Smoking is one of the most dangerous and life threatening activities that human beings get indulged involuntarily. It is one of the leading causes of cancer and other cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. But, can smoking cigarettes affect fish inside aquariums?
According to Sandhya Kupekar and Shreya Patil, cigarette smoke can never be good for fish. It reduces the oxygen level in the water and absorbs important components. It can also make the water more acidic, cloudy and kill the fish.
Smoking cigarettes near your fish tank can thus, have an adverse effect on the tank’s ecosystem and hamper its sustainability. But does that mean that vaping or smoking Electronic cigarettes near the aquarium is a safer option? Our focus will be on these very topics as we answer some of the most widely asked questions, related to smoking and fish tanks, by aquarists all over the world.
Does Nicotine Kill Fish?
Nicotine, one of the most addictive and deadliest ingredients used in the manufacturing of cigarettes, is a very lethal compound. At doses between 30 and 60 milligrams, nicotine can be more dangerous than other harmful or poisonous compounds like arsenic and cyanide. On a concentrated level or dose, nicotine is corrosive to soft tissues. Under the effect of such concentrated doses, the substance can also damage our nervous system.
Nicotine can have a great impact on our circulatory system. Receiving the dose between a certain range can cause an increase in our blood pressure, heart rate, blood flow to the heart, and a narrowing of the arteries (blood vessels). Nicotine can also cause the hardening of the arterial walls, which is likely to lead to a heart attack.
However, as the manufacturing process of cigarettes is changing on a daily basis, with manufacturers trying to lessen the blow of harmful chemicals like nicotine on our body, it is predicted that the value of a lethal nicotine dose has changed. Hence, the studies need to be revised. Citing research conducted on dogs, Mayer recommends updating nicotine’s lethal dosage value from its existing ones to something between the range of 0.5 to 1 gram for the average human being.
But What About Fish Habitat? Can Nicotine Destroy Life Underwater?
Research suggests that smoked cigarette butts (with tobacco), smoked cigarette filters (with no tobacco), and unsmoked cigarette filters (no tobacco) are all acutely toxic to marine and freshwater fish (Slaughter et al., 2011). Besides fish, nicotine can also harmful bacteria that are an integral part of the marine ecosystem. Thus, in one way or another, it is very likely that nicotine can kill fish.
How Much Nicotine Can Kill Life In Your Tank?
Around 26mg of nicotine juice is enough to destroy life inside a 50 gallon fish tank. Although the quantity-damage relation will vary depending on the size of the tanks, the volume of water, and the concentration of the chemical, it can be easily assumed that even the smallest of nicotine drops can cause a large scale disruption inside the tank. At the given rate, for a 1 gallon fish tank, a drop containing half of a milligram of nicotine is more than sufficient to kill its residents.
Can I Smoke Near Fish Tank
Yes. You can definitely smoke near a fish tank. But before you do so, there are a few things you need to ensure.
- Make sure the tank is sealed from the top, i.e. the aquarium has a lid covering its top.
- Check whether the lid or the fish tank, in general, have any leaks or not. You need to make sure that the aquarium is sealed properly so that smoke from your cigarette cannot infiltrate the tank.
- Avoid smoking cigarettes near the air filter of your aquarium. You do not want the inside of your fish tank smelling like cigarettes.
- Do not exhale the smoke in a way such that it comes in direct contact with the aquarium glass.
Can Cigarette Smoke Clog The Air-Filter?
Although cigarette smoke will not directly clog the air-filters in your aquarium, it will leave chemical residues or deposits on it. These deposits, in turn, will clog the filters.
As a result of such clogging, the clean supply of air and the exchange of gases between the aquarium and the air outside will be hindered. The chemical residues might even mix with the air and enter the tank.
What Does Nicotine Do To Fish?
Nicotine is a toxic colorless or yellowish liquid and the chief active constituent of tobacco. It is used as a stimulant in small doses. However, larger quantities of nicotine can block the action of autonomic nerve and skeletal muscle cells.
Here is what chemical such as Nicotine can do to fish
- Stimulate drowsiness, which will make them move or stay closer to the bottom of the tank.
- Fishes become more sluggish in nature. They will not show much movement, even for food.
- Can lead to oxidative stress.
- Cell and tissue damage.
- Causing restriction in blood flow and hampering the cardiovascular system.
- Respiratory troubles.
Can the toxicity of cigarette butts in fish tank hurt fish?
Cigarette butts are mostly the filters through which smokers inhale the nicotine in the cigarette. This filter, along with remains of tobacco, are often disposed of in the water. This has the same effects as a cigarette would have when thrown inside a container full of water.
The toxicity from the cigarette butts come from the remaining tobacco as well as the filter itself. Traces of nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, and other harmful chemicals dissolve into the tank’s water. This leads to the poisoning of the entire fish tank and can hurt the fish as well.
Are E-Cigarettes Safer For Your Fish?
