a Level 2 Staghorn Coral will count as having two Staghorn Corals.


Ritual Stones are essential for the long-term colony survival. One of the blessings is Revelation of Upgrading. This will allow your Gardeners to upgrade plants up to Level 3.


Level 3 upgrades do cost more favour, however they will allow you to increase the total organism count.

Each sea creature that can spawn in the biome has a set of wants and needs. The first creatures that spawn will require a number of plants, whereas later creatures may require the existence of specific fish.

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Needs can be satisfied multiple times. For example, if the Smooth Stringray requires two Sea Snails, if you have 8 Sea Snails, then you would have Four Stingrays.


When the want criteria are met, the population will double. In the above example, if there are 8 Sea Snails and you also have Four Elkhorn Corals (e.g. two Level 2 of those Corals), then the Stingray population will double from four to eight.

It's important to note that if you meet the criteria for wants but have no needs, double the amount of 0 is stlil 0, so no population will spawn until the Needs are met.

Now that you understand how to impact sea life, it's time to learn how the sea creatures impact your gameplay.


As you cleanse Ritual Stones, they will uncover two or three requirements.

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One of the requirements can be directly a number of sea plants, such as 3 Sea Anemone. You can achieve these by either having three different level 1s, or just having one Level 3 Sea Anemone.


You may also be requested for a number of a specific sea life, such as 3 Damselfish. You can usually achieve these in multiple ways.

For example, you can reach the needs three times, OR, reach the need two times, but also satisfy the wants (to get four Damselfish).


Apart from achieving specific goals, you want to maximise the population of sea creatures because these generate food.

The amount of food that a creature generates is signalled by the icon in the info, such as Stringray has 2 out of 3 food icons active, making it a 'medium' source.

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Most creatures will interact directly with fish. You will see them approach, nibble on the plants and corals, and leave some food behind

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Larger creatures are often predators, eating on their prey. For instance, a Reef Shark will hunt and kill Smooth Stingrays.


After killing the Stingrays, if there are no Stingrays left, they will respawn after a few seconds, and the Shark that has fleed will re-appear.

Having larger population helps so that no population goes extinct (even if for a few seconds).


A huge benefit of large predators like Reef Sharks is that they can help out at night and attack the Crablings' invaders.



You can see the food chain information within the info tab of the creatures. Here you can see both what the predators eat, or you can check the info of your enemies to see what they are eaten by.

By now, you should have a good understanding of how plants impact sea life and how this impacts your gameplay.

But how do you know which plants you should grow or upgrade?


Often times, the first night can be difficult if your Crablings don't have time to build walls and traps. Trying to speed up the needs for predators like Reef Shark can help you out, making you safer if your Hunters don't have boosted attack speed/damage yet.

As I play on Challenging Mode, I always try to get these predators as soon as possible. Since Reef Sharks require Stingrays and Stingrays require Sea Snails, then, when they are available, my strategy is to focus on the Sea Snail population.


At times, the requirement for ritual stones will be very very specific. This may mean that you have to sacrifice a garden plot to solely satisfy the ritual stone.

If you can get this get knocked out early, this would be ideal. However, if this is going to impact negatively your sea life population, you may want to hold this off to accomplish few hours before you migrate.

For example, if you need to clear a Table or Brain Coral to grow more Bubble Kelp, this may mean that your Sea Snail population will likely die out while you clear it. This will also mean no Stingrays or Reef Sharks. Make sure to do these actions when it is safest, earlier in the day and not close towards to the night when you will be under attack.


Since you have limited plots, upgrading plants is important. If you are going for 4 Bubble Kelps, you can grow four different ones, however that will take a lot of space and limit the choice of organisms you can grow.

In such instance, it would be smarter to get only two Level 2 ones. However if you only need 3 of a specific plant, going for a Level 3 may cost a lot of favour. Depending on how many plots there are in the biome, you may choose to grow two plants, rather than a single level 3 one.

Whether you are a cozy player wanting to spawn the highest population possible of your favourite creature, or a player seeking a balance strategy, understanding the impact of plants to sea life is esential.

Hope you all enjoy Crab God, and if you do, support the game by leaving a review.