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Cunning goldfish avoided predator in tank for seven years

Entered as a snack, but drew inspiration from Gloria Gaynor

A cunning goldfish, which was delivered into an aquarium as food for its main inhabitant, the Arapaima, managed to avoid being eaten and instead survived for seven years in a filtration unit.

The survivor was apparently discovered by staff at Japan's Shima Marineland during a routine cleaning out of the filtration unit, suggesting the filtration unit is only cleaned once every seven years.

According to aquarium director Tomoyuki Satonaka, reports RocketNews24, the Arapaima was last fed live fish seven years ago, and since then has subsisted on a more standard fishy diet.

Managing to grow to an enormous ten inches in length, the goldfish apparently survived on scraps of food which passed through the filter.

When it first entered the aquarium it would have needed to escape through a pipe with a diameter of 1cm to enter into the filtration system.

The fish is considered to be in fine health, but is rather pale having lived in the tank for so long.

Staff claim they clean the tank every month and suggest they had no idea the fellow was living inside.

The fish is now the star attraction at Shima Marineland.

It is not the first story of an extraordinarily hardy goldfish in recent times. The Canadian province of Alberta has almost declared the critters an invasive species as so many of them seem to have survived being flushed down the lavatory and currently infest the region's storm drains. ®

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