HELLO fellow members, now i have had two pot belly goldfish for about 2 years.. my grandson won a baby goldfish in a fair ground, and we put the baby fish into the other pot bellied fish tank..they have been happy for the past 12 months.. all swimming happily together.....

now last week i changed the water in the fish tank..about 5 gallons it holds... and put all the fish back into the tank...
next day my partner found the baby fish [which is a fully grown fish] lying on the kitchen floor.. the fish had jumped out of the tank flew over the worktops and landed on middle of the kitchen floor.. never done this before... she picked the fish up and put it in water in a bowl. where it died.... now why did it do it...
serious reply's please...

Did he try to visit the Chicken accross the road?

Google brought up this site for answers...

http://www.goldfish-emergency.com/vi...php?page_id=36

Dunno, but isn't that the reason that bowls started coming with a ring round the edge?

most fish can and will jump, open topped bowls or tanks are a bad idea

open top tanks will have more oxygen to enter the water,

thanks..

No wonder when you're keeping goldfish in a 5 gallon tank, I think I would want to as well. Either get a bigger tank or give your fish to someone who can look after them better because you clearly can't.

i had a telescope eye goldfish

i had to net it to clean the tank (a ton of gravel got under the UGF and it needed re-setting)
it flipped out, swam into the side of the tank super hard, knocked off one of it's eyes then nearly made out of the tank completely onto the floor. went on to live for a fair few years with just the one eye until one of my other fish turned on it, shredded all it's fins & she developed a swimbladder issue that just wouldn't correct & i ended up having to put it down for it's own good

if one of your other fish were chasing it in the tank it would have likely just been trying to get away

though i must agree with the above poster that the tank is a fair bit too small.
a bigger one is most definitely in order

you wouldnt be able to fit an adult fully grown goldfish in a 5 gallon. fancy goldfish (pot bellied) should reach at least 6inches long, though 8inches or more can be reached, we have a 10 inch one at the moment. common types with the stream lined bodies and single tails will easily reach a foot long. 30 gallons is the minimum to house just a pair of the smaller fancy types so you would need double that for common types.

as for the jumping out, your water quality will be poor in such a small body of water unless you are doing more or less daily partial water changes. they need large tanks with big filtration to thrive and grow healthily. chances are your water wasnt in great condition in the tank, and fish will jump out of tanks/bowls with poor water quality. upgrade the tank, use a good filter, do weekly partial water changes using a good quality dechlorinator to treat the tap water and maybe add some live pond weed and chances are you wont have any jumping out again and they will grow and thrive in your care. 10 years down the line they should still be going strong