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The New York Times has a story that describes just how devastating it can be to an ecosystem to dispose of goldfish, "the most invasive aquatic species" in a river or stream.
Two decades ago, someone dropped a handful of unwanted pet goldfish into a creek in southwestern Australia. Those goldfish grew, swam downstream, mucked up waters wherever they went and spawned like mad. Before long, they took over the whole river.
Researchers from Murdoch University believe this scenario, or something like it, is the cause of a feral goldfish invasion in Australia's Vasse River. Since 2003, they have been running a goldfish tracking and control program that involves catching fish along the length of the river, freezing them to death and studying them in the lab. Despite this program, goldfish in the Vasse are thriving, with some fish growing as long as 16 inches and weighing up to four pounds — the size of a two-liter soda bottle.
The article contains some insightful information as to how to get rid of unwanted goldfish:
The best strategy is to give healthy fish away, to a responsible aquarium, pet store or hobbyist.... In Florida, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission takes unwanted exotic pets off people's hands on regularly scheduled amnesty days.
If your fish is sick, the most humane way to kill it is probably to put it in an ice slurry. As for whether you should flush your fish down the toilet, experts recommend against it. Not only is there a slight chance your fish could survive a journey through the septic system and end up in the wild, but, in general, it's just not a very pleasant way to say goodbye to Bubbles.
I have a couple alternate solutions. First, tropical lion fish love goldfish, as I learned in a middle school science class. Second, goldfish are edible. Think about that the next time you complain about the price of fish!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 23 2016, @07:03PM
When I was in Maine, an old man had a pond full of goldfish. The pond would freeze in the winter, you could walk out on the ice, and see the goldfish embedded in the ice. If the water were deeper, the fish would have gone deep, to avoid freezing. But the water was frozen solid, right down to the muck on the bottom. Come springtiime, those fish would thaw out, and start eating again.
Now, I'll admit that I didn't spend the whole winter on the pond watching those fish - the old man may have scooped out those frozen dead fish, and restocked with new fish, and I wouldn't know the difference. But, I really don't think the old man did that.
Also - goldfish will GROW when they are not confined to a small fish bowl.
A casual search for maximum size of goldfish pulls up contradictory statements from various sites - and I'm to tired to search out something authoritative. But, I can most certainly tell you that those gold fish in the pond were in the neighborhood of 5 to 10 pounds. MUCH bigger than the little three ounce fish that most people feed in their fish bowls.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Friday September 23 2016, @07:37PM
One spring I bought 100 feeder gold fish from a pet store for a song and a dance then poured the whole thing into a new 4ft x 12ft x 2ft deep decorative pond. Not all of them survived the first winter but about 15 of them did and they grew for another 5 years until a blue heron decided to stop by for lunch. At that point they were about a foot long and that damn bird stood in the pond and plucked my fish out of the water like they were going by on a sushi conveyor.
I didn't feed the gold fish once and the water froze over every winter though I don't think it ever froze solid. I ignored those fish and I think the only reason any of them lived is because they were the lucky few that could figure out how to feed off the top of the pond and they ate insects that landed. I don't believe that is normal carp behavior.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snow on Friday September 23 2016, @07:40PM
All right, story time.
So when I was a kid, I lived on a ravine that lead to the river. The river was relatively big, so it wouldn't freeze solid, but the little offshoot steams would. One winter while playing rock hockey with my dog and siblings (basically kick a rock across the ice and the dog would chase after it), we noticed that there were small fish frozen right into the ice.
So, we went home grabbed a chisel and hammer and chipped these fish out of the frozen stream. We placed them into a bucket and brought them home. Eventually the fish thawed in their bucket and revealed a mutilated thawed fish floating in the icy water (what can I say, 10 year olds aren't exactly accurate with their chiseling.)
Anyways, the fish never came back to life. We went back down to the river in the spring and saw tons of minnows, and by this time, we really wanted to bring a live fish home. So, we convinced our mom to go to the pet store and get some fish nets. The next day, all 4 of us kids headed back to the river with a bucket with the goal of collecting as many fish as possible. We had a great day collecting minnows and seeing who could catch the biggest fish. At the end of the day we brought this bucket of minnows home and they sat in the garage overnight.
By the next day, we had convinced my mom that these minnows were now pets and that we needed a fish tank to hold them, so off to the pet store we went. Mom bought a $100 fish tank starter set (and this was during a time where my mom was literally asking friends to buy us food so we could eat). We setup the fish tank and in went the minnows.
Over the next few days, we went from around 100 minnows, to about 2. Many got sucked up the fish filter, and many more died for unknown reasons. Once most of them died, we now had this brand new fish tank, and no fish, so we got to go back to the pet store and get some proper fish for it. We got goldfish and guppies and a slime-sucker fish. The guppies also liked getting sucked into the filter, so they didn't last too long, but the goldfish and the slime-sucker (we named him skippy) lived on.
And that is how we got a fish tank.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday September 23 2016, @07:51PM
I only wish I could moderate this, "+1, promote to full article".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @08:05PM
Really? By the second time he said "convinced my mom" it was pretty clear this guy was born because his dad promised her "just the tip of the fish, baby." Did you read the same rambling story about a poor gullible woman with manipulative kids?
(Score: 2) by Snow on Friday September 23 2016, @08:11PM
Sorry, this is what happens when I go for beers at lunch...
(Score: 4, Informative) by Joe Desertrat on Friday September 23 2016, @10:35PM
Goldfish are carp. A slightly bred for color (or whatever) strain of fancy carp, but once released in the wild within a couple generations they are pretty much indistinguishable from carp anywhere else. They can live a long time and can eat just about anything. They breed prolifically. They also have the ability to gulp air to extract oxygen, allowing them to survive in eutrophic ponds and other low oxygen environments. They also greatly alter their environments if they are in a small enough one, uprooting plant life and muddying the waters enough to affect the breeding of other fish. A big carp can shove its way into a bass nest (or other fish) and suck up many of the eggs and fry. They usually put up a long but unspectacular fight when hooked, they are great eating if caught from clean water, but they have many bones which make eating more difficult and as a result are often scorned by fisherman.
I took off one year and spent a summer in Maine. They had very strict and detailed fishing regulations, with different rules for virtually every body of water in the state. There were a great many bodies of water in which is was not permitted to use minnows for bait, mostly to prevent the escape and spread of fish like carp or bass and screwing up their trout and salmon fisheries.