Iluvatar

This is my new fish I won it at a fair and now dont know what to do with it so I put it in a container but I will not put it in my tank because of my koi and arowana but there it is very cool.

I know the image is not well taken

COBettaCouple

Cool. How big is it?

sirdarksol

I really wish that people would stop giving goldfish away like that. A single goldfish needs about 30g of water, which you will be able to provide once you get your pond(s) going for your other fish, but most people just don't have the space or time, so they put the fish in a bowl and slowly, torturously kill the poor thing. A local Japanese Lantern Lighting Festival has the traditional "catch the goldfish with a paper net," and they hand out hundreds of goldfish over the day.

Shawnie

its a cheap way to attract the public unfortunately..and very sad for the life of a goldfish...I hope your pond is going soon as this cute lil thing would love the space ...goodluck!

Lucy

I wish they'd stop too.
I'm seriously addicted to winning gold fish at fairs. Luckily, I turn them over to friends with ponds. lol

Why would you bring home a fish when you're others already need a bigger tank?
I don't mean to sound harsh, but it's really not a good idea.

sirdarksol

Umm.... Lucy.... You realize that hoping they'll stop having the contests at fairs while you keep giving them money in order to win the goldfish is kind of like hoping McDonalds will stop selling Big Macs because you're tired of spending ten dollars a day eating there, right
That's right, it's all your fault. If it weren't for you, Lucy, they wouldn't have these contests anymore. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Sorry, I get like this when I'm tired.

Lucy

yeah, I know. You know those feeder fish end up costing me 3 bucks a peice!

Iluvatar

I think that is sad when they give out fish to little kids and they play with them and touch them but cant blame them but there are some people who dont know about caring for fish and they die. I was worried when that was the prize I won but I am not that worried just sad how they gave that fish to me just to die and they get the fish from a petshop that donates them so they donate lives THats just wrong and I asked the people alot of questions about the fish and they just answered that they dont know the petshop donates them. Now that I think about it they had them in a red bucket and they took a few minutes to get the fish. They do this every year and last year they had them in bowls and you had to throw a ball into a bowl to win the fish. Imagine how its like to be that fish that gets won when the ball is dirty and touched by the people who play and I won one last year too and it died about the second day but this one has lasted and seems well. I still love to win gold fish but then have the trouble of taking care of them. But I hope when they give them out they give a book or a bowl but this has gone on for years

I hope that post wasnt to long but who created this website its awesome.

goggles

when i was about 4 or 5 me and my sister won two goldfish at a fair and they lived for nearly 11 years in tank our parents bought for them, they will live if they are cared for.

sirdarksol

The problem is that most people aren't prepared for the work or space it takes to care for a goldfish. They try to keep the fish in a couple of gallons of water and figure that all they have to do is change the water when the tank looks dirty.

Iluvatar

I dont want them to stop because you have got to admit its always fun to win a fish at a fair and it brings joy. I just want people to stop being so ignorant and not keep them in the bag or in a little cup and some people just dont get it. They would be so much happier if they had the fish for a long time but then if they care they get sad when it dies specialy little kids and yes ofcourse they will live if it is cared for but most people dont. They should upgrade where they keep them even at the fair and petshops shouldnt donate fish to them in the first place. They know the fish will die that is the sad part but I am happy because I won a fish. To make this clear: They should not stop doing this but take more care of them.

Shawnie

unless they STOP doing this, the fish wont live unless someone with fish knowledge wins them..no one at a fair is going to take the time to educate someone on proper goldfish care...animals at fairs attract business..and cheap animals, are even in more abundance..most that win them, dont even expect to be bringing them home let alone have a proper tank for them...thats not going to change unless ppl stop playin the games..and we all know the likelyhood of that...

sirdarksol

Any change to society that operates with the beginning of "If everyone would just..." won't work. There are too many selfish people. That's why communism doesn't work.
So the change proposed here is "If everyone would just take care of the goldfish/bettas they won at the carnival, there wouldn't be a problem."
But not everyone is going to do this, because most people don't want to set up a 30g tank for "just" one goldfish.
So what happens is that a hundred goldfish are given away at a carnival, ten of them die when their bags spring leaks, ten go in the trash or down one of the carnival's toilets, ten more die sometime before they get home because the little kid that's been allowed to hold the bag has been shaking it all day, or simply because the bag's been cooking in the sun. The last seventy make it home. Now, I think I'm being generous here when I say that two of them go into tanks, one goes into a pond, and the other sixty-seven go into bowls, vases, or whatever else the people think are acceptable homes for goldfish. Fifty of these fish are lucky and succumb to ammonia poisoning within the first week. Fifteen of them die within the year, likely due to a combination of ammonia, muscle atrophy, and depression. The last two bowl fish are the truly unlucky ones. They live "long" lives of five years or more (goldfish can live for longer than 25 years if kept properly), suffering every day.
So this leaves us with three happy fish (presuming the two tank people and the pond person actually take care of their aquaria, which is a long shot) out of 100.
Far easier to convince people to just not play the games, and thus make it not worth the carnies' while to set the game up, than to convince 97 people that they need to get the fish home right away, put it in an already-cycled 30g tank, and do all of the care that comes with it.

goggles

lol,sirdarksol you have spent alot of time around fairs i think or following people home from them. sry joke there. but unfortunatly what you said is very true. but i have never seen bettas at fairs,if i did i would kick up a big fuss.

sirdarksol

No, I just hired the ladies from the Animaniacs survey episode. Unfortunately, I got a lot of information regarding beans and George Wendt that I didn't need, but I did get a lot of information about fish, too.
I've only seen bettas at one fair. Most have been goldfish.

Betta_dude

I remember when I was in kindergarden. Our school had a fair with of corse a fish catching game. It was a little kiddie pool full of goldfish and all you had to do was try to scoop one up. I played it and won a fantail goldfish, and that lucky little guy got to live in an a 29g tank with my mom's fantail. Goldy got pretty big and lived for about 10 years, though my moms fish outlive him.

Iluvatar

It died when I put it in with my koi this mornig and I dont know why but its fins looked gnawed or smething and I think its scales fell off somehow but I dont knw how it got like that. It looks like it got bitten but I dont know what could have happened but it is dead. Could my fish have done this? They have never done something like that before or was the fish stressed?

Lucy

It's a good bet it was the silver arowana.
Read their profile: http://www.fishlore.com/profiles_silver_arowana.htm