fishtality.

Sometimes they live a while, and sometimes not at all. And I don't think it has a lot to do with the "owner". My daughter got 3 at a birthday party. And she named them immediately and practically filled out adoption papers for them. They lived about 2 months. Seriously. Explaining fishy death to a 3 year old is hard. And when she sees the empty bowl in the cupboard....she asks when "puff" is coming back. I've tried the heaven thing. Not so much. She just wants her fish back. I hate fish.

Um, fun? I don't think they live long. Pay attention to how often Dorothy changes on Elmo! It's a different goldfish practically every show!

Well you could save yourself the trouble and say they went swimming to find Dory! We have been there where we started with 7 and 1 died every day! And frankly its not fun to clean the bowl, good luck!

You need to cycle the tank. We had a similar problem when attempting to have 14 fish at once in a 10g tank. There is bacteria that turns the waste (ammonia) into Nitrites and the another that turns the nitrites into nitrates. With too many in the tank there is too much waste and not enough bacteria. Out our 14 we had one survivor. Lesson learned and we are starting again.

there is more info here firsttankguide.net/cycle.php

we used to have a tank with a filter and everything.
it was great.
we only allowed goldfish because they were cheap and easily replaceable. then one day i decided to wipe out their tank really quick with my sponge like i always did.

it was an ocello sponge.

all the fish were dead within 12 hours.

:)

Haha... sorry to laugh, but this reminds me so much of my childhood. EVERY year we'd get goldfish at VBS or School Carnivals, and EVERY year, MY fish died first. I now hate goldfish... but I suppose I learned the lesson that nothing lasts forever... and at age 3 that Jesus has a WHOLE lot of goldfish in heaven with him! :)

Julie- I just have to ask. Is your right wall PURPLE?? I know how much you love that color.:) Lori

Can't help on the fish deal. We never win.:( Lori

Yeh, they die fast. My daughter had two of these that lived for about 5 years, but I think that's rare. I'm sorry for your loss. But the bowl is cute and looks clean. (That clean thing is tough to maintain.) All the comments have good points and I'm sure your fish will soon be in that heavenly school of fish swimming around.

My husband is always the culprit behind sending kids/youth home with random small "seemingly innocent" prizes/pets/headaches. {He's a youth pastor!} I fear my day is coming and when it does it'll be a doozy :P
Good Luck!!

You probably don't want to hear this but our friend had a carnival gold fish live for SEVEN years!! Seriously. We tried to have fish, but after six months and 3 "replacement" fish, I was done. I spent more money trying to make the water right than I did on my own bottled water! Have fun with that :D
Oh, and thanks for the link to the etsy quilt. Gorgeous!

Um . . . I think they need a bigger bowl.

Same prob in my house! We ended up getting a Beta fish when they all died. He's lived about 9 months so far! They only require tank changing every 2 weeks and a small, small tank. Awesome pet for us!

We went to buy fish about a year ago and intended on getting one goldfish in a bowl. Apparently, they do not survive in bowls and goldfish in general are not all that easy to care for. So...I'm thinking that if you keep them in that bowl, they probably will not be around much longer. We have tropical fish in a fresh water tank and the four we have have been around for a while. Note number 5 on the following link. http://www.aquariumfish.net/information/fish_bowls.htm Good luck!

When I was 8 I won a fish at a carnival... my mom let me keep it thinking it would die in a few days. He lived to the ripe old age of FIVE... when I got sick and tired of cleaning the bowl and carting it back and forth to our cabin every summer. I "accidentally" flushed him.

R.I.P. One Eyed Willy (his real name, he truly had just one eye, making his health even more of a mystery.)

i say run out tonight and get one beta fish and then ditch the goldfish and tell the girls that they morphed into one much prettier little fish that will survive jumping out of the bowl and sitting next to it for hours. and yes, i'm speaking from experience. after the traumatic loss of frogs (the bigger one ate the littler one, thank you very much) and countless fish i've learned my lesson.

Don't know anything about inside goldfish, we have some in our pond that lived for a few years (until this year when we didn't prep for winter).

I got a Beta my junior year in college and figured it would make it till Thanksgiving. He made it to Christmas - 2 years later! He probably would have lasted longer but I was in grad school and didn't always have time to take care of him. He flew back and forth with me, changing planes too, maybe 6 times (pre 9/11).

Hardest pet in the world Joy!!! Good luck. Eventually, mine survived on sheer neglect. "Tic Tac" was the last fish standing and we had him for a good year.... Big achievement in our house!!!

Fish are no fun!

I had one that lived for five years, no joke. So you just nevet know. It was in an aquarium with a filter though, not a bowl and we treated the fish any time any of them looked a little "fishy"... so to speak. You could be in for the long haul! Good luck! ;)

Right?! I totally relate. Baby boy was given 2 frogs about 1 year ago. One died on day 4. The other crazy frog is the only one still alive. No one even cares but me that the other one is alive :) They moved on to begging for a dog last Christmas. Me and froggy are fine. We like each other.

