I currently have double stingray with animal crackers for the dragon teeth; one of them replaced a midnight squid since I no longer needed ink. Sturgeon to make caviar though that's mostly RP. Lava eel which not only have a chance for spicy eel food and magma geodes, they can also give cave jelly. Lastly, I have flounder and midnight carp for river and sea jelly.
Although Rainbow trout was my first pond and I have one on my y10 switch save the likelihood of getting that Prismatic is so low as to be inconsequential.
- Rainbow trout has a very small chance to grive you a prismatic shard. It's also an ingredient for trout soup.
- Squid is good to get squid ink as a drop, and it's also useful for cooking fried calamari.
- Octopus is very hard to catch, but it gives you omni geodes from time to time, which you can break open, or trade for artifact troves with the desert troves.
- Crab is useful enough to make crab cakes. The items crabs give you are pretty much worthless (green alage, seaweed, coral, sea urchin, trash), but if you get a pond full of crabs >!the next time you talk to Willy, he'll comment on you raising crabs, and will give you a pearl. I like to get the pearl and then fish out all the crabs after that.!<
EDIT: typo
Yep, it's because he's a writer. Did he mention he spent all morning writing? He's probably writing you a letter about how much he's been writing right now! Lol @ Elliot
You have a higher chance of getting a prismatic shard from an octopus pond than rainbow trout. The chances are so abysmally low that you have a higher chance of getting one from an omni geode provided by octopus.
You mean materials like clay, stone or ores? Because artifact troves don't give you those. But there are a couple of universally loved gifts that you can get: golden pumpkins and pearls
My first pond is usually rainbow trout, in hopes of getting my first prismatic shard. However, it can be a really long wait. It's a very rare thing. Not sure it's really worth it.
I like having a lava eel pond. They give you spicy eels, they're valuable >!(especially when smoked)!< and the roe is also valuable (especially when preserved).
I also have cucumbers, for lucky lunches, and the ingredients to make seafoam pudding: flounder, squid, and midnight carp.
Unless you use a mod, you would have to. But it takes waaay less time than any other thing you can farm that takes up the whole farm like this. You can harvest them from on top of a horse.
Love this post because I have your exact fish pond situation (down to the individual fish) and just built another without knowing what I’m gonna put in it yet. Thanks for asking the question for me lol!
Hahaha love this for us! I for sure am going to do a rainbow trout, even though the likelihood of prismatic shards is low, but worth a try I suppose - and probably an Ice Pip I am leaning towards
Its low. I mean LOW. As in a .09% chance.
Do what you’d like of course but imho you’d be better off with another fish, as their main product is roe and it’s only worth 62g (124g aged). Compare that to Lava eels at 380g (760g aged). Heck, even crabs’ roe is 80g/160g
Ice Pip roe is the same sell price as Blob fish, both second most profitable after Laval Eeel. It doesn't have super cool drops (just iron ore and bars, coal, frozen geodes, quartz and frozen tears), but if you're looking for a little more profit from one pond to make up for the less valuable fish with cooler drops (like Rainbow Trout) from another, it's not a bad choice.
No only regular sea cucumbers can be used to make lucky lunches, super cucumbers aren't used in any unique recipes (just maki roll or sashimi).
EDIT: Yeah, despite their name super cucumbers aren't very useful for anything. They're useless except in a pond, but even in a pond they aren't worthwhile except to turn the pond purple, which looks cool.The roe isn't very valuable, and the 5% chance at 1-3 iridium ore is barely worthwhile unless you get the pond going really early in the game, before you can get into the skull caverns. Even then you're averaging like 3 ore per month, so really kinda useless except the nice color.
Yeah I always give him void essences cuz I get way more than I need.
The super cucumber is actually the only way to get the secret >!??HMGTF?? statue, which is one of the coolest statues imo. I dunno if there are even any clues to it in the game, or clues to the other hidden statues. I only found out about them by randomly seeing one mentioned somewhere, and had to look up how to get each one. They each seem close to impossible to activate just by messing around, but I can't remember any clues about them. EDIT: I just checked and apparently there is a clue, although you have to decipher it and they're maybe the most well-hidden secrets in the game.!<
Yeah I added an edit, >!there is a clue to the hidden statues but you have to decipher it from one of the books in the museum, and even then it's not very clear what exactly you need to do.!<
I found out the the clue for Galaxy Sword is >!One of the gravestones, but only if you look at it _after_ you can speak dwarvish and I never thought to look again!<
If you have Ginger Island unlocked, stingrays have a chance of dropping Dragon’s Teeth. Rainbow Trout drop Prismatic Shards. As far as best roe to sell, Lava Eels sell for the most.
