What a lifesaver.
An inventive UK woman made waves online — and in a fish tank — afteroutfitting a disabled goldfish with a customized life jacket so it wouldn’tsink. The fish’s fun-sized flotation device can be seen in a viral video fromthe Garden Sanctuary in Wolverhampton.
“He had been living on the bottom of his tank upside down for sometime,”Stacey O’Shea, who runs the pet sanctuary from her home northeast ofBirmingham, told Caters News.
The unfortunate fishy had suffered from an untreatable swim bladder disorderthat left him sitting upside down at the bottom of the tank, she said.
Determined not to let their pet perish belly up, the desperate owners soughthelp from O’Shea.
The pet caretaker managed to MacGyver a fin-tertube from tiny plastic tubingand T junctions normally used for air conditioning filters. She then weigheddown the device with polystyrene so the scaly swimmer wouldn’t float to thesurface — like ballast tanks on a submarine.
Periodically adjusting the amount of polystyrene helped the goldfish swim todifferent levels in the tank, allowing him to see more of his home.
In creating the aquatic walker, O’Shea lifted both the fish and the family’sspirits.
A fish’s swim bladder is an organ containing oxygen that is vital tomaintaining a fish’s buoyancy in water. Bad water quality, diet issues andstress can cause problems with a fish’s swim bladder, resulting in buoyancychanges, PetMD writes. In some cases, the problem arises when fluid has gotteninto the swim bladder. Goldfish are particularly vulnerable to buoyancydisorders due to their round bodies and curved spines.
O’Shea isn’t the first fish lover to improvise a flotation device for agoldfish in need. A Massachusetts man created a similarly tubular life jacketfor his buoyancy-challenged 5-year-old pet. In San Antonio, an aquariumemployee was also able to rescue a disabled goldfish by building it a waterwheelchair.
Source: New York Post
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