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Author: Subject: Fish euthanasia
Nixie
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[*] posted on 31-12-2006 at 19:45


Actually, it's now actively seeking out food, and it took a shit so it's managing to find some of it at least. I've decided to let it live unless I see it losing a lot of weight or any behavioral symptoms of a problem (all the distress it was in initially seems to have passed now).

Unortunately, another fish has a problem now... I've had a small one-eyed oranda (scratched its eye, then a dojo loach sucked it out for a snack), and now suddenly its mild flip-over has gone full blown and it's floating at the surface upside down... I read you can implant an aluminum weight in the belly to upright them but I don't know how to do that properly, or that any vet in Vancouver would handle fish. I tried feeding frozen pea pieces as they are supposed to unblock the pneumatic duct but it spit them out. Or it could be that the antibacterial I put in the water after the accident from the first post disrupted its gastric fauna causing gas buildup. I'm unable to tell if it's a GI tract or swim bladder issue, so I can't see how to treat it.

Sigh, I don't think I'm very good at taking care of fish... and these ornamental goldfish seem to be somewhat handicapped by their unusual shapes and inbreeding. I almost always get ick unless there's a bit of salt in the aquarium, for example, despite having good water quality as a result of a lot of flora in the tank.

[Edited on 1-1-2007 by Nixie]
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Maya
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sad.gif posted on 1-1-2007 at 12:19
lost another


Glad to hear your fish is showing signs of recovery Nixie. :)

My poor little bottom feeder just up and died this morning:(:(

Now I'm back to 3 tetra's and a sharktail

I think this new sharktail that I got to replace my old one that died killed my bottom feeder by being too aggressive and bullying him to death :mad:




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Ramiel
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[*] posted on 2-1-2007 at 04:12


Does anyone else look at this thread with a bit of confusion? Perhaps it's just being brought up around farms, with two parents who learnt life on a farm, you see death all the time...
I honestly don't mean to sound like an asshole, and I suspect that I've lost something in terms of sensitivity, but could you just take the fish outside for a brief introduction with a spade, or the heel of your gumboots? seriously, just take a good chop at it with the blade of a spade, la guillotine est une manière parfaitement humanitaire pour qu'un poisson meure.

Never mind that fish of that size probably don't feel pain and any agitation is more like a robotic mechanism than any anthopomorphic distress.




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Nevermore
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[*] posted on 2-1-2007 at 05:09


an easy way would be to sewer the central nervous system from the rest of the body, cut the head off with a sharp knife and the result trauma at the nervous centres would do the job.
if you want to be even more sure, cut THRU the brain, the fish skull is soft and easy to cut. no brain no pain..
i do not have enough knowledge of the physiology of fish to tell what chemical would work, you could surely overdose with tranquilizers, but..do they work for fish?
i'd go for the knife, i saw how they do sushi in the traditional way, they stuck a big sharp nail in the back of the head then cut the fillets.
the fish dies immediately by neurologic trauma.




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Nixie
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[*] posted on 2-1-2007 at 05:25


Ramiel, I've been on a farm and even chopped off a chicken's head with an axe (I was about ten at the time). A bit hard to do accurately with a neckless animal such as a fish. But the main thing is, and I'm repeating this, that this fish is my pet. People die all the time but we don't pay attention. But if your friend dies, I bet you'd be quite upset.

As for pain perception, the fish have the sensory apparatus, and inflicting pain on them alters their behavior as is well known. Additionally, analgesics are effective in fish, observed when such changed behaviors were normalized when analgesics were administered:

Sneddon, L.U. (2003) The evidence for pain in fish: the use of morphine as an analgesic. Appl. Anim. Behav Sci. 83, 153-162.

Wagner, G.N., Singer, T. D. and McKinley, R.S. (2003) The ability of clove oil and MS-222 to minimize handling stress in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss Walbaum). Aquacult. Res. 34, 1139-1146.

Obviously the subjective experience cannot be correlated to that of say a mammal as the brain is quite different, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. Just because a fish doesn't feel pain the way you do doesn't mean it doesn't feel it at all.

[Edited to add references]

[Edited on 2-1-2007 by Nixie]
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Veruth
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[*] posted on 2-1-2007 at 10:31


Honestly, my solution would be some sort of massive physical trauma, but I get the idea.
Even if a solution is no longer needed, it's still an interesting problem.
What about KCl, I know it works well in mammals, but I have no idea about fish.
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Maya
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[*] posted on 2-1-2007 at 10:59


He was a decent fish,

He was an honest and decent fish,

He gave his life selflessly in pleasing his master,

He was a decent fish




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Nixie
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[*] posted on 2-1-2007 at 17:32


There's no KCl here, except in Half-Salt which is a half sodium and half potassium chlorides substitute for table salt (I recommend it, more people could use a reduction in sodium and more potassium, and there's no difference in saltiness).

Anyway, the oranda I mentioned above that was floating worsened a lot suddenly and was barely responding to prods. The only thing I had on hand was benzydamine HCl for oral use. I just added it slowly to a container of tank water I had the fish in. At one point the fish felt something wrong and got slightly agitated, but that lasted about 3 seconds and it was motionless.

I dissected it afterwards and looked like the intestines were clogged and had pockets of air as well. These ornamental goldfish bred for their distorted shapes have their guts squeezed together in ways that probably make this a more common problem than with regular fish...

The downside with chemical killing is I couldn't feed the body to the cat. On the other hand, might be as well since a sick fish could have parasites or something.

[Edited on 3-1-2007 by Nixie]
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[*] posted on 29-1-2007 at 15:27
Poor goldfish


Many fish find food by the use of their lateral line and other keen senses. I have a pleco without any eyes. The goldfish might spend his time sucking the bacteria from the rocks on the bottom of the aquaria as a food source. Euthanasia could be done with ice and salt.


Quote:
Originally posted by Nixie
A goldfish went up the gravel vac tube and by the time I managed to shut it off, both eyeballs got sucked out of their sockets. The fish is appears otherwise undamaged, but I fear it will starve as it's too slow finding food by the time the others eat it up (nostrils are of limited use because of strong current from the filter).

I'm considering euthanizing it. The two most common methods I've come across are a) anesthetize with clove oil then add alcohol, but I don't have clove oil, and b) benzocaine HCl, which I also don't have. I do, however, have benzydamine HCl and I'm wondering if that'll also work painlessly.

By the way, jokes about feeding the goldfish to my cat are not welcome. It may happen in the wild, but the salient difference is that this is my fish rather than a fish, and I've come to care about it.

[Edited on 29-12-2006 by Nixie]
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Nixie
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[*] posted on 29-1-2007 at 17:55


Huh? I never imagined nitrifying bacteria can be food for goldfish.

Anyway, the fish seems to have adapted fine and appears otherwise healthy. Though I wouldn't be surprised if it takes it a while to figure out how go eat when I switch back to floating food.

[Edited on 30-1-2007 by Nixie]




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