| Re: A tale of four goldfish - how tank size and living conditions can affect fish |
Subject: Re: A tale of four goldfish - how tank size and living conditions can affect fish by suey2 on 3/11/2013 12:30:17 My 'good old days' comment was more general really, there are posts all over the internet going on about 'I had x in y 'way back when' and it was all fiiiine'  Fish in captivity probably have lived longer than their wild counterparts for many years, my point is the ratio of those in captivity that did reach their appropriate life expectancy v those in captivity that didn't Goldies are a good example of a species where hundreds of thousands have been kept over the years and i'd guess only a tiny percentage have ever made to the life expectancy they should  If you think about this way, I won a fish from a fair when I was about 6, I'm now 39 so there's a strong possibility that had I cared for him properly in the intervening 33 years he'd still be here. He died after a few months IIRC. If all the goldies that ever entered the pet market made it to their full life expectancy you wouldn't be able to move in the UK for tripping over them, every house would have at least one, they'd be spilling out onto the streets  It's the fact that so few make it beyond a couple of years that indicates that all is not right in goldfish care in general. There are hundreds in the stores every day, I'd love to know how many are actually sold every day, and then I'd love to know how many make it beyond a couple of years.Stories like the one about the world's oldest goldie (Titch) are only newsworthy because it's not the norm whereas it really should be. What should be a surprise to people is when they die at two years old, not when they live to 40 "Fish kept appropriately lives to expected age" is hardly going to make the headlines  |