Was my four yr old daughter's little pet. She found it and was a bit discombobulated. Why do they jump out of the bowl? if we get another one, what can we do to prevent his, was the water too high/low?

Get a tank with a lid that allows good air circulation from the sides, air in, no fish out.

Fish bowls are not good for fish as the surface area: water volume ratio is not good so the water can suffer from low oxygen levels, particularly in hot weather.

Thanks Tass

You can get a good size rectangular tank with a lid, that will stop them jumping out

Sorry to hear of the poor goldfish's demise

...they'll just stun themselves, hitting their heads on the closed lid!

(Sorry, that was flippant. My thoughts are with you & your family OP.)

bowl. not good. the water quality would have been poor, a fish will jump to try to escape the poor water conditions.

they need large tanks, with big filters, to really thrive. i keep the smaller growing fancy goldfish in my tank. this was a picture of them around 4 months ago with my 6 year old daughter,they are still growing, the larger 2 in there are 9" and 8" long. i do have a single larger growing shubunkin goldfish in there too, but shes only small at around 4" at the moment.

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...atchingwho.jpg

please dont house any goldfish in a bowl, it will lead to stunting deformities and a short miserable life. the water will have low oxygen content, lack of decent filtration if any at all, and the fish will lead a very poor quality life. for smaller fancy type goldfish with fat bodies and twin tails, a 3ft tank can house a pair for life. if they are the common or comet type with long slim bodies and single tails, a 5ft tank should be considered bare minimum for life. no goldfish should be housed alone as they are social by nature and will live a far happier life with other goldfish.

people seem to think these beautiful fish do well in small tanks or bowls, and only live for a year or 2. the reality is they survive for a year or 2 tops, and suffer for much of it. fancy types can easily reach 10-15 years old, and common or comet types have been known to reach 40 years or more.

The sooner these bowl/goldfish combinations are removed from the market the better. useless things.

Suggest a small pond in the garden. Apart from the heron mine have lived for years. You need some sort of netting thought to keep both heron and children out.

Just never had any success with indoor tanks.

Wow that reminds me of a time when one of my sisters Goldfish was found dead outside the bowl.

She was very deverststated, at first she blamed me and my mum of taking the Goldfish outside of the bowl and we told her that we didn't.

I told her that it must of jumped out and she should've put it in a tank as it has more room and less likely to jump out and she understood that.

Indeed.

I agree, a goldfish should never be kept in a bowl.

We had a funfair goldfish when we were kids in a glass bowl who lived to be 11 despite once going down a plughole. My mum put chicken wire over the top to stop him jumping out.

However I accept now in hindsoght that it was probably not a great life for him.