There were four English versions: The first was Aquazone The Virtual Aquarium, which came out in the mid-90s. It had 20 neons & 20 leopard
catfish & an unlimited supply of food, meds & water conditioners. Further versions were basically the same, but offered more fish.
AquaZone Deluxe came with unlimited neons & leopard cats plus 5 each angelfish, black mollies, red phantom & rummy-nose tetras.
It also introduced the Accessory Maker, which allowed you to make your own custom accessories (which could also be animated).
The last version (AZ Deluxe w/Guppies) added 4 varieties of guppies & allowed cross-breeding; they said you could breed more than 5,000 varieties.
Once you'd bought the game you could buy other items from the online AZShop (which no longer exists since AZ didn't do well in the U.S.).
The next version added goldfish, but is in Japanese & isn't offered in the US. There are also Japanese add-on kits for other fish.
Now there's an AquaZone Visual Edition (Japanese) & the English version, AquaZone Desktop Garden. They are only screensavers.
There are add-on packs for these as well, some of which are only in Japanese -- AZ: Jellies, Turtles & More, AZ Fun Pack, AZ Seven Seas,
and two compilation packages, Perfect Freshwater & Perfect Saltwater, which I think combine all the separate add-ons to date.
So What Can I Do With AquaZone?
AquaZone can be enjoyed in different ways depending on how you choose to use it. For those who long to keep fish but are prevented by
circumstance from having them, it's a marvelous aquarium simulation where you must take proper care of your fish or they'll sicken & die, &
even when given optimum conditions they'll eventually die of old age.
You'll start by setting up a tank (or tanks), decorate it from among a variety of gravels, backgrounds, plants, accessories, select from various
foods, adjust the water & temperature, & finally add the fish. You'll then have to regularly clean filters & check water conditions & attend
to the endless chemical/medication/food amount tweaks necessary for a healthy aquarium & fish.
You can also happily spend months or years breeding guppies, goldfish, marble angelfish or discus for certain colors/strains.
When AquaZone released their first guppies--the redtail, yellow mosaic & german tuxedo--they stated that you could
breed 5,000 varieties from those 3 strains alone.
Or, if you view the purist approach described above as sheer drudgery or simply lack the time to be that involved in keeping/breeding
fish, you can utilize various tools, one of which will adjust all your fish/water stats to maximum with a few mouseclicks, freeing up
your time to play with gene splicing on guppies & discus, creating almost endless interesting new colors/strains.
You can also change the age & sex of your fish to suit your needs (except for guppies; AZ throws a fit if you change their sex).
You can also speed up the breeding process, creating & maturing consecutive batches of fry in minutes by 'warping'--advancing your
tank by months or years in a matter of minutes by manipulating your computer clock.
You can even strengthen your weak fish, heal your sick fish, even resurrect your dead fish.
But even if you're a purist, you should still take advantage of the FisherMan tool to change water volume, since a 600x800 tank as created
by AZ only holds around 8 gallons, a 1024x768 about 17 gallons, & a 1280x960 roughly 30 gallons. While you could make a tank
of huge physical dimensions, you'd have to deal with scroll bars on the side & bottom of your screen, which are cumbersome to use,
not to mention that you'll no longer be able to view the whole tank.
So it's really helpful to be able to make a 50-gallon (190 litre) tank that fits on your desktop, as it's much easier to keep larger tanks & their
inhabitants healthy. Just don't get carried away with upping the volume of your tanks as I've heard that if you make it too 'large',
some fish won't ever breed. Anyway, use common sense; obviously a mated pair of arowana would need a much larger tank than a
pair of guppies, which could use a much smaller tank than a school of discus, & so on.
Finally, if you simply like to make & decorate tanks & your only interest in genes is whether they're made by Wrangler or Lee
(or Diesel or Energie), you can create a tank, set it to 0 time (which requires no maintenance), decorate it, stock it with fish
& then open it on your desktop in lieu of an animated screensaver.
KEEPING FISH HEALTHY & HAPPY
AquaZone is an aquarium sim & has the same basic rules as do real tanks: pay attention to the water quality & don't allow the tank to foul from overfeeding.
Regarding Water Conditions
Don't be intimidated by the numerous water parameters AZ shows (which are mirrored in FisherMan).
The only ones you need concern yourself with are:
Water Temp: 26 works fine for all fish except the Blind Cave Fish who likes it cool; 20 would be fine.
pH: 7 works fine for all fish except mollies, give them 8
GH: 4 works fine for all but mollies & platies, give them 9
NH3: should be kept under 2, preferably at or near 0
Cl: set it to 0 when making a new tank to remove the chlorine
MG & CA: you can pretty much ignore these unless you have mollies & platies, which require mg70 & ca40
Regarding Plants
You should always put a few plants in each tank (.plt files; plant accessories are not plants). AZ takes this into consideration
when determining water quality. Also, many of your fish simply won't breed if there aren't any plants.
If you don't want plants showing, you should use invisible plants. This is a plant made with no image, just a pure white (RGB 255,255,255)
background (AZ sees pure white as transparent). The overhead view may also be transparent & you'll never know the
plants are there, which shouldn't be a problem as there's no reason to ever remove them.
Regarding Feeding
You should feed at least 3 different foods; AZ also takes this into account when determining health of the fish.
Feed every 6 hours (amounts vary, of course, according to size & number of fish). You'll develop a feel for this over time.
Don't overfeed or you'll foul your water, which will contribute to chemical imbalances & sick fish.
Don't underfeed or you'll weaken your fish & they'll be more susceptible to disease.
Remember to keep an eye on the food containers (crucial if you warp). When they need refilling, just remove them from the food menu & then add them back.