Mine is 5 years old, Seriously some are fighters and live on.. What ever you do don't keep buying bigger bowls.... they keep growing.

Goldfish are "messy" - they produce a lot of waste and that pollutes those little bowls, making it hard to keep them alive. A bigger tank with a filter and only a few fish, or like someone else said, one pretty little Beta will live a long time very successfully in your tiny bowl. Anyway I love that picture of the fishies in that blue room. Made me want to go buy blue paint and fishies.

We had won several fish one year at the fair by throwing ping pong balls into the fish bowl. I think we had four. We got them over the weekend and my husband named them
1) dead by Monday
2) dead by Tuesday
3) dead by Wednesday
and you guessed it 4th) deady
by Thursday. He was almost right with them. I think one lived about a week.

Good Luck

Well, I have had many goldfish in my day living 1 day to 2 years, but the kicker my parents gold fish died last year, it was 14 years old!!! You could tell it was old just by looking at it, the fins, the color, etc.

Oh my gosh... My brother and I each had fish at one point - I had a goldfish and he had something - I don't remember what. My mom cleaned the bowls out once and quickly found out that those two fish CANNOT be in the same tank together. All that was left of my little Goldie was his skeleton. BUT, he probably would have died 3 days later anyway from just being a goldfish.

Years ago we had one goldfish in a rather large tank. It lived about 2 years. Then I was told by the pet store guy that he should have had an even bigger tank and the reason it lived so long was because we were slowly lowering his metabolism (sorry poor fish!). I guess they need much more water per fish than I ever knew. We have dwarf frogs now - super easy and you rarely have to change the water. Good luck!

Yeah, so, when I was three I won a fish at a church carnival. (S)he died when I was twelve. Hopefully you won't be that "lucky".

I wonder how many are still alive now? Years ago after going through a breakup I decided to buy a whole bunch of goldfish, a beautiful big bowl and a plant stand to display them on. One died each day for the first 7 days. It did not help the mourning process, but I did go on my first date with my husband thanks to them. We accompanied me (and one of the frozen, dead fish) to the pet store. ;)

When I was 5 - I had a pet goldfish ... named Jewel. She lasted 2 weeks. :(

HA!
I'm especially liking the cleaning the bowl ... as I look at ours and think, eh, it can go a few more days, LOL.
We've had our 'Orangey' for almost 6 months now and I think he was about 6 months when we got him from friends ... I'd say that's pretty good. BUT, I've heard that goldfish do best by themselves. I don't know if that is true or not, but hopefully it'll prove true when you're down to the last fella :).

1. Spend the $15 and get a tank with a bubbler in it. You won't have to clean it nearly as often.

2. I once won a fish at a fair. It lived for over a year. I had a friend whose goldfish lived for 7 years.

I won a fish at the county fair when I was a little girl and that thing lived for YEARS. I'm still not sure whether he died from old age or if my mom helped him along due to YEARS of cleaning his bowl. You can get a 20 dollar tank with a filter; then you don't have to clean it nearly as often and you're less likely to help them die. :D

Our first goldfish experience was with "Lucky," as my daughter named him. Lucky's life with us can be measured in single digit hours (approx. 3.5). He died while we were at 4th of July fireworks.

Now we have "Sam." *sigh* Sam was a prize at the 4H fair... 3 years ago. I am so over this fish. I feel slightly guilty hoping that he dies. He once jumped out of the tank when only my husband was home. My husband confessed later that he debated for a while not saving Sam. But he too felt guilty, and Sam is still swimming away (we have even had to replace the pump on his tank).

A lot of people commented on needing a filter, but the other factor is that the water needs to be aerated. By having them in a bowl and not having air circulate through the water, especially with that many fish they will suffocate. If you do want to keep them in a bowl and not a tank it either needs to be filled with less water (allowing the water to fill up with oxygen on its own faster) or you need to put a small air pump in there.

Just so you know gold fish do not live long if there is not air being pumped into the bowl. At our pet store they would not even sell us goldfish unless we could tell them we had a tank. (kind of weird if you ask me.) But, I did learn that. beta fish live much much longer. I Hope these fish do not bring too much trauma to your girls.

Are you de-clorinating the water? If not, they will all die. You can get the drops at any pet store and add them to the water.

Oh man. I had the grand idea of getting my girls a fish a few months ago. We bought 4 (because I thought that would increase the odds of at least one living!). They were named and loved right from the start. And then that night the first one died. Another kicked the bucket the next morning...etc, etc. After the 3rd one died I convinced my girls that we should let "Lucky" (the live one) go with Rapunzel when we flushed her down the toilet. Where they would swim free in some lake somewhere. HA!! So much better than waiting for that last one to die!!! I did feel just a little bit bad about that though.