Stardew Valley – A Guide to Fish Ponds: Basics and Long Terms

This guide will be a full guide on fish ponds, the extent of their worth, how to set them up, when they should be bought, and an overall guide to one of the more unused aspects of the game.

Basics to Fish Ponds

Сrеdit gоеs to Damocles!

Introduction

Fish ponds were added with content update 1.4 for Stardew Valley and allow the player character to add several fish ponds around his or hers property with varying types of fish and other aquatic animals. These fish ponds can be a great way to obtain a long term source of income, certain items needed for crafting, end game items, and overall a way to spice up the look of your farm. Fish Ponds can be crafted at Robin’s Shop located at her house in the Northern Mountains for 200 stone, 5 seaweed, 5 green algae, and 5,000 gold. The ponds will occupy a 5×5 space on your farm and each pond can hold one type of fish.

Each pond will produce one type of roe in relevance to the fish and when put into a preserves jar will become aged roe, doubling the price. Ponds appearances can be changed from menus found on the right hand side traditionally and the ponds can be emptied at anytime through re-catching the fish from the pond or emptying it from the right side menu. Note, if the pond is emptied via the menu, the fish will not be returned as of update 1.4.4

Workings of the Ponds

Fish ponds are one of the few sources of income that will remain year round. The fish will always produce no matter the weather nor time of day. The ponds other than fruit cave, mushroom cave, greenhouse, barn, and coop, are one of the few steady sources of income other than crops.

As mentioned above each Fish Pond can hold one certain type of fish. These fish can all be caught in the game world and the ponds can hold all fish but the 5 legendary fish featured in the game and the clam as it is not registered as a fish by the game.

A maxed fish pond can hold up to ten fish and can only be achieved after all previous levels have been filled.

Each pond starts off with a certain limit on how many fish can enter the pond. These caps can change over time with the completion of quests each pond will give you. Each certain type of fish has desired objects that you will need to bring it before more fish can be added. Fish types and amount bring different variations in these items and the number of fish per limit is decided on based on species of fish. Certain, higher yielding fish, will have a higher limit and may even be max size when first added to a pond compared to a lower yielding fish, however, this comes with the disadvantage of less money produced from these ponds. Overall, the decision of fish is based on player preference and time. The best fish for long term success and gain of income will be listed in the section below along with where to catch them and how the pond will react with them.

If you wish to experiment with fish ponds yourself and have found what you came to this guide for you may stop here. The following section will be based off where to find and how to raise some of the best long term fish in the game. I hope this guide was helpful for you and that it finds you and your family in good health. As for anyone else the continued section will provide the best understanding of some high tier fish that I can provide.

The Top Dogs of the Fish World

Certain types of fish in game have a much higher output of income than others. Below you will find guides on the best fish ponds in game at the time of writing and how to obtain the fish for them.

Sturgeon: Sturgeon is a fish that can be found in the Mountain Lake north of Town and can be caught during the Summer and Winter. Sturgeon produce the best selling Roe in the game producing caviar compared to the other roe produced by fish when entered into preserves jar. Caviar has a base sell price of 500 G and can be increased with certain perks found in game. The sturgeon pond will produce size events at 1, 3, 5, and 7 fish. When maxed sturgeon can provide roe nearly every other day.

Lava Eel The Lava Eel can be found at level 100 in the mines and can be caught using any fishing rod. The Eel has a low spawn rate a may be difficult to catch but the pay off is worth it as the Lava eel is the second best selling fish next to the legendary fish and produce Roe well worth the time needed to catch it. The Eel follow the same pattern as the Sturgeon growing in size at 1, 3, 5, and 7 fish. When maxed the Eel can also produce Roe almost every other day.

Night Market Fish The Night Market Fish include the Spook Fish, Midnight Squid and Blobfish and produce the best roe compared to the Lava Eel and Sturgeon. The fish can be caught on the 15-17 of Winter the Night Market located on the Beach. Enter the submarine and talk to the captain and upon reaching the bottom of the ocean the fish can be caught. The Spook Fish and Midnight Squid both produce events at 3, 5, and 8 fish producing Roe and Squid Ink respectively while the Blobfish follows the 1, 3, 5, 7 pattern and produces a large array of items.

Experiences and Notes

Hello everyone, I have enjoyed Stardew Valley for some time now and decided I wanted to start writing guides for the community on new and old features. This is my first guide and I plan on writing weekly guides based on questions or new content and would love to hear what you guys would like to know and how this guide seems to you. If anyone has any suggestions or questions please done be afraid to say so. I hope everyone is doing well through the craziness that is this world right now and that this guide could help. Thank you for reading and I hope i answered any questions and this unappreciated building!