Goldfish lifespan
With excellent care, goldfish should live for 10 years or more. The oldest can make it well past 20-years old.
Are you surprised? People think goldfish are short-lived animals is because they obtain weak feeder goldfish from fairgrounds, and then keep them in unsuitable goldfish bowls.
These weakened fish die after a year or two, and the unsuspecting keeper thinks his or her fish has passed away from old age, when in reality it was barely a toddler in terms of its natural lifespan.
Goldfish can also have a shortened life if they’re kept in a pond and captured by predators like herons, or even your neighborhood cat. Consider netting your pond, and try to have deep enough water to put off cats and some waterlilies to offer the fish cover from birds.
Tips for prolonging goldfish lifespan
- Keep your goldfish in a properly-sized aquarium, not a bowl.
- Feed them a good diet, based around high-quality flake food, with variety in the form of freeze dried foods, vegetable matter, frozen coldwater fish food, and even the occasional live treat such as daphnia. (Only buy live food from fish stores or net it yourself from small pools of water that don’t contain any fishes, to avoid introducing disease).
- Don’t overfeed.
- Maintain good water quality with a proper filter and regular tank cleaning sessions.
- Buy smaller, bright looking fish in the first place. Larger goldfish are likely to be older - in some shops the goldfish on sale may be a year or two old already.
More ‘natural’ goldfish such as comets tend to have a greater lifespan than the fancy varieties. I’d say 12 years is a good age for a fantail, and the really fancy twin-tail or pop-eyed varieties may do well to make it to ten.
The bottom line is that your fish will be with your for a long time, so give it the best home you can - for your viewing pleasure and for their own health.
Please do tell us the age of your oldest goldfish in the comments below.
Click here to learn more goldfish secrets!
Filed in: Care
Dec 9th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I have a goldfish that is 13 and a half years old. I don’t know what type of goldfish he is as he has the body of a common goldfish but has a fantail. He was one of the first fish we bought for our aquarium and has outlived a lot of the others. He currently lives with two other fish, one of which is eight and the other is less than a year.
Dec 11th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I had two feeders that belonged to my aunt when she was my age, They only passed away recently to. They would have had to be 25 years plus.
To cheer myself up, I bought a ryukin x fantail that was to be fed to the oscars due to his tail fin having no split in it. He’s a beautiful little fish, and although his lifespan won’t be as great as my old feeders, I hope to have him around for many years.
Dec 11th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Hi Rowena and Jenna!
Thanks for sharing your goldfish success. It’s great to hear of people having such success with their pets. A lot of people come to the Goldfish Care Guide with sick goldfish, so it’s nice to hear some happy stories
Jan 15th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I have been attracted to goldfish for many years. I am an artist and an educator. As an artist, I was first drawn to a group of 4 comets in a 29 gallon tank that I periodically saw in a nursing home over a 7 year period. In a rather depressing place, I found the view of these 4 beautiful fish — fully 10 inches long each from nose to tip of tale, gliding around each other repeatedly giving a most wondrous image.
As I developed my art career and began thinking about subjects, I went back to the nursing home to take photos. When I arrived, they were gone… When I inquired, an employee said ‘Oh, now we have birds….”
I have since provided goldfish for my own four children and now, any others I encouter. they are colorful, hardy and mostly kind-hearted– the kind of thing you encourage children to ponder. I now have a wondrous school — Space COast Early Intervention Center in Melbourne Florida a place that promotes inclusion for young children with disabilities… we have a 20 gallon tank with 4 beautiful fantails that mesmerize the children. All have been healthy for 11 months. Immobile children can watch at their own speed with a typical peer. THe sad part is that I have a great teaching staff whose generation has not had experiences with nature, so I have two generations to influence in care and respect of nature and learning about animals. Information from this site will be shared with our staff and the public who view our nature area on weekends. THANKS
Feb 15th, 2009 at 5:51 am
@Sally - what a lovely story! Thanks very much for sharing your comments in such detail, and really glad the Goldfish Care Guide could help you keep your fantails fit and well.
Mar 7th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I have three goldfish. One is a common, one a calico fantail, one a calico colored koi. They are all over two years, the oldest at aroud five. I have people who will be awed by how the goldfish are so old an big.(all over 6 inches, the koi at a foot) They can be agressive, I have lost several fish to them being hungry and the fish being small. I also lost an Oscar which was in there because he hadn’t been getting along with his mates. He bit the koi, whom promptly bit the Oscar’s gill off. Never put them in there, goldfish could kill them.
Apr 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Hi!
