BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Fish How old is your Gold Fish?

Good for you for bringing that large black fish in a small bowl to someone's attention! Poor fishy - that is so awful. I hopw the estate agent helped out the fish and gave him a good aquarium that was big enough for him... I'm sure you weren't the first to notice - but probably the first to say something!

How horrible. I use think that I wanted a goldfish pond, but the more I find out about others experiences the more I realize this isn't a good idea.

My local master gardener office has a beautiful pond with goldfish that have generations of off-spring, all very healthy and happy. That pond is so much work though, they're constantly out there changing filters and doing water amendments. They even have big rubber boots that they'll wear.

Maybe just a pond with some water plants for decoration would be easier. I mean, even if the fish are doing great there's no telling birds wont just show up and eat them all.

Mary-

It bugs me when people purchase pets solely for a decoration. If you're not going to make the effort to care for it properly and it's just for show, why not set up a vase of flowers instead?

There's so many ways that you can have a healthy fish or a healthy canary (I have one) and still have the way it's presented be stylish, it just takes more money and effort.

Hi Charity Roses - Yes, the pond was a lot of work. The worst part though, was losing the fish so horribly.
We have settled on a fountain for the front garden - sadly, no fish. I'm just not sure we could protect them - we seem to have a lot of waterbirds in our area so our next "fish family" would probably end up on their menu...
I agree a vase of flowers is a lovely touch.....a large fish crammed in a small bowl - definitely not!

Yes, the same thing happened with the birds eating the fish at a pond of rare desert pupfish at The Living Desert - a zoo and botanical gardens. It was really sad - and so now they have the pupfish inside in a tank to keep them safe. The fish are swimming around happily and it's a very pretty tank - prettily decorated. Hopefully, they will build their population of the pupfish back up again since the birds ate about 100 of the pupfish and practically wiped them out - they are an endangered species. You'd need some kind of enclosure over your pond if you want fish because otherwise, how will you ever keep the birds from eating them?

I have noticed my fish enjoying looking at a vase of roses I set near their tank. They seem mesmerized by these flowers that I had just cut from our rosebushes! It seems there could be ways to have a protected pond, and a stylishly done fish tank on a budget, and some beautiful flowers for both you and your fish to look at!