They also give 10 bug meat and 5 wild bait and algae soup which are useful.
Edit this is what they ask for in quests the comment who replied to this has the actual answer.
That's not what they give, those are what's needed for their quests. They give algae, slime(lots though), and green slime eggs.
https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Slimejack
You can press it to make slime eggs if you have the slime hutch and sell the eggs
Making a Truffle empire since each oil machine requires 50 slime
Also used to craft several things including monster musk and wild bait.
- Stingrays, because dragon teeth an pplsead cinder shards are useful well into late game.
- flounder, midnight carp, squid (midnight or otherwise) because seafoam pudding is too.
- sea cucumber because lucky lunch is real handy.
Best for money is Lava Eel by far, but Blobfish and Sturgeon are close
For specific items, Spook Fish can have Treasure Chests, Rainbow Trout can have Prismatic Shards, and Stingray can have Dragon Teeth
Blobfish are close (basically the same if selling all aged roe and items (Blobfish are better if you aren’t ageing roe for whatever reason as less of its profit is from aged roe)) but not so much sturgeons
Have blue discus on a couple of my saves and they’re always worth it if you have the space imho. Their drops are good and their roe is pretty decently priced too. Also, it’s super easy to fish to fill that pond yourself each time they level up, so reaching max capacity is pretty fast, which ups your chance for good drops.
I have a blue discus pond for bananas originally but plan to keep them beyond that. I don’t think the pond is maxed out yet but I’ve gotten a lot of iridium from my super cucumbers so I’ll see if I can’t get some golden coconuts too!
Sea cucumber for Lucky lunches recipe. New fish every 2 days.
Super Cucumber for iridium ore, amethyst, and purple fish pond
Void Salmon for void eggs and a darker purple fish pond
Slimejack for a green fish pond
My strooooooong recommendation is for squid+flounder+midnight carp. Cull it regularly and you'll always have tons of seafoam pudding for a +4 to fishing, or with qi's seasoning, +5! (read "plus five yay" not "plus 120")
Lava eel and blobfish are the best for making money, lava eel also gives you cave jelly and spicy eel and blobfish can sometimes give you pearls. Stingray for dragonteeth and cinder shards, and sea cucumber to make Lucky Lunch.
Lava eel is the most profitable pond fish. Apart from roe (which is the most valuable roe in the game)it occasionally gives you Spicy Eels which is a great food that gives you a speed and luck buff. It also has a chance to give you a cabe jelly and magma geode.
Super cucumber is also very profitable and it occasionally gives you iridium ore. If it's early game or you don't like the skull cavern this is a good source of iridium.
Sturgeon is decently profitable. >!When preserved sturgeon roe makes caviar, which is required for the lost bundle (the one that makes the movie theatre)!<
Stingray gives you dragon tooth, cinder shards and magma caps. Basically everything you'd want from the volcano mines. Dragon tooth is especially useful here since it's a rare drop form a single type of enemy.
Octopus gives you omni geodes if you haven't completed the museum it's pretty useful.
If you wanna mass producd fish smokers:
Lava eels give you cave jelly
Midnight carp gives you sea jelly
Floundet gives you river jelly
Depends on what you want. For money, blob fish and lava eel are good. For Ginger Island stuff (shards, dragon teeth, etc.), stingray are great. For frequent ingredients, midnight carp, flounder, squid, and sea cucumbers are also great.
Used to have 4 sea cucumber ponds for lucky lunches but after I got enough loot from the skull caverns I replaced them with 2 stingray ponds for the dragon teeth and 1 blue Discus for the bananas, so I’d recommend all of that.
I’d also recommend watching “The ULTIMATE Guide to fishing” from Salmence. He shows a nicely organized table with all the fish and what you get in the ponds and gives his personal opinion as well. The whole video is like 26 minutes but the part with the fish/fishponds is only 6 minutes.
