I appear to have indirectly murdered my dd's pet goldfish

[golds]

I am really not keen on cleaning out the gold fish tank, but I looked at it yesterday and thought I better had. Cleaned it, filled it, put 3 fish back in, looking good.

Just been to have a look at it and there are only 2 fish. I'd only filled it too high and either the cat got it last night or it jumped out, found it at the side of the tank - poor old nemo ! now need to go and break the news

Goldfish do need to be clean regularly, you would not want to be swimming round in your urine would you? look at the size of the tank and ask yourself is it big enough? The general rule is 10 gallons per goldfish, although larger goldies would benefit from as much as 20 gallons per fish. Common goldies originate from Carp and can grow to sizes over 8 inches in length and all goldfish produce copious amounts of waste. 3 goldfish crammed in a 10 gallon tank, for example, would be difficult to keep clean and would eventually lead to ammonia levels that are lethal to the fish.

for Nemo...

How about running to the pet shop and get an impostor?

Don't think of it as "murdered", more, sent him to a life where he is happier? Your intentions were good. None of us can over rule the big goldfish in the sky, and when it's Nemo's time, it's Nemo's time (says she who has never had to explain the death of a pet to a small child, ahem)

Hope no-one is too upset.

why not get a small filter for in it? depending on the size of the tank (i imagine its a small one) a fluval 1 would do the trick. you would hardly have to clean it out at all then.

.. I suspect that it may have been the shock of the new clean water, it is a complete change of environment in a way... One way to do it easily is to take out a glass of water and add a new of clean one once or twice a week (BTW I had a very small bubble tank and Guacamole survided for years!)

small filter, and treat the tap water as well.

go get a replacement nemo {smile]

Or you could give up on the fish and buy a spider. Only need cleaning once in a blu moon and feeding once evey month or two and we are really good company honest.

Poor Nemo tho Hope your dd isnt too upset

as a child our cat regularly ate our goldfish (or at least bit their heads off ) - we didn't know until the pet shop ran out of fish and our parents admitted what had happened. It was years before they admitted it hadn't just been one fish that had got eaten. We alwyas wondered by goldfish changed colour so often .

The lesson is they should look after their own pets