When I’m fishing on Lake Griffy - a small man-made reservoir here - I’ll sometimes see huge goldfish swimming under the water. People let out goldfish into the lake and they grow huge.
My daughter won three goldfish at a fair when she was 8. Darryl died after a few years, his other brother Darryl recently commited suicide. Larry endures. My daughter is 25 now, so that makes him 17.
The common wisdom is that carp aren’t good eating. They are certainly eaten in Asia, though, so maybe Americans just prepare them wrong.
It died in less than 24 hours – stupid fish 
I agree. Carp are mudsucking fishpigs, and they taste funky. Chinese love them (judging by their restaurants) presumably because they have no alternative in the vast interior.
Carp, with pike and whitefish, are the traditional fish for Jewish gefilte fish. These too are carpy in texture, taste, and environs. Many old-country or newly arrived Jews tell how they would fill the bathtub and let the funk out as the fish got to flit about in clean water before it would meet the horseradish.
My youngest won a goldfish at a “Strawberry Fair” when she was five.
As usual it was transported in a polythene bag. Which she dropped in the car.
It arrived home hours later, was put into a large jam jar - we had nothing else at the time.
Bought a small aquarium the following day and dumped it in there - being completely clueless as the the care of fish.
With a modicum of attention and a complete lack of any sort of knowledge, it lived for ten years.
I currently have a small aquarium that was my father’s, with among other things a fairly large Angel fish.
At some juncture, snails were introduced and prove to be quite difficult to eradicate, something I have now given up as there is a new solution.
Any snails on the glass - and there can be quite a few sometimes - are crushed against the glass and the Angel immediately gobbles them up.
The shark and other little fish display no interest in crushed snail but the Angel is steadily growing.
boozilu, it may seems that nobody cares to notice that Fluffy the Fairground Fillet is finished.
I do.
A tragically short life cut tragically short. May he be met by Darryl, Darryl and Goldie.
Gone camping.
We’re keeping on top of the snail population in the tank with the current regimen. We did get a whole bunch while they were the only inhabitants, but dumped them in the dam where we get the oxyweed. Haven’t noticed a population explosion, but as well as introduced goldfish in there, the dam also contains frogs and eels and its own wild snail population.
I think if any snails are hatching, they’re hiding in the gravel and get rinsed out.
We used to have a tropical tank when I was a kid, they’re great when they’re well maintained. Our guppies were seriously suicidal though. The black molly gave birth and the angelfish went on the rampage. Only one survivor, but he outlasted every other fish in the tank.
If you grow tired of squishing snails, you could also invest in a loach. They’re wee but I swear to god they eat 10 times their own weight in snails in a day.
boozilu - sorry to hear about your fish. Any plans to get a new one? If so, you might want to consider a small tank with a filter.
I did have a couple of loaches but they never displayed the slightest interest in the snails - not even the eggs.
May try again though.
Try the Clown Loach. I got one and by the next day there wasn’t a snail to be found. (They’re also very cute.)
I once had a rather large aquarium with about a dozen Clown Loachs. One afternoon I noticed that none of them were in sight, and then this little tiny car drove into the center of the tank…
My condolences.
And dark congratulations at apparently doing the impossible: killing a goldfish. But rather than despair, accept and understand your dark gift: then perhaps you could adopt the world’s mosquito population…
This gift may not last. I was the Death of Goldfish whenever my kid brought them home from playgroup for holidays. I went with it, waited for the fish to die, cleaned out the tank and bought new fish for the playgroup at the start of term.
The pet shop people remember the list of instructions I gave the kid when she bought her very own pair of fish.
“Do not let me take care of the fish.”
“No mum.”
“What will happen if you do?”
“They’ll die mum.”
“Why?”
“Because you kill goldfish mum.”
“Damn right.”
But they’ve (mostly) lived since then, and guess who gets to clean the tank? Not the kid.
Carp is a delicacy in Russian, Polish, German and English traditional cuisine - usually served whole and eaten at holiday banquets. Americans think carp taste bad because they’re fishing for them in muddy, warm waters. Nothing from those waters is going to taste great, especially a vegetarian filter feeder like carp. Fish from cold northern waters are the best tasting.
What I mean is that when a cute little goldfish gets large, you don’t want to call it a goldfish – it’s a carp.
I won a goldfish at a party in Kansas. I live in New Jersey. This was before the TSA considered tap water to be a terrorist weapon, so I took him home on the plane with me in a tupperware container. I opened the lid every half hour or so to give him oxygen, and he arrived home alive and in one piece.
Of course, then he had to go and die six days later. But still. I bet in Goldfish Heaven he’s still telling everyone about the time he went through an x-ray machine.
I won a goldfish at a fair when I was about 8. It remained in an unfiltered (although somewhat regularly cleaned) tank for about 20 years, until my parents informed me one sad day that there had been a death in the family. I freely admit that I failed to take responsibility for this fish when I left to go to college, but I assumed, correctly I think, that it was in good hands.
I have asked my folks if they replaced that fish without my knowledge, and they insist that they did not. I’m 39 now, so if they’re lying about that, well, we have problems.
I looked into this and find that my aquarium and the conditions in it are unsuitable for clown loaches. I would just be dooming them to a short and unpleasant life.
Was worth considering though, thanks.
With reference to the previous post, my nephew lived in London for a while and couldn’t manage to keep any fish alive for more than a couple of weeks.
He had words with an expert who advised him to fill his aquarium with Evian water. Worked a treat.
When I was a kid and we moved from [state] to [state] the moving truck took all our possessions, and we flew. Dog in a crate in the belly of the plane; goldfish in a Thermos bottle. (This was in the mid-80s.) Nearby passengers were no doubt amused by the sight of a little girl occasionally opening her Thermos and talking to its contents during the flight.