Aw, she sounds like a sweetie!

Is Jack still very bad? Is he lying down a lot?

I introduced my ranchu Boo into the main tank on Saturday after an incident with the quarantine tank - wish I could say the same was happening for me, but no they're all in there knocking the crap out of each other!

My blind ranchu is getting the worst of it because he can't see him coming, but at least my seeing-eye chu jumps to his defence immediately.

Oh wow! They are beautiful, you must be so proud!

Really shows the need for a big tank.

Yes, it was my Ronnie who would clack the thermometer, then check to see if you were getting up, then clack again for a bit, then check again! No more clacks now though :(

How's Rocket doing now?

Hi Suey, sorry to hear of Rocket's problems :/

Ronnie did the tail standing a good bit, however he did it for as long as I can remember, Mr V used to call it 'dancing' as he'd move his fins to stay balanced upright.

Anyway, I know you know Ronnie didn't come to a good end, however the issue was renal cysts putting pressure on his swimbladder, so I'd say Rocket's tailstanding might be swimbladder related also - she may be floatier towards the front end of it rather than the back end.

Baytril is also a good all-over antibiotic, and will catch anything you may not even have considered. Treating with it is awkward, but Ronnie certainly enjoyed his 'bucket time', so perhaps the vet visit is the best option.

We call that Napoleon Syndrome - Reggie was the smaller of Ronnie and Reggie and was definitely the braver fish, and Little Fishy is the smallest of the three in the big tank and is definitely the boss!

He's a bit better today, we noticed him coming out to stare at us, but when we turn to look at him he swims off!

He also understands I'm the Provider of Food, so I'm getting a warmer welcome!

Haha no, we can see the tank from the hallway so if I'm in the hall I can see him swimming about merrily, but when we're on the sofa next to the tank he won't come out.

Yeah, I'm hoping he is just a little on edge and lonely. He does remind me of Ronnie in this though, the biggest fish and a bit of a bully but a big cowardy custard when anything different happens!

Okay, this fish is completely doolally. I'm not sure what I've taken on.

He won't look at us, he's absolutely terrified, he spends the evening floating behind the plants with his back to us, when we aren't in the room he swims about normally. He'll come out for food, but we have to sit very still while he's eating or he gets spooked.

I did have a fish in quarantine before that just sat in one spot staring at the glass, until we put another fish in with her and then she sped over to swim beside him and around him, and it was like she got a new lease of life.

Could he be moping? He was in with another big ranchu in the shop, and a good few smaller guys. Is he missing his buddies?

I clean it once a week using the syphon, and give it a good stirring and dig through until the water is running clear.

Oh there are plenty of shops here where I can buy goldfish for a euro - or less!

My point was that I think goldfish should be priced high, like any other 'large' fish, to prevent people buying 4 or 5 in one go, and being a little more apprehensive about buying them.
If you remove the 'oh I'll just buy another one' attitude, I think goldfish care will come a long way, and people might actually want to research it before spending money on it.

Not sure how old he is, he'd only arrived in the shop the previous Thursday so there was no history on him!
He's very large, much larger than my other two chus and they're just over a year, so I'd say he's at least a year or two anyway - but then again - there has been a good amount of Singapore fish in the LFS lately, and they are HUGE, I'm theorising that these are fish that are very very bulked up through diet.

There was another fat chu in the shop with him, a very beautiful guy but I suspected he had the beginnings of popeye - when asking the staff, I ended up in such a frustrating roundabout conversation that I just gave up in the end and took this guy instead!

I've two chus already, BlindChu and Seeing-Eye Chu. Have to say they are really strong little things, such powerful little swimmers for how badly designed they look, they can really scoot about!

Interestingly, (I'm going to waffle on now, I've nobody else to listen!) he was 33 euro, which is a decent enough price for a fish. They do a 'buy 3 get one free' on goldfish (rage!!) but they have them priced so not many people are willing to buy 3 - I think the cheapest is 8 euro, ranging up to the 33 euro for the large fancies. I got him for free though with my loyalty card, hurrah!

They just recently started selling bowls however, they had some customer feedback from me but it just got shrugged off. I was utterly and truly shocked that a shop with the welfare of the fish as their priority would take this direction - I did do my best at 'Innocent Irritating Customer' however,

"Hi, so, I can put one of these in these goldfish tanks you have here, 10 litres, yes?'

'Sure!!'

"Ok cool. So that oscar over there, I can keep him in one if I get a heater, right?'

'Um, no, we would not sell you the oscar if we thought you were going to do that..'

'Why's that then? Don't they only grow to the size of their environment?'

'Well no, an oscar is a large fish, and 10L would be way too small....'

"Sooooo..... what's the max size of these goldfish, then? I see that big one there is bigger than the oscar? So he can go in this, right?'

'Um... no... look, I see what you're doing here..."

"YOU CAN'T PUT THESE FISH IN BOWLS, THEY GROW TOO BIG. THEY'LL DIE."

'They're STARTER kits!"

and so on and so on. They HATE to see me coming now :)