In the video, founder Elias Müller gives a tour of his fish rescue station.Video: Watson/David Indumi
If you no longer want your ornamental fish, flush them down the toilet. The only option: the Aqualuz fish animal shelter in Oftringen AG. The story of its founding is heartwarming. However, the stories behind the fish that end up here are sad.
28.07.2024, 17:0129.07.2024, 21:46
“What annoys me the most is parents who don’t give any information and buy an aquarium with fish in the hardware store for their children,” says Elias Müller. He knows how paradoxical this statement sounds when he says it. Especially here, in the cold warehouse in Oftringen in the canton of Aargau. Here, where 5,000 fish in 150 aquariums follow him around as he passes by them, as long as the glass allows. Because they recognize him as the person who regularly brings them food. Taking care of them.
What worries Müller the most is that Aqualuz still exists today. It’s Switzerland’s only fish animal shelter.
Entrance to the Aqualuz Fish Sanctuary.Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
A vast underwater world opens up
When Müller started school in Reiden in the canton of Lucerne in 2003, he quickly began having difficulties in class. “But you could also say: my teacher was overwhelmed,” says Müller. Overwhelmed by her, the hyperactive boy who could hardly sit still quickly became bored and his studies were disrupted.
“Today you’d probably say I have or had ADHD,” Mueller says and shrugs. He never received a diagnosis, nor did he seek it. His parents found another means besides Ritalin to calm him down: They put an aquarium in the elementary school student’s bedroom. Full of molly.
Mollies come in different colors.Image: Shutterstock
The fish species, which originally comes from Central America, is known for its extremely social behavior in groups. But also for something else: “Mollies are absolutely beginner fish,” says Muller, with a slight sarcasm in his voice. This applies not to the fish species, but to the pet stores and hardware stores that market mollies that way.
Like Fresnapf. On her On the website, the dealer lists mollies as beginner fish. because they are one of those fish species that “have a robust health and are very forgiving of minor mistakes that beginners can easily make when setting up and maintaining an aquarium.”
As a child, Muller did not yet understand what was problematic about such sentences. He only saw mollies in his aquarium. He watched them mesmerized. All the information he could find about them was in a children’s fish encyclopedia that his parents gave him along with the aquarium.
With Mollies, a whole new, wide, exciting underwater world opened up before her children’s eyes. An underwater world that was waiting to be discovered.
Elias Muller looks at the Amazon Aquarium. The fish in it are not for sale because it would actually be illegal to keep them. Still, they ended up here at Aqualuz.Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
“I was supposed to know everything”
Muller’s parents’ plan worked. When Muller could focus on the fish, he calmed down. Soon he was writing in his book which fish he wanted to get next time.
Müller is fascinated by his favorite species: the cuckoo fish.Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
Muller’s parents regularly took the elementary school student to the pet store, where he would quiz the sellers. He has to laugh when he says this. “I usually knew more about fish than the sellers did. I was a know-it-all.” Then his smile fades.
As a child, he did not understand why the adults selling fish knew so little about them. Today he knows the sad answer: According to Swiss law, a shop selling ornamental fish must have only one employee who has completed further training for animals. This further training consists of only a three-day course. Müller concludes:
“People who have no knowledge at all regularly sell ornamental fish to people who have no idea about it.”
Elias Müller tells even more sad stories about ornamental fish in the video.Video: Watson/David Indumi
Fish are “disposed” of in toilets and lakes
Muller didn’t learn about the consequences of this situation for the fish until he was a teenager. A friend who is an amateur ornamental fish breeder was looking for a place for a fish someone wanted to get rid of. He asked Muller if he could take him in. He could. He now has fifty aquariums in the nuclear shelter of his parents’ house, filled with hundreds of fish.
Today Müller has 150 aquariums at Aqualuz.Image: Watson/David Indumi
After Muller took the fish in, such requests kept coming in. And he realized that if he didn’t take them in, the animals would die. Because unfortunately, that’s still the case today:
“When people don’t want their fish they flush them down the toilet.”
