Our oldest goldfish died last night.

[TheOriginalFAB]

Are the other fish more at risk and should we tell the kids or wait to see if they notice? They will be I think.

It depends why he died, my oldest fish died last week and I was gutted! He was ten and I think he had dropsy. He was always susceptible to cotton wool fungus but outlived all my other fish over the years. My DDs made appropriate "Awww" noises when I told them but I was clearly the most upset of all of us!

I am not sure what was wrong with him as we asked at the pet shop and they said constipation but surely fish don't die of that? Plus we were treating him for that. He was the bully of the tank but even so he was our pet.

If the other fish look healthy and the water's fine I wouldn't worry. How old was he/she/it?

The fish was at least 7.

One other is at the bottom of the tank with its tail pointing downwards but it is moving a bit. The others look okay.

Fish can die of constipation. Treat with either frozen, shelled peas or nursing them in a container with a good dose of Epsom Salts.

Dropsy is easily treated by nursing in Epsom Salts for about 5 days.

I would suspect a bacterial infection rather than constipation but it's hard to tell unless you do a fishy post-mortem.

Dropsy is a symptom rather than a disease, usually of bacterial infection or renal failure. Once the fish swells up it is usually curtains for the poor bugger, it's difficult to treat unless you know for sure what the cure is- antibiotics might work for a bacterial infection but they could make the renal failure worse.

Thank you for that. I will bear it in mind if any of the others get ill. The kids haven't noticed we have lost a fish.