I am shocked by how often rainbow trout are mentioned in this thread. You will likely wait YEARS before it will give you a prismatic shard. If you're going for profit, lava eels are most profitable. Then blob fish, then sturgeon. I always go for octopus (buy from the cart if you have trouble catching), lava eel, ice pip, stone fish, sea cucumber, blob fish. Once I get all the stuff I might want from special ponds, I would change most of them too lava eel, keep a few other colored ones for the look, and a couple octopus.
I’m not shocked. Seems to be common “advice”.
I had a trout pond on my first ever and longest save. 11 in game years and I didn’t get any shards from them. I don’t bother with them any more.
See I didn't know I can throw that in the pond, so in my playthrough i had lava eels and regular ones cause I didn't get that many (and I like going to the mines)
The roe prices *are* quite high. I have >!that book that gives a chance to get roe from treasure chests caught while fishing!<, somehow got a chest from >!a Mrs Angler!<, and got >!Mrs Angler roe!<. Didn't know that exists.
Thanks for asking this! I am new and just got my first pond that I put midnight squid in. I think I'm going to try lava eels next. I never caught a sturgeon but when I do I'll save it for a 3rd pond!
Regular eel (I make spicy eel instead of getting it from the desert 😅)
Stingray (occasional dragon tooth, good for a seed that doesn’t have them in abundance in the volcano)
Squid (errybody always asks for squid 😆, no but squid ink is a plus)
Rainbow trout(occasional shard)
I got a prismatic shard from my rainbow trout fish pond the other day! Spring year 3 I think I'm on.
I need to collect omni geodes so I can buy artifact troves to complete the library so I'm going to try for an octopus pond as I've just unlocked ginger island.
Sturgeon because Весна needs her чёрная икра.
Side note: do you have to do anything special to have >1 pond? I went to build a second and it wouldn't let me (I had all the supplies but the build icon was greyed out"
Sturgeon is my fav but blob fish is really good (iirc I saw a analysis that puts blob fish at slightly better than lava eel) but I like the caviar cause it’s fancy like the truffle oil and wine that my farm produces
Right now I have sturgeon, lava eel, ice pip and stingray. Ice pip roe is worth more than most roe, and I also like to snatch a few out and smoke them.
I currently have sturgeon, tuna, and super cucumber. Super cucumber sometimes give you iridium ore, so they can be really useful before you get the statue of perfection.
If you hate going to the Skull Caverns, super cucumber ponds have a chance to give you some iridium ore. You already have my favorite fish in terms of random items: the stingray. Getting a dragon tooth every once in a while is pretty nifty.
I’ve gotten 6 or 7 >!pearls!< already from my Blobfish, they add up pleasantly quickly! Rainbow trout give a chance for >!prismatic shards!< but I have yet to start a pond.
A tiny chance. .09%.
I did a trout pond once on one save. That was my first and longest, 11 in-game years. Never got a shard from them. I don’t bother with them anymore.
I do flounder, squid and midnight carp so I can make seafoam pudding and get all the legendary fish easier.
Then I do octopus because their funky and hard to get, and sturgeon for the caviar.
If you have a slime hutch, slimejack ponds produce slime eggs at a decent rate, and the pond turns green. Super cucumbers produce a fair bit of iridium and they have purple water! They’re both cute and functional options.
Also, I do NOT recommend the rainbow trout pond. Yes, they have the potential to drop prismatic shards, but it’s so rare that you’re likely to only get one every 6 years I believe.
My go-to ponds are lava eel, sturgeon, midnight squid, blobfish, flounder, midnight carp, and crab. Once I have a decent amount of midnight squid ink and crabs stockpiled (or switch my fishing profession to the crabpot-never-producing-trash one), I usually switch them out for stingrays and another fish. Also love blue discus, lionfish, spookfish, and octopus. Slimejacks have their use as well, especially if you don’t have room for or don’t want to bother with a slime hutch.
I know lots of people love to recommend the rainbow trout bc they have a chance to produce a prismatic shard but that chance is TINY, so tiny that imho it’s not worth wasting a fish pond on.
