How do you know op were careless? Accidents do happen.

It's incredibly easy for things like this to happen. Sometimes fish jump out of their bowls and can land in spaces where they go unnoticed. It happened to me once.

Wait how do you do spring cleaning in sunmer?

I think a better question is how didn't it smell like horrible rotting fish?

Because a little goldfish will dry up in a couple hours and won't have any smell. If it was a big fish that took days to dry, then yes the horrible smell would be there.

At least OP can sea to it that he gets a proper burial. May his sole rest in piece.

Neither sole nor plaice but gold it was

OP, just keep swimming, just keep swimming..

God, that was a terrible one.

Lame puns are lame.

Don't be koi-- you know you liked it.

I think you missed the fact that finding a rotten gold fish is quite nasty. I'm sure it was replaced you'd notice a gold fish missing much before then.

14- Yeah. I grew up with my parents loving beta fish, so I never really dealt with that, and my sister was allergic to cats sooo. But you're right, I just noticed the "last year" part.

Or perhaps, actually learn about the fish you're keeping and realize they need more than a bowl of water and some rocks to live a healthy life. A healthy goldfish lives 20 years or more and grows very large. 99% of pet goldfish never get to because they're forced to live in a small bowl of ammonia-choked, warm water, fed a poor diet of cheap processed food and starved of oxygen their entire short life. The cycle of disposable pets needs to end... and fish definitely get the brunt of it.

Fish can jump, surprisingly quite high. We have a lot of fish at home, and sometimes they just jump; once a fish ended up under our sofa, we looked for it for ages!

20, yes it did!

my cat knocked my fish bowl over. I went to clean it and got a piece of the glass to scoop up the fish, and don't you know, he started flopping around. he was in a tiny bit of water that I guess kept him going.

how is that a bright side? better the cat enjoy(?) it and have a treat than have a decaying fish hanging out on the floor.

No. Smaller fish dry out so quickly that they never rot in toes conditions. They just dehydrate and end up like a crispy potato chip. They don't really have a smell at all.

He'll be back. ..