Try and do a good deed and see how wrong it can go

[meriad]

someone was advertising three goldfish with their tank and filter on FreeCycle. So, me being me and feeling sorry for all creatures great and small, make contact and tell the person I'm happy to take them off him as long as they are happy that come the spring the fish will be relocated into my pond. "Perfect" comes the reply - the poor fish are outgrowing their tank and would love to have more space. Oh and he did say that I'd easily be able to carry the tank on my own if some of the water was taken out; so I thought they'd be nice regular medium sized fish... so off I go early Saturday morning

I get to the house and he's got 2 fantails (actually i think these are called veil tails) and one regular fish swimming about in the most stupidly small tank - and these fish are HUGE - about 15cm nose to end of tail fins. They are 9 years old apparently and the kids are now bored of them hence the rehoming. The poor things - how they got to the size they are in that tank I'll never know. Anyway so home I go, get the fish into the lounge and then figure out next steps. I ended up ordering a new 65l tank (which is just over double the size of what they're in now) but that'll still be to small for them really. And to top it all off - said veil tails apparently can't go into the pond because they're not bred for pond life.... sigh

Apparently, in an ideal world, 3 fancy goldfish should be in a 200l if not even a 300l tank.... well that I don't have space nor money for. The guy at the aquatic centre said that two in the small new tank would be OK, not 100% idea but OK as long as the third does go into the pond come spring.

Sigh... not sure what to do now to be honest. I am going to speak to the shop again and probably end up giving them the fan tails so they can rehome them to someone that has a HUGE tank and then get two or three small ones to keep the big other one company for the next few months and come the spring they can all go into the pond.

Oh dear - anyone want a fish?

[tonicha]

Oh Ria

If you were here - or if we were there - Grumpy would take them, he loves fish and fish tanks

Hope you get it all sorted out soonest xx

[Kaz]

Now where is that chip pan????

No seriously, what a shame that your lovely kind deed has rebounded on you like this Maybe rehoming would be the best answer, seeing as they are unsuitable for your pond? Sending big hugs for your kind heart (((((((((((((((((((x))))))))))))))))))))

[miasmum]

Oh Ria that is exactly the sort of thing that would happen to me.

[Diflower]

Oh no, what a shame!
It could easily happen to us too
Re-homing would sound the best bet, and sell the new tank on ebay?

When we moved here, there was an old white sink just outside the back door, with greenery in, 3 toads, and a lone goldfish
It was ugly and ridiculous. Very thankfully, when we had the new door & downstairs windows put in soon after, one of the guys doing it had a big garden pond and was more than happy to take the goldfish.
We all spent a hilarious hour or so with him bringing a suitable plastic tub, net, etc, but when he came back a year later to do the upstairs windows he reported said fish was alive, very well, and had grown a lot
The toads were fine - we waited till they vacated (they don't spend all that much time in water) and moved the sink, sort of camouflaged it and it's now a herb garden. We still have a resident toad or two

Hope you manage to sort it out meriad x

[meriad]

Di, I need the new tank anyway - I've got a tropical tank set up aalready nd that tank is not very nice any more and can do with replacing; it's just happening a bit sooner than expected

I've joined a fish forum and am asking advice there... I'm hoping that (after googling myself silly) that these three may actually be able to go into a pond because they're not as round as most sites say fancy fish are; these three are all quite regular fish shaped - it's just that two have long tail fins.

Watch this space

[Diflower]

It just might end up as a good result then x

[Kaz]

[Kaz]

Mick says Hi and was it the guy at the aquatic centre who said they couldn't go in the pond, or the chap you bought them from? Because as a carp variety they should be ok outside - we had massive goldfish in our pond in Swindon xxx

[meriad]

Hi back to Mick

Well, I took some photo's of the fish and posted them on said fish forum. I've had a reply overnight from the person who set up the forum saying that looking at the photos one indeed is a regular goldfish but the other two are comet goldfish and both are OK to go into the pond, fan tails or not. Phew.......

If you look at online photo's - fancy fish have very short and rounded bodies, whereas the 'normal' fish are the usual longer fish shape (which my three have). The problem with the rounder bodied fish is that because of the way they've been overbred they aren't fast enough to compete with normal fish when it comes to food and also not fast enough to get away from predators.

So it looks that I - and the fish - are in luck. They'll be moving into a slightly bigger aquarium this weekend and then come May / June next year when it's nice and warm they'll be going outside - yay!