No cat or dog could elicit the kind of affection you feel for your pet fish.

Sure, you can’t take them for a walk or make them do tricks. But they’re there, they offer a hint of vibrancy to your home setting, and it’s fairly inexpensive to take care of them.

But despite how well you take care of them, every now and then, you come home and see a once-happy fish on the floor of your aquarium, either on its last breath or in the great ocean in the sky.

Why is it that your fish aren’t surviving despite you giving them the best care and a great aquarium?

We have a few answers!

Why Your Fish Die

Truth be told, there’s no one reason why your fish aren’t able to live long. But for convenience’s sake, we’ve narrowed the reasons down to a fair few:

• New Tank Syndrome:Aside from being stressful, the move to a new tank can also be fatal for fishes, especially if you add them to the tank in the first month of setting it up. Fish produce ammonia, but the filter is not able to filter it out properly. Preparing the aquarium for a few weeks in advance can help the filter mature.
• Poor Water Quality:Hard water, soft water, chemicals, and minerals—all of this can impact your fishes’ life, especially if the water has higher levels of nitrite and ammonia. In addition, not cleaning the water can also damage water quality and can lead to fish death.
• Stress:Just like humans, fish can suffer from stress as well. Loud sounds, unexpected changes, bullying from other fishes, hands in the fish tank, or tapping the aquarium glass can stress out your fish.
• Overcrowding:Too many fish in the tank all at once can spike up ammonia levels. If that leads to a fish’s death and you don’t switch out the water in time, it can also result in a dirty aquarium, which can lead to more fatalities.

In addition to these basic reasons, other faults include overfeeding, insufficient chemical filtration, cold water, contaminated water, and illness.

What Can Be Done?

Truth be told, while fishes make great pets, their place isn’t in the aquarium. It’s in the great wide ocean so they can live their days in peace.

And while you might not be able to provide such a sanctuary for your domestic fishes, you could support organizations that are trying to maintain the world’s waters for the rest of the aquatic population.

The Ocean Vibe offers more than just ocean conservation apparel like wearable blanket with hood. Every month, we donate 10 percent of our total income to two organizations, the Ocean Conservancy and the Sea Turtles Preservation Association.

By shopping for comfortable ocean beach themed bedding online here, you can do your part in making the oceans a better place to live for our finned friends!