As one would assume, chinchou are primarily aquatic pokémon. As such, just like many other aquatic pokémon, they’ll need a pool or tank of clean water, and it’s important to keep a regular maintenance routine with it. Your chinchou will be doing everything in its pool—eating, sleeping, excreting wastes, and so forth—so it’s of the utmost importance that you ensure the water’s changed regularly. It may also help to invest in a filter, but this shouldn’t take the place of regular weekly cleaning.

Additionally, don’t forget that chinchou primarily live in the ocean, which means they’re saltwater pokémon, rather than freshwater. Adding sand at the bottom of your pool or tank is one step to making your chinchou feel at home, but the second step must be to add saltwater whenever you cycle its habitat’s water supply. You do this by mixing sea salt (available at most pokémarts and pokémon pet supply stores) with any water you add to your tank or pool. Always be sure that the water is clear and that the pH and temperature are just right before adding it to your chinchou’s habitat. If the water is cloudy, then that means the salt hasn’t been fully dissolved, which means the salinity will be too off-balance for your chinchou to handle.

Granted, yes, chinchou, like all pokémon, are highly adaptable and can survive in freshwater (or even on land), but to maintain its peak health, it should be allowed to swim in saltwater on a regular basis. For most people, it’s easier to keep a saltwater habitat than a freshwater and saltwater one, but if you have more freshwater pokémon than marine pokémon (for example, if you also raise magikarp, goldeen, feebas, carvanha, and so forth), it may be more convenient to keep a freshwater tank for all of them. Just be sure to give your chinchou a saltwater bath a few times a week to give it the nutrients it needs and to maintain the texture of its skin.

Chinchou are also carnivorous pokémon, and in the wild, they thrive primarily on shrimp, krill, some cephalopods (particularly cuttlefish), and small, bottom-dwelling fish. In captivity, it’s recommended to put them on diets consisting of mostly fresh or frozen shrimp or pieces of frozen fish (or, if you can afford it, pieces of squid or octopus). Avoid feeding them canned sardines, anchovies, or other fish, as tempting and cheap as that might be, because the processing techniques often render canned fish too fatty for pokémon consumption—especially in the cases of anchovies and sardines. Every so often, you may feed your chinchou frozen peas to add variance and fiber to their diets. If all else fails, there is, of course, pokémon kibble.

As for entertainment and sleeping arrangements, your chinchou will be perfectly comfortable just sleeping at the bottom of its tank, especially if you’ve lined it with sand instead of rocks. Some enjoy sleeping inside artificial caves, so making or buying one and adding it to your tank may be a good idea. Additionally, most chinchou feel safest when hiding in seaweed forests. While you’re rather limited on what you can grow in a domestic tank (many species of aquatic plants found in the ocean can’t actually be grown at home), you can still invest in a few samples of macro algae to simulate chinchou’s native forests. Yes, as much of a hassle as that sounds, it’s better to use real vegetation instead of plastic plants. Oftentimes, plastic plants do nothing more than accumulate bacteria and present just one more thing you need to clean on your weekly maintenance routines. Meanwhile, if you add real macro algae to your setup, they often help regulate the oxygen and nitrate levels of your chinchou’s water supply while giving them a place to rest and hide. That and they sometimes make excellent between-meal snacks for your chinchou.

So long as there’s plenty of water for your chinchou to swim about in, it doesn’t really need anything else in terms of toys. It will simply spend much of its time swimming along the bottom of the tank or coming up to sun on the surface. The only other thing to keep in mind is that every so often, they discharge electricity (as do all electric-types), and it’s highly recommended that you avoid contact with the water when that happens, as it may accidentally electrocute you in the process. If you’d like to minimize the likelihood of that happening while adding something to your own routine that allows you to interact more often with your chinchou, set up a lightning rod somewhere near your pool and set aside time each day to have chinchou come ashore and do lightning training under your watch. That is to say, set aside time each day to direct chinchou into attacking a lightning rod using its electrical techniques, such as Thunder Wave or Electroball. Not only will this give your chinchou plenty of time to discharge its excess energy in a safe manner, but the training will also be excellent target practice as well as preparation for full-scale battles.

In short, initially, chinchou may be a bit more complicated than most pokémon to prepare a habitat for, and the routine maintenance is not only time-consuming but also an absolute requirement. However, once you get your chinchou’s tank set up and integrate it into its new environment, chinchou are among the least fussy pokémon to care for, as they’re frequently content with just water, food, light, and a bit of sand and algae to sleep on at night.