Close, but not exactly. The fish, their lifespans, etc. are stored server-side. While the variables are stored client-side, any good programmer will verify the authenticity of variables when transfered back to the server. If a fish's lifespan magically increased by years, they won't save it server-side, so the next time you load the game, the lifespan will be back to what it was.
The only way to glitch something like this is to exploit a server-side error.
This is Gaia we're talking about, before we get into "good programming" aspects. ;D
Pondering that, there must be some action that somehow corrupts the data sent back to the server. It definitely glitches the fish in question, as I know of hundreds of fish on the site that there's no possible way they should be living past a certain point, yet they do. Pretty much any all airshark or stone coatl tank you see is this way, as coatls only live 8 weeks, yet I've seen them alive for months, and the glow timer confirms they've been alive far past that.
What I've found so far is that a good way to glitch the life spans is to have the fish in your tank for a few days, then freeze them for a couple weeks. Pull them out, and in a few days, their death date should be pushed back, and from there, every week or two the death date then keeps pushing itself back without you having to do anything. I have also tried dropping new fish into my tank, then freezing them right away, and that works sometimes, but not others. Also, though I have frozen a fish with only four days left to live then pulled it out three weeks later and had it glitch, if you are going to try the first and most reliable way for freezing them, I don't recommend pushing the date so close. After all, the glitched date of death generally takes a few days to take effect.
It's so frustrating though, as I know of people with glitched fish, and even a friend on there has a ridiculous sum of them, but of course, he refuses to share. It *is* exploitable, it's just finding out the *how*.
