Was my fish dead when it was at the bottom of the tank?

Question

I remember that a few years ago when I was a child, I had a Bloodfin tetra(I'm not sure if it was this fish type, but it resembles my fish tremendously) fish I believed to be a male.

That fish lived for two years until we presumed it dead. I knew that a fish was dead when it floated to the top, but we thought it was dead because it was at the bottom of the tank for many days and still did not become active when we moved the tank, etc. We flushed the fish down the toilet ):

Out of curiosity, was that fish dead, or was it feeling unwell?

Also, we kept our fish in some sort of flower vase, but I was too naive and that was before I knew anything about fishes.

Answer 1

Your fish was most likely to be dead. I recently had a albino hoplo catfish who I loved so much but when a member of my family was changing the water, he died of shock. He was paler than usual and his gills weren’t moving and he wouldn’t shift when I poked at him.

The fact that you flushed him down the toilet means that you must’ve taken him out of there and that he didn’t shift a single bit.

Answer 2

Your fish was dead for sure. It often happens that their swimming bladder starts failing because of some illness and then they can start floating on the side or directly stay on the bottom until they die. Also if you were able to grab it to flush it make it much more clear tough.