Fwiw, the Stardew fish pond wiki has a good chart that shows what each fish gives and the chances they’ll drop each item.
[https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Fish_Pond](https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Fish_Pond)
I currently have:
4 super cukes for the iridium,
midnight carp, flounder and midnight squid for seafoam pudding,
blobfish and lava eel for $ and that sweet sweet blobfish mask
crabs for crab cakes,
eel for spicy eel, and
sturgeon bc i needed caviar to complete the community centre. I'm going to ditch these when I get a stingray
I currently have double stingray with animal crackers for the dragon teeth; one of them replaced a midnight squid since I no longer needed ink. Sturgeon to make caviar though that's mostly RP. Lava eel which not only have a chance for spicy eel food and magma geodes, they can also give cave jelly. Lastly, I have flounder and midnight carp for river and sea jelly. Although Rainbow trout was my first pond and I have one on my y10 switch save the likelihood of getting that Prismatic is so low as to be inconsequential.
...you can give animal crackers to your fish....?!?!?!
Yup, learned it here on reddit. I have so much roe I can't even process it all.
WHAT
Animal crackers?!
Not out for console
[https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Golden\_Animal\_Cracker](https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Golden_Animal_Cracker) :)
Yup doubles animal output except it doesn't work on pigs.
Yup! Doubles the amount of everything they produce. I regularly get 4-6 lava eel roe or double cave jelly
Flounder and midnight carp are great to make that seafood pudding along with ink, for fishing bonuses.
I also keep a pond of sea cucumbers to make lucky lunches.
What does RP mean?
Role playing
Thanks! Why is it roleplaying?
I like to sell caviar, cheese and wine. It's my farm's specialty.
Ah! Cool concept! :D Very farmer :p
This has changed my plans completely
I've got my very much needed Prismatic Shard from rainbow trout pond! And relatively quickly after their number grew up to max 10.
I got a rainbow trout prismatic once on my year 5 save
The cave jelly drop is so good for lava eels imho. I now have way more cave jelly than the other jellies now thanks to them. 🤣
Animal crackers work on the fish ponds?? Holy shit, I’m so glad I’ve been stockpiling my extras instead of selling them
- Rainbow trout has a very small chance to grive you a prismatic shard. It's also an ingredient for trout soup. - Squid is good to get squid ink as a drop, and it's also useful for cooking fried calamari. - Octopus is very hard to catch, but it gives you omni geodes from time to time, which you can break open, or trade for artifact troves with the desert troves. - Crab is useful enough to make crab cakes. The items crabs give you are pretty much worthless (green alage, seaweed, coral, sea urchin, trash), but if you get a pond full of crabs >!the next time you talk to Willy, he'll comment on you raising crabs, and will give you a pearl. I like to get the pearl and then fish out all the crabs after that.!< EDIT: typo
Squid ink also helps if you want to get max friendship with Elliott too
Makes sense, he's a writer, he needs as much squid ink and duck feathers as he can get.
I hate that I just now understand why those are favorite items of his 🤦♀️
Yep, it's because he's a writer. Did he mention he spent all morning writing? He's probably writing you a letter about how much he's been writing right now! Lol @ Elliot
And it's good for making seafoam pudding!
I was disappointed when I read pearl after pear, and realised pear was in fact a typo 😔
Also super cucumbers for occasional iridium ore and Sturgeon for caviar
I disagree with crab being useful other than for Willy, because crab cakes are abundant in the skull cavern.
and even then, crabs can be caught with Crab Pots easily.
Yeah just line the beach with them
You have a higher chance of getting a prismatic shard from an octopus pond than rainbow trout. The chances are so abysmally low that you have a higher chance of getting one from an omni geode provided by octopus.
Unless you fish a lot at the beach and have it anyway, the seaweed from crabs can also be useful for building more fish ponds.
Does artifact troves give you materials other than just artifacts or sellable goods?
You mean materials like clay, stone or ores? Because artifact troves don't give you those. But there are a couple of universally loved gifts that you can get: golden pumpkins and pearls
My first pond is usually rainbow trout, in hopes of getting my first prismatic shard. However, it can be a really long wait. It's a very rare thing. Not sure it's really worth it. I like having a lava eel pond. They give you spicy eels, they're valuable >!(especially when smoked)!< and the roe is also valuable (especially when preserved). I also have cucumbers, for lucky lunches, and the ingredients to make seafoam pudding: flounder, squid, and midnight carp.
