Question: what is the average age a fish can get to

Alex Seeney answered on 19 Jun 2018:

That’s a tricky question to answer, as different fish can live to different ages! Carp can live up to 20 years, there are some catfish that can live up to 60! These things are affected by the life of the fish – where it lives, how active it is, what it eats, etc.

You can also get big age ranges in the same species – a pet goldfish will probably live for 6-7 years on average, but they have been reported to live for as long as 30 years!

The shortest lifespan belongs to a species of Goby that lives on coral reefs. It only lives for about 2-2.5 months! On the other end of the scale, a European eel (a very important species) is recorded as living to 155 years, and there was a Koi that lived to 226 (allegedly…)!