# How long will a fish live after being flushed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 11, 2004, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171 "2004-11-11T07:26:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@hannaconda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hannaconda)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/1 "2004-11-11T07:26:21Z")
If I flushed my fish… will they live?
Will or should I feel bad about hurting them?
Is it possible that the will continue to live?
Thanks,
need to clean fish tank
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/2 "2004-11-11T07:32:28Z")
Probably about as long as it takes for them to get to the sewage treatment plant…
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### Author:  [@hannaconda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hannaconda)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/3 "2004-11-11T07:36:37Z")
No really… it is important… are they like samon? can they swim up steam until nature takes over? I love my fish… but I want to tag them and flush-um just to find out.
What do you think?
> [@jayjay](#):
>
> Probably about as long as it takes for them to get to the sewage treatment plant…
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/4 "2004-11-11T07:37:58Z")
The toxicity of the other waste water would pretty surely kill them I’d imagine.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/5 "2004-11-11T07:45:29Z")
> [@hannaconda](#):
>
> No really… it is important… are they like samon? can they swim up steam until nature takes over? I love my fish… but I want to tag them and flush-um just to find out.
> What do you think?
I was serious.
a) Waste water is seriously nasty. I can’t imagine that their gills would be working AT ALL after swimming in other people’s poop for a while.
b) Even if they survived that, sewage treatment plants use both physical filters and strong chemicals to treat the water. I doubt a goldfish is going to survive that, either.
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### Author:  [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/6 "2004-11-11T08:15:44Z")
don’t flush them alive.
* * *
quick death good. slow death bad.
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/7 "2004-11-11T11:53:04Z")
Once in the sewer lines, they’d be eaten by alligators.
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### Author:  [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/8 "2004-11-11T12:07:40Z")
> [@hannaconda](#):
>
> No really… it is important… are they like samon? can they swim up steam until nature takes over? I love my fish… but I want to tag them and flush-um just to find out.
> What do you think?
You haven’t said what kind of fish you have but, because they’re fish, they have to be at least slightly similar to salmon, what with the gills and scales and all that. Why would you want to flush your fish anyway? How would you “tag” them? Even assuming they live (they wouldn’t), how would find them later? Are you planning on using a GPS or homing type device?
They wouldn’t even have to get to the water treatment plant; the ammonia and pH levels would kill them fairly quickly, I would think.
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### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/9 "2004-11-11T13:33:42Z")
Good short read on this
> **[Donate Fish, Do Not Flush - Why Flushing Your Fish is Not an Option](https://www.thesprucepets.com/dont-flush-that-fish-1378478)**
>
> Neither flushing nor dumping unwanted fish is appropriate, so donate them to another home or a school or office instead if they are healthy.
-----------QUOTE---------
The debate over how much pain a fish is able to feel will rage on long past our lifetimes. But there is little doubt that a live fish flushed into a system carrying all manner of noxious wastes will suffer in some way. Flushing a live fish is little more humane than dumping an unwanted kitten or puppy down an outhouse pit. Enough said.
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### Author:  [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/10 "2004-11-11T14:07:50Z")
> [@jimmmy](#):
>
> Flushing a live fish is little more humane than dumping an unwanted kitten or puppy down an outhouse pit. Enough said.
So you’re saying I can’t dump my puppies in the outhouse anymore?
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/11 "2004-11-11T15:14:50Z")
Plumping waste pipes aren’t filled with water. You’d flush the fish, he would wind up somewhere in the house waste pipes…along the bottom of the waste pipe, said fish would settle into about and 1/4 black gritty goo of waste. The rest of the waste pipe is air.
Essentially, the time to death would be about the same as if you plucked the fish out of water and tossed it on the floor.
I don’t know why everyone is assuming the fish would be submerged in anything.
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### Author:  [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/12 "2004-11-11T15:35:37Z")
good point. still, suffocating has got to be preferable than drowning in shit… 😃
* * *
quick death good. slow death bad.
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### Author:  [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/13 "2004-11-11T15:56:54Z")
For some reason I am imagining an awkward confontation in hell where some guy is confronted by some fish he flushed down the toilet in a past life. 😛
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### Author:  [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/14 "2004-11-11T16:08:18Z")
great, and now i am imagining some guy being flushed down the toilet into the poo ad infinitum by a gigantic gleeful gold fish.
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### Author:  [@Mycroft\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mycroft_H)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2004, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-will-a-fish-live-after-being-flushed/274171/15 "2004-11-11T16:10:58Z")
There’s good information here, especially **jimmmy’s** and **Philster’s**. I will assume you are kidding about wanting to tag them to see where they go to. There is not enough water for them to swim in, it is dark, there is no “swimming upstream” instinct for most fish, crap would clog the gills, and sewer lines are closed on the upper end with nowhere to escape to even it they could live and swim “upstream.”
If you have a sick fish, a very humane way to put a fish out of its misery is to keep it in water (in a bag or plastic container) and freeze it. Once dead it can then be flushed. That’s the method used in our household. An alternate is a quick whack with a blunt object, although this may not work quickly, may be messy, or traumatize the whacker.
At the fish store my wife works at sometimes a sick but non-infectious fish will be thrown in with bigger fish as a food source. Not a nice way to go, but it is natural. Nature isn’t humane.
But, whatever you do, please do not flush a live fish. Tossing puppies into an outhouse is a good analogy.