The internet has turned on a man who saved a goldfish left on his lawn

A man has been chronicling the story of how he saved a goldfish that mysteriously appeared on his lawn.

Ben Beska took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to write a long post explaining his current situation. “So today I found a goldfish just on the grass in my back garden. It was alive, I think, and have absolutely no idea where it came from. There’s no ponds anywhere near. So I took it inside….” his first post read, along with a photo of the goldfish sitting in the grass.

His post on X continued as he mentioned that the fish was alive after putting it in a water-filled freezer drawer turned into a make-shift tank. “It was alive! Although not very happy in an old freezer drawer,” Beska’s thread continued.

“Much happier in an actual and hastily bought tank. Anyway I have a fish now,” he showed off the goldfish again, this time in a smaller tank.

However, despite what appeared to be a good deed, many people ended up criticizing Beska under the post, explaining that the goldfish needs a bigger tank or it won’t grow properly, along with other fish-caring techniques he should keep in mind.

“A tank needs time to cycle properly in order to process fish waste. You can buy bacteria to help speed up the process but in the mean time make sure you do very frequent water changes with properly treated water in order to keep it alive,” one comment read.

“That’s not a goldfish, that’s a koi fish. You need a bigger tank or a pond or it won’t grow any larger,” another comment read.

“You can remove the big bushy plant for more space. That guy will need at least a 20 gallon tank, that’s the pond variety so it’s not going to be happy in a small space,” a third commenter wrote.

The fish ended up being given a name. “Meet Alice (aka Lazarus, aka The Fish Who Lived)” Beska wrote.

According to Beska, the name was created after a text message he sent to a friend regarding the animal autocorrected from “it’s alive” to “it’s alice.”

Beska went on to respond to all of the comments telling him about Alice’s tiny tank with a separate post on X that read: “Repeat after me: a hastily bought, temporary tank is better for a goldfish than lying dead on the grass.”

“Surviving better than it was sitting on my back lawn, isn’t it Eva,” he posted again in response to another negative comment. “You happen to find a mostly-dead goldfish on your lawn and tweet about saving its life and your replies are filled with people saying yOu sHoUlD hAvE pLaNnEd tHiS bEtTeR.”

Since sharing his story, people have begun to turn Beska’s fish comments into memes about how something so simple was able to upset as many people as it did.

One X user even created a separate account for the fish, with the username alicebeska.

One post on the account for the fish reads: “Such a wild day, booked one of those journeetrips and wound up in some northerner’s lawn? I would like a refund please.”

The Independent has contacted Beska for comment.