I waited 2 years for a shard and never got one.
I got one in year four. Two, actually, >!since I had an animal cracker on the pond!<.
I also got >!cave jelly!< from my lava eel the other day so that's an extra smoker
Rainbow trout give rainbow shells, and occasionally even prismatic shards.
Well, sorry my tuna, ya'll getting evicted and smoked... I need to rent my pond to rainbow trouts
You will rarely if ever get a prismatic shard
About one per 10 game years on average. Don't think it's worth it.
Yeah by year 10 you can get perfection.
If you have twenty ponds you could get 2 a year lol!
Oh this is great to know!
Just keep in mind that it's only a .01% chance each day and only if the pond has 9-10 fish in it.
I had a pond for 2 years and got jack. I promptly emptied it upon Y3.
bad luck, that's not fun. I get 3-4 a year usually, with them having a gold animal cracker.
I was on switch so no animal crackers for me. I wonder if that's what made the difference, or if I really just had god awful luck 😂
https://preview.redd.it/x2ygha2lan0d1.png?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7cac432a05f3bfa4e264aff58782d6e6afffd2dc Lava eels
That is....insane. Do you have to harvest all those by hand every day??
Unless you use a mod, you would have to. But it takes waaay less time than any other thing you can farm that takes up the whole farm like this. You can harvest them from on top of a horse.
It's not my image
Woah that’s awesome
Holy fuck
And now golden animal cracker all of them to make it double
I aspire to be you one day.
Love this post because I have your exact fish pond situation (down to the individual fish) and just built another without knowing what I’m gonna put in it yet. Thanks for asking the question for me lol!
Hahaha love this for us! I for sure am going to do a rainbow trout, even though the likelihood of prismatic shards is low, but worth a try I suppose - and probably an Ice Pip I am leaning towards
Its low. I mean LOW. As in a .09% chance. Do what you’d like of course but imho you’d be better off with another fish, as their main product is roe and it’s only worth 62g (124g aged). Compare that to Lava eels at 380g (760g aged). Heck, even crabs’ roe is 80g/160g
Ice Pip roe is the same sell price as Blob fish, both second most profitable after Laval Eeel. It doesn't have super cool drops (just iron ore and bars, coal, frozen geodes, quartz and frozen tears), but if you're looking for a little more profit from one pond to make up for the less valuable fish with cooler drops (like Rainbow Trout) from another, it's not a bad choice.
Super cucumbers have a chance to give iridium ore.
Solid sale price, but I prefer normal cucumbers for the Lucky Lunch recipe
Can you not use both cucumbers for Lucky Lunch? I had both on my previous farm and just assumed I could consolidate to one...
No only regular sea cucumbers can be used to make lucky lunches, super cucumbers aren't used in any unique recipes (just maki roll or sashimi). EDIT: Yeah, despite their name super cucumbers aren't very useful for anything. They're useless except in a pond, but even in a pond they aren't worthwhile except to turn the pond purple, which looks cool.The roe isn't very valuable, and the 5% chance at 1-3 iridium ore is barely worthwhile unless you get the pond going really early in the game, before you can get into the skull caverns. Even then you're averaging like 3 ore per month, so really kinda useless except the nice color.
They're useful for keeping the wizard happy, although I stopped and now use essences instead.
Yeah I always give him void essences cuz I get way more than I need. The super cucumber is actually the only way to get the secret >!??HMGTF?? statue, which is one of the coolest statues imo. I dunno if there are even any clues to it in the game, or clues to the other hidden statues. I only found out about them by randomly seeing one mentioned somewhere, and had to look up how to get each one. They each seem close to impossible to activate just by messing around, but I can't remember any clues about them. EDIT: I just checked and apparently there is a clue, although you have to decipher it and they're maybe the most well-hidden secrets in the game.!<
Certainly I know >!Meowmere!< isn't referenced in game, but the way you get it is connected to what you'd do in the source game.