However, some fish also end up in lakes and rivers because their owners abandon them. Many goldfish, sunfish, catfish and three-spined sticklebacks have already found their way into Swiss waters Reports from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) from 2022 It is said.
A beautiful fish: the sunfish, which comes from North America. Because his owners no longer wanted him, he now resides in Swiss waters.Image: Shutterstock
They are all now officially considered neozoans, that is, invasive species that can drive out native species and destroy entire ecosystems.
Ornamental fish, the most popular pet and “decorative object”
Ornamental fish never come from Switzerland or only from Europe. They come from the Amazon, the Mekong, Colombian rivers, Malawi lakes and the sea. Müller now knows why:
“We don’t look at native fish as pets, but as food fish.”
Ever since he started running the Aqualuz fish sanctuary, he has also been skeptical of this statement. His belief is that most people see ornamental fish as a decorative object. A commodity.
The fish arrive at the fish animal shelter in buckets, which are then distributed to suitable aquariums.Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
“People regularly give away fish they know nothing about. Neither the species of fish nor what habitat they need.” Müller finds this extremely problematic. After all, fish are among the most popular pets in Switzerland. writes like this bathroom,
“There are about three million people living in Swiss families.”
Federal Office for the Environment
Muller believes that most of them are suffering. Deep down. Because the fish are unable to express their suffering and make noise. “That’s why I want to be the voice of the voiceless with Aqualuz.”
This ray, which would actually live in the Amazon, also found its way to Aqualuz. Müller regularly buries snails in the sand for it so it can dig them up like in nature and keep itself busy.Image: Watson/David Indumi
The Sad Stories Behind Broken Fish
You can tell if the fish are doing well or not just by their behavior. “But 95 percent of all aquarium owners cannot interpret this behavior correctly.”
The sad consequences of this can be seen in the aquarium of Aqualuz. For example, a loach: it swims more uncontrollably than its counterparts in the same tank. His back has an unmistakable bend. Muller’s diagnosis:
“She didn’t get enough food and she was in an aquarium that was too small.”
A loach with a sloping back.Image: Watson/David Indumi
Loaches will be sold to aquarium owners who have a snail problem. Often called snail eaters. They should be a maximum of two centimeters in length when you buy them. New owners often don’t realize that they grow up to 15 centimeters in a short time and need a lot of space. And it’s not like snail eaters will starve to death as soon as they finish all the snails in the tank.
Muller can tell many stories like this. They broke his heart. That’s why he eventually founded the Fish Animal Shelter in 2019. Their mission:
“I want to give the fish a new life. A second chance.”
In the best case scenario, Muller finds a good new home for the animals. He resells the ornamental fish for about half the price the pet trade charges for one to owners he trusts and has a good understanding of.
Muller sells this fish for 35 francs. It retails for 70 francs.Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
With these sales, Aqualuz is 70 percent self-financed, the rest comes from donations, for example from the Swiss Animal Welfare Association. However, the fish animal shelter can only function thanks to many volunteers. Including the entire Müller family. He also works 40 percent of his time as a teacher.
The T-shirt says everything you need to know about Mueller’s commitment.Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
Many people are unable to find a new home
Muller would like it best if one day he didn’t have to operate Aqualaz because there were no more aquariums. It’s wishful thinking, he’s aware of that.
Mueller will probably never find a new home for many of the fish, like the koi that’s frolicking in a parking lot swimming pool.
Under this tent in the fresh air, Mueller keeps koi and goldfish in a swimming pool.Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
You can pay more than two thousand francs for a koi in the pet trade. Muller would sell them for 200 to 300 francs each. But no one would come and buy them. Muller now knows why:
«If you buy one, you want a “new” one, not an “old” one. And he wants to spend not a hundred but thousands of francs on it. Fish is a product, a status symbol – not a living creature.»
Koi is a species of carp that comes from Japan. Image: Watson/Aylin Erol
Most people probably stay in Oftringen until the end of their lives. “Spend your retirement in Aqualuz,” as Müller puts it more beautifully.
Are you happy here? Muller shrugged his shoulders again. You can’t say that. If they eat, swim, react to their environment, you know at least their needs are being met. But:
“After all, every aquarium is a prison.”