Also referred to as electronic nicotine delivery systems and vapes, E-cigarettes are marketed as one of the best possible ways to stop or cut down on chain-smoking. An E-cigarette is a battery-operated device that releases vaporized nicotine doses, or even non-nicotine solutions, for the user to inhale. This helps to create a sensation of smoking, but instead of inhaling tobacco smoke, the users are being treated to vapor.
Vape comes in various shapes and sizes, and in different flavors. From apple to cotton-candy, there is a plethora of vape juice flavors for you to choose from. The flavor is not only for the purpose of taste. It also helps in creating an aromatic smell corresponding to the flavor. Hence, you do not need to worry about any sort of stench, something you would have to if you were smoking cigarettes.
The juice used in the pods of your E-cigarettes is quite harmful to your fish tank. Studies have suggested that just one drop of vape juice (ingredients include nicotine) can cause significant damage to your fish and even death. We are talking about 26mg of juice in a 50 gallon tank.
There is also the smell and the flavor of the juice which will dissolve into your aquarium water and create an unsustainable environment for your fishes as well as other important aquatic plants and bacteria growing inside the fish tank.
Is Vaping Safer For Fish In Tanks?
Considering the ingredients used and risk factors related to the activity, vaping is considered to be safer than smoking. However, research shows that it is in no way a completely safe option as vaping can still lead to cardiovascular abnormalities (Sahota, A. et al., 2019).
Hence, if vaping is not fully safe for humans, it should also not be safer for fishes inside an aquarium in comparison to smoking.
Of course, vaping will not have as adverse of an effect as smoking would have on your aquarium. But at the same time, the vapor being released near the tank can cause a mixture of air with the vapor chemicals to enter the tank.
Fish and other aquatic plants and bacteria inside your fish tank need a constant supply of clean air. This supply gets interrupted due to the influence of the chemicals being released into the air from your vaping which includes certain doses of nicotine. The chemicals then mix with the clean air and create a mixture that can turn out to be deadly for life inside the aquarium.
The vapor can also cloud up the tank’s glass. Although the vapor’s smell is more pleasant in comparison to that coming from a cigarette, it is still unpleasant for your fish. Such sudden changes in the quality of air supply and smell inside the tank can result in abnormalities. There is a chance that your fish will show unnatural behavioral patterns due to the influence of these factors.
Thus, we can conclude that vaping is not safer for fish in tanks. Although it is slightly less harmful in comparison to cigarettes, the long term effect that it will have is to be kept in mind.
Sticking Hand In The Aquarium After Smoking – Is It Okay To Do So?
Never stick your hands in the aquarium after you are done smoking. You need to wash your hands first and sanitize them before you put them in the fish tank. If you place your hand inside the tank right after you smoke a cigarette, it will end up adding small quantities of nicotine to the water and is quite harmful to the fish as well as plant cells. Although the action is not enough to kill your fish, it is enough to damage their functionalities. Beside smelly dirty hands, check other dangerous think than is better to keep away from a fish tank – link
Thus, we can conclude that smoking cigarettes near the fish tank can lead to repercussions. The activity is not only harmful to humans but for other forms of life as well. Avoid smoking or vaping near your tank. Make sure you are allowing proper circulation of air inside the tank. Passive smoking is not just a thing for us humans. In fact, such passive or secondhand smoking can disrupt aquatic life as well.
IMPORTANT NOTE: SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH. IT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MORE THAN 480,000 DEATHS EVERY YEAR IN THE UNITED STATES ALONE. THIS ARTICLE IS IN NO WAY A SUGGESTIVE PIECE WRITTEN TO INSPIRE THE HABIT OF SMOKING. WE WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST OUR READERS TO AVOID SMOKING, AT ALL COSTS, THANK YOU. FUP.
References:
- Bernd Mayer. “How much nicotine kills a human? Tracing back the generally accepted lethal dose to dubious self‐experiments in the nineteenth century.” Archives of Toxicology. Oct. 2013. DOI 10.1007/s00204-013-1127-0
- Slaughter, E., Gersberg, R. M., Watanabe, K., Rudolph, J., Stransky, C., & Novotny, T. E. (2011). Toxicity of cigarette butts, and their chemical components, to marine and freshwater fish. Tobacco control, 20 Suppl 1(Suppl_1), i25–i29. Retrieved 23rd February 2020. https://doi.org/10.1136/tc.2010.040170
- Vaping Safer Than Smoking But Not Without Cardiovascular Risk: A Pet/Mri Study Sahota, A. et al. Atherosclerosis, Volume 287. e52 Retrieved 23rd February. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2019.06.146
- Toxic effect of Cigarette Smoke on Vital organs of Aquarium fish Carassius auratus. Sandhya Kupekar and Shreya Patil, IOSR Journal of Environmental Science, Toxicology and Food Technology (IOSR-JESTFT) e-ISSN: 2319-2402,p- ISSN: 2319-2399.Volume 9, Issue 10 Ver. II (Oct. 2015), PP 10-12. Retrieved 23rd February, 2020. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2505/b95f8ab28770a8da0e5ac6d25681ba188fd0.pdf