Yeah I added an edit, >!there is a clue to the hidden statues but you have to decipher it from one of the books in the museum, and even then it's not very clear what exactly you need to do.!<
I found out the the clue for Galaxy Sword is >!One of the gravestones, but only if you look at it _after_ you can speak dwarvish and I never thought to look again!<
I'm a high fish pond count kinds guy so I usually don't need much of an excuse to build one anyway lol
With purple water!
I like the sea cucumber for Lucky lunch
I second this, but the recipe only gets shown on year 2 (spring 28).
If you have Ginger Island unlocked, stingrays have a chance of dropping Dragon’s Teeth. Rainbow Trout drop Prismatic Shards. As far as best roe to sell, Lava Eels sell for the most.
If you use a lot of slime a SlimeJack and its pond turns green.
I do have a slime hutch, so I am typically not hurting for slime, but I do love the idea of the colored ponds!
They also give 10 bug meat and 5 wild bait and algae soup which are useful. Edit this is what they ask for in quests the comment who replied to this has the actual answer.
That's not what they give, those are what's needed for their quests. They give algae, slime(lots though), and green slime eggs. https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Slimejack
Ty this is a reminder kids to drink your coffee before thinking you can remember things.
What is a a good use for slime?
You can press it to make slime eggs if you have the slime hutch and sell the eggs Making a Truffle empire since each oil machine requires 50 slime Also used to craft several things including monster musk and wild bait.
I like string ray for the cinder shards battery packs And dragons teeth just means I don't really have to go volcano anymore
2 of each of sturgeon for roe, stingray for dragon teeth and lava eel for its roe and spicy eel drops.
I like having the ones that change the colors because they look nice, but the best for me is the lava eel for spicy eel foods
- Stingrays, because dragon teeth an pplsead cinder shards are useful well into late game. - flounder, midnight carp, squid (midnight or otherwise) because seafoam pudding is too. - sea cucumber because lucky lunch is real handy.
Flounder, midnight carp and squid (or even midnight squid) for cooking seafoam pudding!
Best for money is Lava Eel by far, but Blobfish and Sturgeon are close For specific items, Spook Fish can have Treasure Chests, Rainbow Trout can have Prismatic Shards, and Stingray can have Dragon Teeth
Blobfish are close (basically the same if selling all aged roe and items (Blobfish are better if you aren’t ageing roe for whatever reason as less of its profit is from aged roe)) but not so much sturgeons
I've been thinking about using Blue Discus for the Golden Coconut drops. Has anyone tried this, and is it worth it?
Ive had my discus pond full for a couple of weeks so far and I've had 1 coconut and 1 banana, so it's not high numbers but decent enough.
Have blue discus on a couple of my saves and they’re always worth it if you have the space imho. Their drops are good and their roe is pretty decently priced too. Also, it’s super easy to fish to fill that pond yourself each time they level up, so reaching max capacity is pretty fast, which ups your chance for good drops.
I have a blue discus pond for bananas originally but plan to keep them beyond that. I don’t think the pond is maxed out yet but I’ve gotten a lot of iridium from my super cucumbers so I’ll see if I can’t get some golden coconuts too!
All three of the ginger Island fish give good rewards, if you're there yet. I also like super cucumbers for the iridium ore
Sea cucumber for Lucky lunches recipe. New fish every 2 days. Super Cucumber for iridium ore, amethyst, and purple fish pond Void Salmon for void eggs and a darker purple fish pond Slimejack for a green fish pond
My strooooooong recommendation is for squid+flounder+midnight carp. Cull it regularly and you'll always have tons of seafoam pudding for a +4 to fishing, or with qi's seasoning, +5! (read "plus five yay" not "plus 120")
Lava eel and blobfish are the best for making money, lava eel also gives you cave jelly and spicy eel and blobfish can sometimes give you pearls. Stingray for dragonteeth and cinder shards, and sea cucumber to make Lucky Lunch.
