Goldfish grow to 8-24 inches depending on variety and have lifespans of 20-30 yrs.
They have longer memories then what was thought, thanks to Adam and Jaime from the show Mythbusters. They actually are pretty intelligent, ive seen videos of this guy training his goldfish to put a tiny soccerball in an underwater net. They definatly learn to recognize their care givers. Yet ignorant pieces of crap think of them as "just fish". Those are the ones who should be banned from owning any pet. Its not just them their way of thinking gets passed down to their children. They are unknowingly or sometimes knowingly teaching their kids that animals are disposible objects, unfeeling, unthinking decorations. Just because their is a picture on a box or their parents did it or a bad petstore told them that its ok to cram the fish in a tiny bowl or tiny desktop aquarium, that it is ok. The poor goldfish's gills and fins burning and rotting off because of the high ammonia in the tiny toilet of a bowl or tank. And when that fish finally succumbs to the neglect and abuse, another victim takes its place, continuing the unrelenting cycle of animal cruelty.
Goldfish 3 inches and smaller NEED 10 gallons PER fish with alot of filtration and weekly 25 percent partial waterchanges where the gravel is vacumed thoroughly with a siphon. Never drain the water past 50 percent. An aquarium is a closed system, dissolved organics (which are INVISIBLE) MEED to be regularly removed. Smaller more frequent waterchanges are healthier for the fish then infrequent larger waterchanges. Obviously a goldfish that is larger then 3 inches will need a bigger tank then a 10 gallon.
Meet Bruce
http://www.goldfishparadise.com/care/care.php
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1922&articleid=2650
http://www.mu.edu/~buxtoni/puregold/home.html
http://www.goldfishinfo.com/setup1.htm
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/gfish.htm
http://www.thegab.org/Articles/GoldfishBasics.html
We would probably have a shot at correcting people's beliefs about goldfish if:
a) the media wasn't continuously portraying tv and movie characters as having goldfish in a bowl. You don't see beloved characters beating their dogs, do you? And yet Elmo must go through many goldfish... Interesting...
b) the more commercialized aquaria companies didn't continually show goldfish in their 3g Spongebob tanks or fancy globe tanks. Let's take a look through the aquarium brands available at Petsmart.com that do this (we'll just look for golfish to make this easier)
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Aquascene
Marina
Eclipse
BiOrb
AllGlass
Uncle Milton
Uncle Milton Again (on the box it says great for goldfish)
c) So many petstore employees weren't circulating bad information to make a sale
Goldfish are just a prime example of bad information on fish circulated in our society. There are also media portrayals of other fish like gouramis and livebearers, etc in too-small tanks.
FYI: Goldfish Bowls have been BANNED in Rome.
