Heroic Pet Store Employee Builds ‘Wheelchair’ to Keep a Goldfish Afloat

Aquarium store employees aren't normally responsible for building swimming aids for sick fish. But that didn’t stop a man named Derek from helping a goldfish owner who walked into the San Antonio shop where Derek worked.

According to BuzzFeed News, the customer’s fish was suffering from a swim bladder disease that impeded its ability to swim upright. When no other treatment seemed to be working, Derek constructed a tiny, floating “wheelchair” for the pet from materials that he found around the aquarium shop. “I got some airline tubing that people usually use in their tank and just placed it around the goldfish. I added some valves to the bottom of it, which acted as a ‘chair’ to prop him up,” Derek told BuzzFeed. After looping a chunk of styrofoam around the apparatus with a zip tie and balancing out the buoyancy with some weights at the bottom, the fish was ready to roll.

Swim bladder disorders are among the most common issues afflicting goldfish. Derek isn’t the first person to come up with a makeshift harness to fix the problem; corks have also been used to help keep disabled fish from going belly-up.

[h/t BuzzFeed News]

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