Just have to post this as I am interested to hear if anyone knows how long a fish can survive out of water? The fish in question is a comet goldfish belonging to my little boy. Yesterday morning my husband woke me up to tell me he had discovered the fish, dead on the kitchen floor - quite a distance from the worktop area where its tank is. Well we looked at it for a few minutes while we discussed how to break the news to Thomas that his beloved fish (called Flower!) was dead. Then OH went to pick it up and it kind of twitched, so for some reason he plopped it back in the tank. It just fell to the bottom and we were about to take it out again but as we watched it began to swim about a bit - and lo and behold it appears quite back to normal, eating again today etc. I suppose it must have just done a big leap out of the tank, and flapped onto the floor, but I thought a fish would die within minutes of being out of the water? It must have been out for 5-10 minutes at least.   

That's definately one very lucky fish!!  Think Flower should have a lid on her tank though as she may not be so lucky if she tries to escape again!

My OH has found Koi (her own I hasten to add!) on the decking in the morning, completely dry- they must have been out for quite some time and they have always survived once popped back in the pond. It still amazes me now.

Sounds like a lack of oxygen - that is why fish sometimes jump out.  We had a koi do that once - happens early hours of the morning when the oxygen is the lowest in the water.  I am worried about the koi we have now.  It has grown to such a size and the pump has packed up.  No water circulation.  Can't find what is wrong with it. 

> Sounds like a lack of oxygen - that is why fish sometimes jump out.  We had a koi do that once - happens early hours of the morning when the oxygen is the lowest in the water.

They'll also jump out when spawning. We've lost 2 large koi from them jumping out in a spawning session, we found them in the morning & buried them. We felt mortified when we found out that my uncle (kept koi for about 30yrs) has on several occasions found a koi that has been out of the water for hours, looked dead, but recovered when back in the pond.

Really!  How can you tell if they are dead or not then?

> Really!  How can you tell if they are dead or not then?

I don't know :( But we have promised ourselfs that if ever another koi jumps out we will return it to the pond and see if it recovers before burying it.

I've just had a look on-line to see if there is a 'rule' as to how long they can survive out of water, I haven't found any 'rule' as such but plenty of people telling of thier own koi being found out of water & dried up, but recovering once put back into water!

They are quite resiliant!  We once had a large comet goldfish be caught by the cat, taken indoors and left under the stairs on carpet.  It was there for at least an hour and survived without any problems!

Amazing!  Glad this was posted.

When I was a kid our goldfish jumped out of his tank in the night.  After searching for an hour the next morning I found him stuck to the wallpaper behind the cupboard (under the tank).  We peeled him off and he was sort of dry, but I popped him in his tank and held him for a few seconds and he started to revive, I held him until he swam away and he lived another 10 years!!! - with a new lid ;)

Gosh!! the many goldfish we thought had died after jumping out of the tank and we flushed down the loo when we were kids :(

one of mine jumped out the other day, and we couldnt find her for a good 5 mins, we did eventually and put her back in the tank along with a nice clump of dog hair! ( well she had a soft landing!!!

Wow I am glad I posted this topic now, what a lot of interesting replies - I would never have thought a fish could be so resilient. I am glad we didn't just drop ours straight in the bin as it is absolutely fine now! And I have a new lid on the tank...

>what a lot of interesting replies

Interesting?  Hilarious more like :-D

On fishing programmes when putting fish back the angler will hold the fish under belly and tail in other hand and gently sway the fish side to side to help get the water to pass through the gills.  This I guess is to help the fish get oxygen and recover more quickly before swimming off.

We had a koi jump out a few months ago, one of the dogs got there first and ate it!:-o

We wish we knew this when my hubbys big koi jumped out of the paddling pool when he was repairing the pond, went in the bin :(

One morning  i siphoned the goldfish tank down to halfway with short piece of hosepipe then hung pipe outside, in the afternoon noticed one was missing it was still alive in pipe they are bigger now & live in a friends garden pond  :-)

Barry