Godzilla Goldfish! How are These Household Pets Getting so Big?

Imagine your pet goldfish being so big that it doesn't fit in its fishbowl. Kinda crazy, right? Well, believe it!

Residents of Burnsville, Minnesota apparently are over taking care of their pet fish so they've been tossing them into the lake. Well, it's gotten pretty bad that the city had to issue a warning via Twitter advising them not to do that.

It's kind of wild seeing goldfish that big, but as the Tweet stated most people don't realize just how big goldfish (and the koi fish) can get if kept in the right environment. Commonplace is keeping goldfish in a bowl and dropping their food flakes in there. Thus, creating an environment where the goldfish remains small in size. Put in a tank, it'll grow. Put it in a larger body of water with more food options and you get a Godzilla-sized goldfish.

According to Aquatic Veterinary Services, a typical goldfish can reach about 10 inches. However, in a lake or a pond they have the ability to get to a foot in length! The Guinness Book of World Records has the longest goldfish ever recorded at 18.6 inches. The record was set in 2003 in The Netherlands.

The city of Burnsville posted a statement on their Facebook page explaining that after conducting a survey on Keller Lake they found that the number of invasive goldfish has increased over the years causing problems for the habitat of that lake, like poor water quality. The goldfish shown in the pictures were taken out of the lake after they were discovered.

Moral of the story: if you don't want your pet goldfish anymore, just find it a new home with someone who's responsible.

As a side note, I don't know what I'm more disturbed by... the size of these goldfish or the fact that people in the Twitter comments are concerned with how it might taste. Just feels wrong.