back to article Cunning goldfish avoided predator in tank for seven years

A cunning goldfish, which was delivered into an aquarium as food for its main inhabitant, the Arapaima, managed to avoid being eaten and instead survived for seven years in a filtration unit. The survivor was apparently discovered by staff at Japan's Shima Marineland during a routine cleaning out of the filtration unit, …

  1. Ole Juul

    goldfish rulz!

    As a kid I was not a good candidate for looking after pet fish and ended up inadvertently subjecting them to unusually difficult conditions. I'll spare the (now embarrassing) details, but goldfish are real survivors.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      Re: goldfish rulz!

      > I'll spare the (now embarrassing) details

      https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=cgr0351

    2. NoneSuch Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: goldfish rulz!

      So the hidden gold fish was a little coy?

  2. ratfox

    When it first entered the aquarium it would have needed to escape through a pipe with a diameter of 1cm to enter into the filtration system.

    They've found Nemo!

    1. Toastan Buttar
      Go

      Nemo in the filtration unit

      Shark Bait ! Ooh-Ha-Ha !!!

  3. Montreal Sean

    Canada doesn't have states.

    That would be the province of Alberta.

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Palefish

      I didn't realise Zoos started to have a fantasy animal section, can I see a unicorn and a griffin there too ?

    2. Jedit Silver badge
      Coat

      "Come and see my 10" I've been keeping it out of the light"

      So nobody's seen it in seven years? No wonder it's so pale.

  5. oldtaku Silver badge

    They clean it once a month but...

    The goldfish was in the large unlit filtration /tank/ under the main tank. They clean it once a month, but it's huge, 3m x 5m (don't say how deep), and dark. Apparently this guy just hung out away from where the cleaning was going on. But this time, someone thought he saw the shadow of a largish fish moving in the darkness (which must have been a fairly AHHHHHHH moment). And when he went looking with a flashlight saw this guy just hanging out down there.

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    1. Mark 85

      Go read the link and all will be revealed... he's a star now but not a starfish.

  7. BobRocket

    Fish Farming

    It's a member of the carp family, native to Asia they are present over most of the world due to human intervention (bred as a food species and now as a sport fish) which begs the question 'who's farming whom ?'

  8. Paul Woodhouse

    hmm, I once fed one to a garter snake when I was little, snake ignored it for about a month and my Mum then rescued it and kept it as a pet for the rest of its natural life, it long outlived the snake which just preferred pinkies (both mice and fingers) anyway...

    1. tim 13

      Confused, your fish lived for a month out of water or you kept your Garter snake in water?

      1. Paul Woodhouse

        it had a bloody big tank with a pond set up, Garters are naturally quite aquatic...

  9. emmanuel goldstein

    I'm waiting for Blinky to be discovered in the Fukushima coolant ponds.

    Good on this goldfish for adapting to his unorthodox environment. Quite impressive, Nature, quite impressive.

    1. Triggerfish

      Surviving

      Everynow and again I used to find fry and shrimp living in the filters of my fish tank and it goes a few months without cleaning, thats a cubic space about 8 litres with a flow of upto a 1000litres an hour going through it.

  10. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Trollface

    After being set free...

    ...the goldfish immediately applied for a job at some European Community outfit.

  11. AbelSoul
    Trollface

    Re: In Cider

    they had no idea the fellow was living insider

    Reminds me of Vic and Bob putting things in cider.

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  13. 7
    Mushroom

    10 inches

    Big enough now for the shark tank.

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge

      Re: 10 inches

      I think if you put a goldfish in a shark tank, it would probably be dead long before the shark got it, what with carp being freshwater fish, and (most) sharks living in salt water.

      1. Afernie

        Re: 10 inches

        Bull Shark tank then. Those fellows seem to live in any kind of water they damn week please.

  14. Gray
    Angel

    Sport fishing?

    Obviously what the Japanese tank tenders needed was one of you bored Blighty blokes with a long pole, a dough-ball carp bait, and an afternoon free. And a sushi knife.

    1. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: Sport fishing?

      And a sushi knife.

      I never heard of koi sushi so I thought maybe they don't taste good. Turns out that people don't eat any freshwater fish due to the risk of getting parasites. The Wikipedia page on raw fish dishes says:

      Traditionally, fish that live all or part of their lives in fresh water were considered unsuitable [...] due to the possibility of parasites

      I never knew this but now it makes sense to me that certain fish like mackerel (aji, saba), eel (unagi) and maybe others that are commonly seen on sushi are always cooked first...

      1. Afernie

        Re: Sport fishing?

        "Turns out that people don't eat any freshwater fish due to the risk of getting parasites"

        I take it you meant "Turns out that people don't eat any freshwater fish raw due to the risk of getting parasites"? Freshwater fish such as Tilapia are staples across much of the world.

  15. adam payne

    Nature will find a way.

  16. Michael Thibault
    IT Angle

    Scraping the bottom, el Reg?

    Is this story here because it almost, tenuously relates to the tag line "Biting the hand that feeds IT"?

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: Scraping the bottom, el Reg?

      Lost in the system, always in the dark, scrounging what it needed with zero budget.

      I'm sure there's some here that can empathise.

  17. ChrisBedford

    I call BS

    ...on the last paragraph, "The Canadian province of Alberta has almost declared the critters an invasive species as so many of them seem to have survived being flushed down the lavatory and currently infest the region's storm drains"

    1. Fact check: lavatories aren't connected to storm drains. If they were, every river would be an open sewer, and imagine what river mouths would look like.

    2. If that last statement was supposed to read "...infest the regions sewers" that's even more unbelievable because the only things that can survive in a sewer is bacteria. Goldfish may be tough, but there's NO WAY they are going to survive in raw sewage.

    3. Sewers (and storm drains) are not closed, static systems - they lead somewhere: rivers (and the sea, eventually) in one case and treatment plants in the other. Goldfish can't survive in salt water, either, and (depending on the treatment process) I doubt it's likely the sewerage farm will do them any good.

  18. ChrisBedford
    FAIL

    I call BS

    ...on the last paragraph, "The Canadian province of Alberta has almost declared the critters an invasive species as so many of them seem to have survived being flushed down the lavatory and currently infest the region's storm drains"

    1. Fact check: lavatories aren't connected to storm drains. If they were, every river would be an open sewer, and imagine what river mouths would look like.

    2. If that last statement was supposed to read "...infest the regions sewers" that's even more unbelievable because the only things that can survive in a sewer is bacteria. Goldfish may be tough, but there's NO WAY they are going to survive in raw sewage.

    3. Sewers (and storm drains) are not closed, static systems - they lead somewhere: rivers (and the sea, eventually) in one case and treatment plants in the other. Goldfish can't survive in salt water, either, and (depending on the treatment process) I doubt it's likely the sewerage farm will do them any good.

    1. Steve Aubrey

      Re: I call BS

      Is there an echo in here? Must be because of the storm drain.

  19. x 7

    I'm more surprised that the arapaima survived 7+ years without becoming sushi

    as to storm drains and sewers....it depends on where you live and how old the sewers are. Around here the storm drains all feed into the sewer system and it all goes to the sewage works - unless we get a cloudburst, when the system becomes overloaded and spills into the river, crap and all

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