Please help, VERY old goldfish

kacedilla

kacedilla

AC Members
Jun 23, 2010
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Farmington, MN
My boyfriend has had this goldfish since elementary school and is now in his 20s which the fact that it's still alive is pretty incredible but now we're worried about it being too fragile or used to his environment to move into a better tank. The tank the fish is in now is tiny and frankly quite sad since he has nowhere to swim so we've set up a much bigger tank and decked it out for him. I was just wondering if I could get some better opinions of how this might affect the fish. We have put the old filter and a few decorations in the new tank from the old one to help with the natural bacteria growth. Thanks for the help :)
 
:iagree: the water that goes into both tanks is from the same source, right? So there shouldn't be much of a shock. The most stressful part would be catching/transferring him (depending on how big the gold fish is) - once he's in I'm sure he'll love the space.
 
If you're really worried about the shock, and the water in the old tank hasn't been changed in a while, you can also fill a bucket with the old water and gradually replace it with clean, dechlorinated water from the same source as what's going in the new tank. You could either drip it in through a piece of airline tubing and a valve, or just replace say 1/2 or 1/4 cup of water per hour. You want to keep the water in the bucket filtered and aerated while this is going on, of course.

But frankly, over a goldfish, I wouldn't put that much effort into it. Goldfish are pretty tough fish, I don't think the move will hurt it any. :)
 
It's not at all incredible from the standpoint of the fish that it's still alive. What is slightly unusual is that your boyfriend has done what it takes to allow the fish to live its natural lifespan.
 
It is always cool to see old fish. :) what everyone else said. If you're transferring the filter and decor, that'll help with the bacteria. Do you have a test kit? You'll want to keep an eye on ammonia and nitrities and watch for a mini cycle, and do water changes if you need to.

If he's getting a bigger tank, maybe some friends? I've never had goldfish but I believe while not a schooling fish, they are social and like some buddies.
 
Well thank you everyone and I'm happy to report that Whitey(finally the fish has a name), is doing perfectly fine in his new tank. The old tank was about a 5 gal and pretty gloomy in my opinion. Now he's in a 10 gal with plants and places to hide. When we first put him in his reaction was really fun to watch, I had never seen him be so active before :) We're not sure how long he has since he's lost all his gold color and quite a few scales but he's still quite lively and at least now he'll be more comfortable...kind of like a fishy rest home lol.
 
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