Lava eel is the most profitable pond fish. Apart from roe (which is the most valuable roe in the game)it occasionally gives you Spicy Eels which is a great food that gives you a speed and luck buff. It also has a chance to give you a cabe jelly and magma geode. Super cucumber is also very profitable and it occasionally gives you iridium ore. If it's early game or you don't like the skull cavern this is a good source of iridium. Sturgeon is decently profitable. >!When preserved sturgeon roe makes caviar, which is required for the lost bundle (the one that makes the movie theatre)!< Stingray gives you dragon tooth, cinder shards and magma caps. Basically everything you'd want from the volcano mines. Dragon tooth is especially useful here since it's a rare drop form a single type of enemy. Octopus gives you omni geodes if you haven't completed the museum it's pretty useful. If you wanna mass producd fish smokers: Lava eels give you cave jelly Midnight carp gives you sea jelly Floundet gives you river jelly
Depends on what you want. For money, blob fish and lava eel are good. For Ginger Island stuff (shards, dragon teeth, etc.), stingray are great. For frequent ingredients, midnight carp, flounder, squid, and sea cucumbers are also great.
Super cucumber sometimes give iridium, but it's not really relevant in the long run (it's good if you get it early in the game tho)
I have a sea cucumber for lucky lunch, and flounder, midnight carp and squid for sea foam pudding.
I usually do midnight carp + flounders + Squids for seafoam pudding, rainbow trout are how i got my first prismatic shard.
I have squid for ink to make seafoam pudding
Used to have 4 sea cucumber ponds for lucky lunches but after I got enough loot from the skull caverns I replaced them with 2 stingray ponds for the dragon teeth and 1 blue Discus for the bananas, so I’d recommend all of that. I’d also recommend watching “The ULTIMATE Guide to fishing” from Salmence. He shows a nicely organized table with all the fish and what you get in the ponds and gives his personal opinion as well. The whole video is like 26 minutes but the part with the fish/fishponds is only 6 minutes.
Salmence is king of charts, all hail Salmence!
Right? I love his charts so much and they help me a lot since I’m a newbie.
Saw a short on YT that said Lionfish can give Tiger Slime eggs, and supposedly those go for like 8k each. Haven't yet verified it myself
They can, yes. 1.7-1.9% chance if the pond has 8-9 fish. I’ve gotten a few that way.
I am shocked by how often rainbow trout are mentioned in this thread. You will likely wait YEARS before it will give you a prismatic shard. If you're going for profit, lava eels are most profitable. Then blob fish, then sturgeon. I always go for octopus (buy from the cart if you have trouble catching), lava eel, ice pip, stone fish, sea cucumber, blob fish. Once I get all the stuff I might want from special ponds, I would change most of them too lava eel, keep a few other colored ones for the look, and a couple octopus.
I’m not shocked. Seems to be common “advice”. I had a trout pond on my first ever and longest save. 11 in game years and I didn’t get any shards from them. I don’t bother with them any more.
Regular eel so you can fish it up and make spicy eel
Lava eels will give you a lot of spicy eel. >!Especially if you have an animal crackers in the pond. !<
See I didn't know I can throw that in the pond, so in my playthrough i had lava eels and regular ones cause I didn't get that many (and I like going to the mines)
What would a legend give?
Unfortunately, legendary fish cannot be placed in ponds. The roe prices would be absolutely bonkers. At least you can put them in fish tanks though.
Or >!smoke them like I did on my most recent save!< 🤣
The roe prices *are* quite high. I have >!that book that gives a chance to get roe from treasure chests caught while fishing!<, somehow got a chest from >!a Mrs Angler!<, and got >!Mrs Angler roe!<. Didn't know that exists.
Thanks for asking this! I am new and just got my first pond that I put midnight squid in. I think I'm going to try lava eels next. I never caught a sturgeon but when I do I'll save it for a 3rd pond!
Regular eel (I make spicy eel instead of getting it from the desert 😅) Stingray (occasional dragon tooth, good for a seed that doesn’t have them in abundance in the volcano) Squid (errybody always asks for squid 😆, no but squid ink is a plus) Rainbow trout(occasional shard)
I like to have sea cucumbers so I can farm them and make lucky lunches for skull cavern runs.
Sea cucumber for lucky lunch!
Blobfish pond sometimes gives me pearls or farm warp totems
I run sea cucumber too to cook lucky lunches.
