Fish tanks are supposed to inspire a sense of peace and well-being.
This is our sad but pretty, calico Ryukin, Nero. Nero wasn’t always in this sad state. She used to swim upright. We have three other goldfish including one other exotic and they are doing quite well, including Dylan, a feeder comet we got him two years ago, our first fish, and, excluding his tail, is now around 8 inches. We regularly clean the tank and do our partial water changes and the water levels are always good. We feed them sinking pellets and brine shrimp and green peas stripped of their skins. Doesn’t matter. One day early last spring Nero, the only female in the tank, began swimming slightly akilter and we realized she likely had a swim bladder problem. We did most everything I could find on the internet to try to help, those sites which said there was help. There were sites that held there was no help, that the affliction is caused by the pronounced egg-shape body build of exotics and that they are prone to it. Nero continued to tilt more and more but still was able to swim very well and was righting herself completely when eating or darting around.
When looking for information last spring on how long Nero had to live, I read that sometimes the afflicted fish die within days and sometimes they survive for a while. One site said if they live longer than a couple of months it is pretty unusual and there was a site that said a few may survive even longer. There was no mention of euthanizing in what I was reading last spring, perhaps because most such fish die fairly quickly. I had the impression, from what I read, that most permit the fish to die eventually on its own.
Watching the fish for enjoyment took a nosedive when Nero started going akilter. My husband was at first checking the tank several times a day, worrying that she might have died, expecting her to die. After months of this he began checking it to see if she was still alive, hoping she’d passed along, expecting she hadn’t. I kept telling him that Nero wasn’t going to die any time soon. I couldn’t anticipate when she would die, but she didn’t have the appearance of a creature with any awareness it should be moving along.
It has been eight monhs since Nero went akilter. But now she is perpetually upside down and floating at the top of the water. She can no longer right herself . Despite being upside down she is still able to dart swiftly about. Even as I write she’s leisurely swimming from one side of the tank to the other. On her back.
Today I looked up on the net again to see if there was more information and it is the same confusing mix and contrary opinions. There are vets who will do swimming bladder surgery, usually on showcase exotics. A couple of women wrote of getting their fish outfitted with weight jackets, by the vet, which they must now continually wear and keep them upright. Those women aren’t me. Before H.o.p. was around we sank quite a bit of money into taking care of our dogs and cats when they were ill, but now there are other priorities. I don’t see going to the vet and outfitting Nero with a weighted jacket. It’s not going to happen.
Today I finally read also one person saying the best thing is to euthanize, that the fish afflicted with a swimming bladder problem is a distressed fish. I read elsewhere that if the fish appears otherwise healthy and lively just let it live out its natural life. And I read of a fish that lived this way for nearly a year, began to be distressed, developed other illnesses due to the stress which ended up threatening the other goldfish in the tank, and so the fish was put down.
What I’ve learned the past two years with the goldfish is, despite fish having been kept as pets for over a thousand years, there’s a lack of consensus in the fish community on many care and health issues.
There’s a lack of consensus in the most humane way to put a fish down, which is something you think about when you’ve looked a fish in the eyes for a year and a couple of months, which is how long we’ve had Nero.
Flushing is not good. Everyone agrees on that. It’s the cowardly way out.
Some people whack their fish in the head with a blunt object. This is suggested only for large fish and is not a good way if your fish is smaller or still has the energy to protest being removed from the water and placed on a flat surface. Whacking however is not the preferred method as, despite it being said to be painless, the fish is stressed by being removed from water and it’s assumed the owner is going to be stressed and likely won’t whack it right.
Because the brain of a fish keeps going for 10 seconds after decapitation, that method only gets an approval rating of 50 percent.
A surprisingly high humane rating is given to dropping your fish in a running blender, but the fish has to be of the proper size.
Freezing used to be a popular method of euthanizing fish. Just put your fish, in water, in the freezer. But this is now thought to be strenuous for tropical fish and less acceptable than blending for cold water fish.
Temperature shock via immersion in cold water gets a 100 percent recommendation for all fish except coldwater fish.
Temperature shock via immersion in boiling water gets a 100 percent rating for coldwater fish.
Death by alcohol gets a 100 percent rating.
Electrocution gets a 100 percent rating, except it might kill you if you don’t know what you’re doing.
And then of course there are differing camps on whether fish even feel pain, largely functioning on a brainstem and spinal cord level, without awareness of neural activity. They don’t have the frontal lobes for the psychological experience of pain. But research has been published within the last few years out of Scotland which reports fish may feel pain after all.
I had some meat for dinner. I wear leather shoes.
I ate fish last week.
And I am worrying about how to euthanize a pet fish with which I don’t even feel a very deep connection. There’s attachment but not the same as with a dog or a cat. I do know I wouldn’t want to instantly boil her to death and do anything with the pot but discard it. I wouldn’t feel like eating out of it ever again.
The reason I was looking up again today how long fish with this condition may live, and then looking up fish euthanasia, is because Nero may be lively but she’s striking me as being in some distress. Her belly is now protruding from the water continually and she will begin to develop sores due to this. When she was first upside down 24 out of 24 we should have probably euthanized her then, but the words still going through my brain were that some fish can live like this a long while, which implies that they lived a fine life that happened to be upside-down. For all I know, she could go on for a good while more. But I don’t think so. Accompanying the inability to right herself anymore, her belly has become severely extended on one side.
There is yet another way to euthanize that is also recommended by the British Veterinary Zoological Society. Tincture a fish’s water with clove oil, which will act as an anaesthetic. To ensure the fish is dead, one may then add alcohol. I’ve decided this is the method we’ll use. Probably on Monday as liquor stores are closed on Sunday.
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