I have had four goldfish which my first two have died.
But my oldest one is Sandra Lee or Mr. Goldie. I have two names because i don’t know what my goldfish is. *a girl or a boy* i’m eight and i’ve had Sandra Lee ever since i was five. so he still has about nine years to live! I also bought a orangeish redish goldfish with white underneath on it’s stomach. It’s name is Chessey Chesseball or ChesseBall. He’s 1 or almost one on May 17th. My goldfish are fintail goldfish.
Apr 18th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I have had 4 goldfish both fintails. I’ve had my two goldfish not die and there names are Chesseball and Sandra Lee. Chesseball is one and Sandra Is three. I love them so much and take care of them!! I really love this website teaching me about goldfish!
Apr 19th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
One of the oldest goldfish lived to be 43 yr. old!!!I was surprised when I heard this.
Thanks for the help!!!
May 13th, 2009 at 2:48 am
Ye to Kuch nahi me ri gold fish 16 din jinda rahi thi.
May 30th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I had a goldfish when I was 2 years old which lived for about a year. Now 14 years later I have 4 goldfish my oldest is about 5 years old but his growth got stunted by a few years in a bowl, Sushi is almost 2 and is fun because he is trained to swim to the top and kiss our fingers, the other 2 might be about 1 year now. I totally love my fish.
Jul 21st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
We have a fish that just past away, who lived a long 12-13 years. He started out in a large tank with a couple of other goldfish (which didn’t last nearly as long), then was moved to a small outdoor pond, where he was self-sufficient for the majority of his life. We must have only fed him twice, three time at the most. In the end, he turned out to be larger than my hand, and probably twice as old as my dog. RIP Superfish!
Jul 22nd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
What is the temp range for our pond?
I live in metro Phoenix AZ
Aug 2nd, 2009 at 10:32 am
Hello,
We live on a 4 acre farmette with sheep, goats, donkeys and poultry. All my water tanks, tubs, wading pools, barrels contain goldfish to control the misquitoes and also I like the goldfish.
I don’t feed the fish but they have plenty to eat and grow well. I like the Comets the best. They are so beautiful with their very long tails and fins.
This year I have had to move the babies into various water tubs in smaller pastures. I have a 6 foot diameter X 2.5 deep water tank in my small orchard and it waters and fertilizes my trees. I removed 13, 2.0 long (body length) beautiful youngsters from that one last week and hope to raise 9 of them in an outside 20 gal tank for awhile. The other 4 are working in 2 - 20 gal tubs and 2 - 40 gal tubs. We have predators here. The worst are the Giant Blue Herons. I have wire over my tank in the orchard.
The 5.0 foot diameter plastic wading pool in the dog yard also produces an abundent amount of babies. I removed 8 large (3″) early this spring and 4 more recently. They are never bothered by predators. The parents are still in the wading pool and seem to be doing fine. I hope to have more babies next year. They are both 5 inches in body length with tails seemingly as long.
Goldfish are beautiful as well as practical.
Thank you for your website.
Aug 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
We have an orange fancy tail goldfish. He is now 8 years old.
We have him in a 55 gallon tank but he is out-growing it.
We think he is at about 2 lbs., 6 inches high and 10 inches long. We might consider adopting him out to a pet store with a stock tank or pond. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Oct 6th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Kelly, get a bigger tank for your fancy tail. After 8 years, it would be hard to give him up.
Oct 25th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
I have several goldfish that came from a friends elderly Mothers fish pond… They seem to be slighty cross-bred from the comets and fantails she had in the pond… She said she put 6 fish in originally, however, there were at least thirty in the pond… I have had these fish for 6 yrs in an aquarium… They were at least 2 yrs old when I netted them out of her backyard pond… So,I now know how long these beautiful fish can live… I always thought that they were short lived…
Nov 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Im not sure how old Fluffy is…we bought him a couple years ago from a local pet store. He’s a 7″ long fantail and since then he’s really become a member of our family. He knows when i’m nearby and will come to the front of the tank and try to get my attention by swimming back and forth very rapidly, and then he goes up and nibbles the surface of the water trying to get a treat out of me. Never really thought of fish having personalities til we got him. What a wonderful site you have here - thanks for all your efforts.
Jan 4th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
i have two comet goldfish, 1 named daisy and the other dom, dont ask about the names,ive had allsorts of problems with them since i got them but they seem to be doing just fine after i had to cure them of whitespot and fin rot, they are extremely rewarding fish to have and are extremely hardy as they pulled through those diseases even though the guy at the fish shop said they were unlikely to pull through