What to Do with Your Unwanted Pet Fish?
People might want to get rid of their pet fish for multiple reasons. One of them is that it doesn’t really fit in the community aquarium as a tank mate. In that case, the fish is either getting bullied or has an overly aggressive temperament and bullies others.
Another case is when someone breeds a certain species and there is not enough space for the juveniles in the aquarium. Since there is a market for selling fish, people often breed them with the goal of selling them. If you feel like you want to get rid of your fish for some reason and not sure how to do it, then this article is for you.
There are multiple ways to get rid of your pet fish and I am going to explain each of them below.
Sell Your Fish Online
Take advantage of the powers of the Internet and try to sell your fish online. Nowadays, it is easier than ever to find the websites of pet shops and contact them via phone, email or on social media. You can do this until one of them gets back to you and accepts your fish.
If you want to sell it instead of just giving it away, you can do that too. There are numerous websites where you can advertise your fish. Fish keepers frequently check them out to see whether they can get a particular species for a lower price.
You can also write a short description about your fish including diseases if it had any. There is Craigslist, for example, where people frequently buy whole aquarium setups and established fish communities from each other.
Give Your Fish to Friends
There might be people among your friends or acquaintances who are interested in keeping fish at home. Make sure to ask them whether they need that fish or not. You can also advertise your fish locally or on online forums.
Fish keeping is a hobby many people are interested in. Many of them have community tanks at home which only show how passionate they are about the hobby. Often times, you only need to ask and one of them is surely going to adopt your fish.
Basically, wherever you see an aquarium, you can ask people whether they want your fish. It can be in an office, nursing home, school or any similar place. Many people want to keep fish at home that don’t even have a fish tank. In that case, you can be generous and offer your own aquarium.
You can consider it as a gift and offer it that way. At the end of the day, you can definitely find someone to give your fish to if you really want to.
Take Your Fish Back to the Store
You can take your fish back right to the store where you bought it. Or, you can go to any fish store in your area and ask them if they want to take it or not. Most of the time, they are going to say yes, especially if you are willing to give it away for free.
If you are lucky, you can get a small amount of money for it as well. Either way, the fish store is a great place to get rid of your fish because they know exactly how to take proper care of it.
Never Release Your Pet Fish!
There are a lot of solutions to this problem and flushing your fish down the toilet is surely not one of them. I mean, it is objectively an option but doing something like that with a living being is not something anyone should support.
Instead of going for the quickest and simplest option, you need to think about this as a responsibility. You are the one responsible for the life of that little being. Besides that, it is really not hard to find someone who takes care of that fish. We are talking about an extremely popular hobby that many people are passionate about.
Locating a lake or river nearby and releasing it there might seem like a far better idea but it’s really not. The argument here is to give the fish back to nature where it belongs. Well, the fish you keep at home don’t exactly come from lakes or rivers.
Most of them are bred by other fish keepers or were born in a fish store, never experiencing the difficulties of living outside. Simply put, they don’t belong there. In an aquarium, the living conditions are far better than they are outside, which is why those fish live far longer.
We tend to think of their natural environment as an ideal place but in fact, nature is harsh. There are lots of parasites and diseases lurking out there that your fish has never been exposed to. They don’t know how to defend themselves out there and how to get food either.
Most fish species that people keep at home are non-indigenous and they usually cause more harm than good when you release them outside.
Wrap Up
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to get rid of your fish if you don’t want it. Aquarium fish are complex beings and each of them has its own personality. They definitely don’t deserve to be thrown away or flushed down the toilet.
Although it is important to set up your tank in a way so that it resembles the natural habitat of your fish, aquarium fish are not capable of living out in nature. A fish that gets released into a lake or river is probably not going to survive for long.
Fortunately, most stores are ready to accept anyone’s fish and sometimes they even pay for it. If you know someone who would gladly keep a fish at home, then go ahead and ask them. There are many people out there who would gladly adopt a pet fish and take good care of it.
