"I bet you can't have that fish tank set up by the end of the day," challenged Justin.
And I fell for it, without countering something along the lines of "okay but you'll have to pitch in on cost and maintenance," or "okay, but when something in it gets sick or dies you'll need to help," or "okay, but you and I need to take turns feeding everybody."
Of course not, because a challenge is a challenge, and because I like keeping frogs and fish and am happy to be sharing a home with someone who likes it too.
Really it's only the sick and/or dying aspects of aquarium keeping that bother me, but I likely wouldn't relinquish related duties to Justin or anyone really, because life is life, death is death, and I'm careful with such matters, even with fish.
How does one go about euthanizing a fish?
Common practice is the flushing method, popular presumably because it's easy on the human administering it. But flushing a dying fish down the toilet is extremely inhumane. First temperature shock, then suction and lack of oxygen, then battery or abrasion from the pipes, and if that hasn't killed the fish before it hits the sewage rest-assured it will then suffocate amid the waste.
When my local aquarium shop must euthanize a fish they cut off it's head. Perhaps unpleasant for the employee administering the cut, but lightening-fast, and thus a humane demise for the fish.
Cutting off the head of a living fish is beyond my capacity as is crushing it. So what to do? It came to me a few years ago, as I stood over an aquarium, adjacent to the kitchen sink-- the garbage disposal.
Now that you've likely recoiled at the thought and questioned my sanity, let's look at the reality of that choice.
Turn on the faucet as high as it will go, and set the water temperature to match the temperature inside of your tank as closely as possible. Turn on the disposal. Drop in the fish.
Granted it's not as quick as cutting off the head, but it's a whole lot faster than flushing.
Next time in Fish Tank Tales: What the ich is Ich?
