What to do when your pet aquarium fish dies
If you keep an aquarium long enough, you will inevitably have to deal with fish dying at some point. The question is, what do you do about it?
1. Remove the fish
The very first thing you should do when a fish dies is remove it from the aquarium. At this point, you might not be sure why your fish has passed. If the cause of death was a contagious illness, the chances of passing it on to other fish greatly increases by leaving it in.
Most aquarium fish are opportunistic, and will feed on the dead body of another fish. Sounds horrible, but the natural world operates on a different set of rules. If the illness is parasitic, it’s likely that the scavengers will catch it too.
2. Try and figure out what's going on
Take a look at your fish. Are there spots or fuzzy areas? Is the fish bloated? Browse the web and see if you can’t figure out what’s going on with your fish. Or drop me a question in the comments and I’ll do my best to diagnose it for you. It’s important to know what your fish died of because there may be a chance that your other fish are at risk of infection.
3. Test your water
Test your water for the basic parameters - ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. High levels of these chemicals can stress fish out making them more susceptible to illnesses. From my experience, this is the most common cause of fish health problems in aquariums.
If you don’t have a water test kit, buy this one. It’s very accurate, but you need to follow the directions carefully. When it says to shake test tube vigorously, they’re not joking!
4. Do a water change
Do a big ol’ water change - 50%. Even if your water quality came back clear, it's still a great idea to do this after the passing of a fish. Maybe there’s something in the water that we can’t test for that a water change will help with.
5. Think about other factors
Is there something else in your aquarium that could be causing your fish to get sick? Some of the first things to check for would be temperature, aeration, poor diet, too much flow, lack of hiding spots or something specific to one of your fish. Do some research on that fish species and see if they are sensitive to anything in particular.
6. Take action
Take the appropriate actions to prevent other fish from getting stressed and dying. If there was an illness, treat the tank for it. Depending on the type of illness, fish meds can be extremely effective and should not be underrated.
If it’s a matter of keeping the water cleaner, be diligent about water changes. If perhaps it was stress as a result of lack of hiding spots, then put some plants or caves in the tank. Whatever it is, take some action!
7. Accept, learn & grow
Ultimately you’ll need to accept the loss of your fish. It can be quite sad to lose a fish, especially some of the more charismatic ones that you’ve had for a while, but that’s part of fish keeping. Some species will live for two years while others 15 or even 50!
If you keep a large school of short lived fish, you can expect to deal with fish death more often than someone who keeps a few long lived fish. That’s not a reflection on anyone’s fish keeping capabilities, just the way it works out.
If a fish gets sick or passes because of a mistake we made, we need to learn from that.
Mistakes happen, and you shouldn’t give up the hobby when things go wrong. That being said, we do need to learn from our mistakes, and not repeat ones that have fatal consequences to the pets in our care. These kinds of mistakes include forgetting to plug the heater or pump back in, or procrastinating too long in between water changes.
The hardest situations to accept and learn from are the ones that never get explained. Sometimes even the most experienced fishkeepers come across situations that they can’t answer.
It’s always sad saying goodbye to a fish, especially ones we’ve had for years. Do your best to learn from mistakes so that it doesn't happen again. You should feel bad when a fish dies, but don’t let it ruin the hobby for you. Accept, learn and grow from your mistakes.
