The Sims 4 has a lot to offer if you think outside the box.. and if you?re willing to use a few cheats. One of the easiest ?custom builds? in The Sims 4 is a wall-to-wall custom aquarium. The best part? You don’t need to use any mods to build a custom aquarium in The Sims 4. You will need to use a few cheats and own at least one of the Sims 4 packs that came with large aquariums.
Ready? Let’s go.
This tutorial for building an aquarium in The Sims 4 assumes you have some basic build knowledge of the game and you know how to use the cheat console. If you don’t, you can still give it a whirl, but you might need to dive into the deep end and learn as you go. No pun intended.
Sims 4: No mods wall aquarium ? cheats needed
- testingcheats true
- bb.moveobjects
- bb.showhiddenobjects
- bb.showliveeditobjects
- Holding ALT
- Shift + ]
- Shift + [
Sims 4: No mods wall aquarium ? packs required
You can use any of the packs that came with a large aquarium as an object. Those aquariums and packs are:
- Swimming with the Fishes and Perfect Private Aquarium
- (Spa Day)
- Sea Plus Aquarium (Dine Out)
- Harbor in a Box Aquarium (Cats & Dogs)
- Tap Tap Table (My First Pet Stuff)
There is a way to build a custom aquarium in The Sims 4 base game without needing any of these packs, but it’s a slightly more complicated tutorial. Keep an eye out for it on our site soon. It involves using the fishing signs from the debug objects cheat mode – but it can get a bit fiddly.
The fishbowls from the base game will sort of work, but the effect won’t be nearly as dramatic. You can follow the same method with the base game fish bowls, but you’ll have to use a few to get the same effect.
How to build a custom wall-to-wall Sims 4 aquarium without mods or CC
Start off by building a rectangular box, the size of which you want your aquarium to be. Go up one level and draw a pool to fit inside the box. Place windows on the walls as you normally do so that you can see inside your Sims 4 custom-built aquarium.
Form here, you can start decorating the inside of your custom aquarium in the Sims 4. Top tip: if you didn?t know, you can change the tiles and walls of a pool to give it a deeper and darker look.
If you have any of the packs that allows you yo change pool water, play around a bit with a few different swatches. Depending on the type of aquarium you’re building, the only restriction here is what you set yourself.
Using the debug objects cheats will unlock a lot of potential to make sure your custom Sims 4 aquarium looks? well… like an aquarium. There are no wrong or right ways to decorate here – this The Sims, after all. If you want your fish to swim around in an aquarium filled with base game cars from the debug catalogue, we’re not going to stop you.
An important part of the decorating process is to make sure you have objects large enough to hide the actual aquarium in. Rocks are great for this. If you own Island Living and you want to build something a little larger, the coral reef works well too. You can even add some fountain spouts for a bit of dramatic effect. Remember to hold ALT when placing objects to get them more precise. You can also use Shift + [ or Shift + ] with an object selected to scale them to size.
Once you?ve decorated your Sims 4 custom aquarium build, it’s time to add some fish. Stock the aquariums with the fish you want ? fully stocked works best, obviously. But maybe your storyline requires a sad Tetra and a vengeful Guppy. Whatever floats your buoy. You can also use more than one aquarium if you have several packs. Just be mindful that some of the aquarium’s own decor (not the one you built) will stay the same size even when you make the tank smaller.
Now it’s time to move the box into your custom Sims 4 aquarium. First, with the aquarium selected in build mode, use the resize cheat (Shift + [ or Shift + ]) to make it as small as you can. Now move it into your Sims 4 custom aquarium ? hold alt to get it tucked away somewhere. If your rocks aren?t big enough to hide it straight away, don’t worry ? you can always add more foliage and other objects to disguise it.
That’s it. You should have a functional Sims 4 custom aquarium to add to your builds. Play around with different themes and decorations and go as big as you like.