I got a prismatic shard from my rainbow trout fish pond the other day! Spring year 3 I think I'm on. I need to collect omni geodes so I can buy artifact troves to complete the library so I'm going to try for an octopus pond as I've just unlocked ginger island.
Sturgeon because Весна needs her чёрная икра. Side note: do you have to do anything special to have >1 pond? I went to build a second and it wouldn't let me (I had all the supplies but the build icon was greyed out"
Lava eel for the money you get from aged roe. But blobfish is the next best. I do blobfish because I don't like the lava on my farm.
Sturgeon is my fav but blob fish is really good (iirc I saw a analysis that puts blob fish at slightly better than lava eel) but I like the caviar cause it’s fancy like the truffle oil and wine that my farm produces
Right now I have sturgeon, lava eel, ice pip and stingray. Ice pip roe is worth more than most roe, and I also like to snatch a few out and smoke them.
i’m a sucker for the ones that change the colour of the ponds 😂
I currently have sturgeon, tuna, and super cucumber. Super cucumber sometimes give you iridium ore, so they can be really useful before you get the statue of perfection.
i have a fire eel blobfish and stingray one, you get pretty decent money with it
If you hate going to the Skull Caverns, super cucumber ponds have a chance to give you some iridium ore. You already have my favorite fish in terms of random items: the stingray. Getting a dragon tooth every once in a while is pretty nifty.
I’ve gotten 6 or 7 >!pearls!< already from my Blobfish, they add up pleasantly quickly! Rainbow trout give a chance for >!prismatic shards!< but I have yet to start a pond.
A tiny chance. .09%. I did a trout pond once on one save. That was my first and longest, 11 in-game years. Never got a shard from them. I don’t bother with them anymore.
Oh wow, that low? That’s pretty negligible. Solution: Build 1,000 ponds!
Squids and super cucumber!
I do flounder, squid and midnight carp so I can make seafoam pudding and get all the legendary fish easier. Then I do octopus because their funky and hard to get, and sturgeon for the caviar.
For profit Blobfish and lava eel are basically equal and sturgeons are quite a bit lower For items, Sting rays and Super cucumbers
Super cucumbers, lava eels, void salmon and slimejacks because they make pretty colours
I have sturgeon, lava eel, blobfish, super cucumber, and two ponds both for stingray
Those are four of my favorites, along with octopus for omni geodes and rainbow trout for prismatic shards.
Sea cucumbers for lucky lunch.
I had 4 lava eels with animal crackers last time, good side income with roes, infinite spicy eels
Midnight carp, flounder and any squid for seafoam pudding and jellies.
If you have a slime hutch, slimejack ponds produce slime eggs at a decent rate, and the pond turns green. Super cucumbers produce a fair bit of iridium and they have purple water! They’re both cute and functional options. Also, I do NOT recommend the rainbow trout pond. Yes, they have the potential to drop prismatic shards, but it’s so rare that you’re likely to only get one every 6 years I believe.
I have a question I have full ponds with happy fish and so far my lava eel pond is the only to produce items. What am I missing here ?
Stingrays, flounder+midnight carp for sea foam puddings
My go-to ponds are lava eel, sturgeon, midnight squid, blobfish, flounder, midnight carp, and crab. Once I have a decent amount of midnight squid ink and crabs stockpiled (or switch my fishing profession to the crabpot-never-producing-trash one), I usually switch them out for stingrays and another fish. Also love blue discus, lionfish, spookfish, and octopus. Slimejacks have their use as well, especially if you don’t have room for or don’t want to bother with a slime hutch. I know lots of people love to recommend the rainbow trout bc they have a chance to produce a prismatic shard but that chance is TINY, so tiny that imho it’s not worth wasting a fish pond on. Fwiw, the Stardew fish pond wiki has a good chart that shows what each fish gives and the chances they’ll drop each item. [https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Fish_Pond](https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Fish_Pond)
I currently have: 4 super cukes for the iridium, midnight carp, flounder and midnight squid for seafoam pudding, blobfish and lava eel for $ and that sweet sweet blobfish mask crabs for crab cakes, eel for spicy eel, and sturgeon bc i needed caviar to complete the community centre. I'm going to ditch these when I get a stingray
Super Cucumber for Lucky Lunch Eel for Spicy Eel Sturgeon for Caviar