Pet Forum / Aquaria / Goldfish / February 2004

Gandalf died this morning. She was a large comet, with the most beautiful
tail. She was called Gandalf because she was a survivor - she survived all
our ignorance, and thing like the dogs playing in her murky tank - I didn't
even know she was in there - which was becasue the kids  thought she'd be
happy in a big 'pond'. One day I saw a glint of gold and found her. So I
bought a tank and filter for her. Just a small tank, and the pet shop guy
didn't tell me anything about water changes, water testing etc. Poor Gandalf
coped with it all. We used to change the water if it looked murky - ALL the
water, and washed everything. About the only thing we did right was to use
water conditioner. Gandalf had a friend, a fantail, who eventually died due
to our ignorance, and the 'advice' given to us by a friend with koi carp.
The advice was against all the water changes and cleaning, which until then
had worked perfectly. We were told not to do that, but weren't told aobut
partial changes or how to test the water. We found out all of that after
reading newsgroups, and then being armed with the questions to ask.

Gandalf kept growing, so we bought bigger tanks for her, and new friends.
She was good with all the other fissh. We ended up with a 'you beaut' tank
with overhead filter etc - just for her.  This last year she stopped
growing - she was about 9 inches long. She was the fish everyone noticed as
soona s they came into the room. She was very good at getting attention - if
I sat near the tank and she was hungry she spat gravel at the glasss and
stared at me until she was fed. She fed from my hand, and was easy to catch
if i wanted to check her. A times she lost scales, and in the last few
months I noticed some lumps under the skin, but she was active and the lumps
seemed to come and go. Three days ago she went quiet, not hungry, stayed
near the bottom, head down, mouth opening and shutting. Yesterday she got
more active, and passed a very long faecal string, which was white but
became very red. I hoped she'd been constipated, and she seemed more active,
and more normal. But this morning she was very quiet, and she was in the
head down position again. When I came home from dropping the kids at school,
Gandalf had died, still head down.

Gandalf was 9 years old. The tank is so bare looking now.

Judy