Is your pond too small to keep Koi?  Or perhaps you have a large acquarium, and are tired of short-lived fish?  Consider Goldfish!  The live long lives, and comets can grow up to 12"!  Even fancy varieties live for years, are very easy to care for, and like Koi - they have amazing recuperative capabilities!  Read this story about how a fancy goldfish became this aquarium keeper's favorite fish...

My rescue fish, Brain

Brain is a now 8 year old oranda goldfish that, to put it nicely, I got stuck with.

Will and I were visiting our local store with no intention of buying any live fish, but of course we always swing by to take a look. For the first time that we had ever saw, the largest tank in their display had a large "adoption  goldfish $15" sign above it.

In this tank was one of the saddest looking oranda goldfish I have ever laid eyes on. She had large open sores on various parts of her body from anchor worm, her tail was prac-tically non-existent (and what was left of it brought immediately to mind a window blind that had only one string pulled tightly it was so kinked up), veins in this poor fishes fins were so dark red and prominent it looked as if someone had taken a Sharpie and drew them, finally all this was of course covered in thick excessive clumps of slime coat. Sounds like a real prize doesn't she?

Of course my heart went out to her but I knew at the moment I was fully stocked so Will and I continued to browse. 

While we were still within earshot, someone comes over to ask the as-sociate to get them that big fish.

he associate done something I had he associate done something I had what size tank he had and if he had experience caring for goldfish, well I was impressed!
Apparently the man attempting to buy this pitiful fish was lucky to even real-ize it was a goldfish. The associate actually declined the sale informing the man that he would not feel com-fortable selling this fish to someone without an adequate home for it.

After seeing so many goldfish being sold to people for massively under-sized and overstocked aquariums, I was so impressed that I walked up to express how great it was that the associate was looking out for the well-being of this fish. 

That initiated the conversation in which I found out this decent-sized 7 year old goldfish had been brought in covered in anchor worms, along with 12 other goldfish, 3 common plecos, and about 10 various ran-dom tropical fish such as angels who had shared the same 20 gallon tank...

All the other fish had since been adopted, however this fish by far had looked the worst and as such was the only one who had not been adopted yet.

Game over... my heartstrings had officially been pulled....

The final kicker was, after speaking to Will and I, the associate asked us that if we would please take her and finally give her a good life, he would waive the adoption fee..... So you guessed it.. Will and I went home to et up yet another tank.....

It's been over a year now since Brain has become part of our family, she has doubled in size, fully regrown her large (if wonky) tail, and even gave us a baby brain who we found hiding behind the filter. (And aptly named Nemo since it was the  only one who didn't become lunch!) 
So the rescue we were asked to please take,  has now became one of my favorite fish.

Reprinted from The Greater Akron Aquarium Society - Tank Topics, September/October 2017   www.gas-fish.net