How Do You "send Off" Your Fallen Friends?

[Maehlice]

I just upgraded from a 29g to 125g aquarium for my pleco, Chupa (P. Pardalis).  Unfortunately, one of my Tiger Barbs didn't survive the transition.
 
This, of course, meant a farewell was in order.  My farewell ceremony is involving and bizarre, which got me wondering what other people do.
 
How do you send off your fish when they meet their unfortunate but inevitable end?
 
 
What is my bizarre ceremony?
 
I begin by thanking the fish for gracing me with its life and for all the enjoyment it brought me.  I then say a prayer for its soul/lifeforce/whateveryouwanttocallit to live on in a better place or return to a better life (I'm not sure which -- if either -- even occurs). Once the farewells have been said, I behead the fish (as a poissonier would when butchering) and boil it until there is nothing left but the skull -- which is then returned to the aquarium system in the refugium.  I bury its body in the garden so it can also nourish whatever plants or critters get to it.
 
My brother-in-law thinks this is all morbid, but it makes me feel good to know my pet got more than just a flick of the wrist and that its remains aren't in a water treatment plant or sewage cesspool out there somewhere.  (In fact, I know part of my pet will always remain with me in the aquarium.)
 
NOTE:  I have never had to euthanize a fish. If I ever do, I will anesthetize it -- not behead it alive.

 

[BelldandyShanny]

I feed them to my venus fly trap...   ... .. .  No I don't, but really I picked "other" because there are so many of the choices you listed that I have done/do.  Sometimes I flush, sometimes I don't get to the tank till morning and find that someone is pretty much eaten in which case, I just let them finish it off (and they always do shrimpies make sure of it) sometimes they get thrown in the trash, and sometimes they get gardened.  Many factors play a role in what happens, like weather, nearness of trash can vs someone's occupying the bathroom...lots of stuff.

 

[rpgmomma8404]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Usually flush them but I thought about what I should do if the fish is too big to flush. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]When I had pet rats and they would pass away, I would take them to petco. They would freeze them and send them with their other animals that didn't make it to be [/SIZE]disposed of. That is probably what will happen. I don't like throwing dead animals in the trash. Really don't care for flushing them either but I feel something that small might be kind of silly to make the trip to the pet store with. Considering the petco that I took my dead rats too has closed. I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’m sure petsmart would do the same but you just don’t know what each store policy is. The mom and pop fish store I go to is a good drives away to do that with so they are out of the question.
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]Interesting question. [/SIZE]

 

[NeonBlueLeon]

I bury my beloved fish under a young peach tree in my yard.  It was especially sad when my first generation (ever) of guppies passed.  They were almost two and a half to three years old (guessing cause I bought them).

 

[the_lock_man]

Flushing them is a bad idea

 

[PrairieSunflower]

I guess mine is as fertilizer.... I dump them in the bush outside my window.

 

[Baccus]

 Before anyone asks the reason that flushing of dead fish is a bad idea mainly because of diseases from your tank then being potentially released into local water ways. Water treatment plants are only supposed to be dealing with human waste (solid and liquid) and are not really designed to deal with potentially microscopic pathogens, and realistically they wouldn't be testing for fish borne diseases.
 
Not only do any dead fish in my tanks become garden food, I also utilise my water from my tanks on my gardens and plants. Actually there are some really great hydroponic set ups available now where the fish waste is used to feed hydroponic vegetables, based on the same principal.

 

[Midas]

This is a great poll, and hope more people will post what they do as I regretfully throw them in the trash.  My fish are too big for the toilet and living in NYC, I have no yard or garden.  I just looked up and my fish are giving me a very odd and outright creepy stare.  No doubt I feel really guilty for taking the easy route on the recently departed.  I thought about taking them to the east river, but they would float and that wouldn't be pleasant.

 

[rpgmomma8404]

 Before anyone asks the reason that flushing of dead fish is a bad idea mainly because of diseases from your tank then being potentially released into local water ways. Water treatment plants are only supposed to be dealing with human waste (solid and liquid) and are not really designed to deal with potentially microscopic pathogens, and realistically they wouldn't be testing for fish borne diseases.
 
Not only do any dead fish in my tanks become garden food, I also utilise my water from my tanks on my gardens and plants. Actually there are some really great hydroponic set ups available now where the fish waste is used to feed hydroponic vegetables, based on the same principal.

I didn't even think about that. I might just have to start burying them then. Thanks for the information. 

 

[Sophie]

I bag mine up, put it in the freezer, take it to work, put it in their freezer with the other deceased animals and off to incineration.

 

[BelldandyShanny]

We're on a septic tank, so that's why I will flush them, on our own well too, which is why we have no chlorine out of the tap (I still use water conditioner though)  I do take all of my fish water and dump it outside, which is probably why the plants right there are doing so well, too bad they're weeds haha. Large animals (of any kind) that we don't take to the vet to be disposed of we bury outside, this is something I've done ever since I was little, super creepy to think about (if you take the time to think about it) at my parent's house which we have lived there as long as I've been alive and even before in a certain part of the woods (we have just over an acre of land)....(current residence too) there is an animal "grave yard" if you know what you are looking for you can see it.  My dad would dig a hole, usually about three feet or so and we'd put a large rock over it to keep animals from digging it up.  When we were little we'd even make little wooden signs to mourn over.  Cats, mice, rats, squirrel, rabbits, birds, all that is out there.  Not counting the animals that just "go missing" which...well we have lots of raccoons, bears, cougers, and coyotes about.  Dogs, we usually have put down because it's much easier to tell when they're suffering and they don't just vanish into a quiet room. So they are taken care of at the vet as well.  I know this is a post about fish, but just thought I'd share.

 

[spongy]

Before anyone asks the reason that flushing of dead fish is a bad idea mainly because of diseases from your tank then being potentially released into local water ways. Water treatment plants are only supposed to be dealing with human waste (solid and liquid) and are not really designed to deal with potentially microscopic pathogens, and realistically they wouldn't be testing for fish borne diseases.
 
Not only do any dead fish in my tanks become garden food, I also utilise my water from my tanks on my gardens and plants. Actually there are some really great hydroponic set ups available now where the fish waste is used to feed hydroponic vegetables, based on the same principal.

Tosh. Sewers are not linked to waterways, the only way that could ever happen is after torrential rain that could cause the sewers to flood, human waste is passed under UV filters at treatment plants to kill all nasties in it, so any disease a fish had will be killed, and even if that did happen, a dead fish isn't going to cause a problem is it. What's worse? One dead tiny fish or human **** in a local river.

 

[lrhodes]

I normally flush most of them...
 
But (as bad as it sounds...) the special ones get buried...

 

[KirkyArcher]

Deceased from upstairs tank did get flushed, and if I ever have any deceased in the downstairs tank they will get binned or "trashed" 

 

[Ruskull]

My son and I say a nice bit about the fish and then flush them.  We're on our own septic field so I highly doubt any fish disease would ever make it's way into the ground water and even if it did, we're on County Water which is treated.
 
I would think the dead fish decaying in my cesspool would be good for the bacteria in there that breaks down the solid waste.