Speckle the goldfish has one eye removed to prevent tumours from regrowing

Vet William Wildgoose had to remove the eye of a goldfish to prevent tumours from regrowing, the Metro reported.

The fish named Speckle was anaesthetised for the surgery that lasted eight minutes. A nurse had to pour water on his gills every three minutes so it would not suffocate.

The 62-year-old vet had been treating the fish for two years. Wildgoose was forced to remove the eye because he had already removed a tumour that grew back on the pet fish. "By the time it got bigger and black it wasn’t able to see anything out of eye so it’s not as if we could improve on that," the vet told the Metro.

"These tumours quite often appear in different parts of the body, they are common in goldfish; they are not common in the eye," Wildgoose told the Metro. "The biggest issue was probably the physical size of the tumour. It can affect its swimming ability and being unable to see meant it bashed into things and that caused bits to break off," he revealed.

The vet has performed this kind of surgery on a dozen fish and some don't survive.

Sadly, Speckle died in 2015 a little after the surgery from an incurable disease called 'dropsy' that caused him to blow up. He was 16.

However, his case has contributed to veterinary science on pet fish, the vet revealed. Wildgoose also treated Speckle for a bowel condition that caused it to swim on his side.

During that time he had taken X-rays of the fish. "The X-rays show that the shape of the skull changes after the eye is removed. This is more or less proof why the artificial eyes fell out in an American study written a few years ago," he told the Metro.

Speckle's owner Sophia, a psychology graduate from north London, told the Metro, while it was a said time to say goodbye to the fish she had since she was a teenager, it was a relief to know he wasn't suffering anymore.