Featured Image Credit: Taylor Dean via Twitter
By Jessica Kittel
If you’re ever tempted to feel like there’s no good in the world, just read this story about how a guy made a handicapped goldfish a “wheelchair.”
How wheelchair goldfish gets suited up for his day pic.twitter.com/AbwoOrpdRn
— Taylor Nicole Dean (@taylorndean) March 15, 2017
First off, yes, goldfish can be handicapped. This particular goldfish suffers from a permanent swim bladder disease. Though according to thegoldfishtank.com, “disease” is a bit of a misnomer: rather than being a specific disease, it’s more of a symptom or disorder affecting the swim bladder and can be the result of a variety causes. The swim bladder is an organ found in fish that helps the fish stabilize itself in the water and controls its buoyancy. Swim bladder disease happens when a fish can no longer control the amount of air that is going in and out of its swim bladder and therefore cannot control its buoyancy.
When a fish is suffering from swim bladder disease they usually end up with too much air in their swim bladder causing them to float near the surface, swim upside down, or lean to one side.
The goldfish in this story was floating upside down before our friendly pet hero, Derek, came along. This poor little guy was so discombobulated that it was stuck at the bottom of its tank.
Luckily, Derek was inventive and came up with an ingenious solution. Using tiny tubing and valves to stabilize our fishy friend and Styrofoam so he could float, Derek created a contraption that allows the fish to stay upright! As he told Buzzfeed:
The bottom weight is almost equal to the pull on top so it works quite well for him. Think of goldfish as the pugs of the fish world. Pugs have unique features due to the way they were bred, but it also causes them a lot of medical problems ― same with goldfish!
Luckily, this goldfish found a friend that was full of inventive ideas and could lend a helping hand!