# Euthanasia?



## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Furcifer158 said:


> 24Tropheus said:
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> > BioG said:
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This is a common misconception. Freezing fish can be quite painful for fish. The most "humane" way to cull a fish is with a hammer, or otherwise.


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## Mr Mbuna (Nov 16, 2007)

I agree - a sharp blow to the head is far quicker. Or just throw them as hard as possible into a sink/bucket. Instant death.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Extreme head trauma (throw hard into a bucket/sink or blow to the head) or oil of cloves (fish sedative) followed by more oil of cloves or alcohol, (Cheapest source I know of is Vodka for most folk not able to use lab alcohol) are the recommended methods by vets, dunno why freezing is not recommended maybe because some coldwater fish might survive long enough to feel the pain from freezing. Probably not a problem for cichlids I guess.
Dunno does anyone know of a commercial humane fish culling product?

But if not allowed to leave the tank of the breeder and all young the same then I guess they can do no harm.
Giving em away though, would probably cause more fish to need culling, as one could not be certain they would not be allowed to breed and young be raised.

But then many ornamental fish pose the same dangers and are freely traded.
Intergeneric hybrids like this are I thought uncommon and maybe deserve study. Extremely rare interfamilial hybrids have been known to occur but I know of no accidental ones in cichlids

Hum dunno if I typed out of turn earlier. If so I apologise.

All the best James


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

Darkside said:


> Freezing fish can be quite painful for fish. The most "humane" way to cull a fish is with a hammer, or otherwise.


Sorry if I come out trite... but how do we know freezing, or anything else is painful for the fish? Did they tell us?


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## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

$0.02- I have found freezing to be quick enough to assuage my guilt and much more prone to accuracy than blunt trauma. Last round of euthanizing a group of deformed fry, I missed one, and opened the freezer within a minute or so of placing the others in there. With no water and between bags of frozen vegetables, my small fish were very obviously dead before I got the last fish in.

*As far as the hybrids, I'm curious what they look like now- pics, please! *


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Fogelhund said:


> Darkside said:
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> > Freezing fish can be quite painful for fish. The most "humane" way to cull a fish is with a hammer, or otherwise.
> ...


Victoria Braithwaite mentions it in her book "Do Fish Feel Pain?" and it shows up in several of her peer reviewed papers when fish response to external stimulus is investigated.
The suggested problem with freezing fish is that they freeze from the outside in and the pain receptors are located mainly on the exterior of the fish. This is especially true for fish at the market that aren't frozen in a solution of water. Without the insulating properties of water the skin of the fish go through a crystallization process long before they die due to cold temperatures.

Do Fish Feel Pain? is a good book and I recommend it for all aquariasts interested in fish interaction. 

I guess in a sense they did tell us that it hurts and they they can hurt, but it took 100 years or research to reach that conclusion and its still controversial.

Edit: To encompass triscuit's experience.

Freezing fry is obviously less painful for the fish than freezing large fish due to their smaller body mass.


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## Manoah Marton (Feb 17, 2009)

wow darkside...nice evidence :thumb:


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

"Victoria Braithwaite mentions it in her book "Do Fish Feel Pain?""
A book I would recommend to all fishkeepers/breeders. Does not give too many knee jerk reactions to evidence and kind of discusses the evidence in what "I think" is a balanced way.
Bit short on hard conclusions but then some of this stuff is not proved and you kind of have to take your own experience into account. Me I have put large cichlids into the freezer in large dark containers. After reading this stuff and thinking I feel Oil of cloves is my prefered method for a well loved large cichlid. Dunno do fish have any rights to a pain free death? For sure they can feel pain dunno but does that put a pressure on us to give em no unnessarcery or unproved pain? Even fry, hybrids and stuff to be eaten?
I guess far worse is practiced in many locations and situations but pets are kind of a special case?

All the best James


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

Its a book aimed at the general public as well so it makes for a pretty easy read. A lot of the book is aimed at aquaculture, but most of what is said will hold true to the hobby as well.
The right to a pain-free death is a slippery moral discussion that's likely to be unresolved here due to differing views. If you feel you must kill your fish, do it as you will, but its going to be hard to confirm that any of the methods we use are painless. I'm sticking by the sharp blow to the head. :thumb:


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

despite what the book said, I'll still freeze them as this is the way "I" feel the is the best method for the fishes death. I can't see my self hitting a fish with a hammer and not missing. Plus much more to clean up  I guess we all have our ways.


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## jrf (Nov 10, 2009)

Furcifer158 said:


> I guess we all have our ways.


So far, my way has been to buy more tanks. I'm too big of a wuss to kill any of them. :lol:


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## Furcifer158 (Feb 16, 2008)

jrf said:


> Furcifer158 said:
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> 
> > I guess we all have our ways.
> ...


I like this reply :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: =D>


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## Manoah Marton (Feb 17, 2009)

lol, me too. but I mean, the main debate/arguments on here are...
Fish should be killed using a freezer

Fish should be killed using clove oil

Fish should be killed by a sharp blow to the head

First, i have a critic. there SHOULD be very, very few instances where you would need to kill a fish. Honestly, the only reason (imo) there should ever be to kill a fish (as in a pet) would be because it is seriously injured, or near death. Every other instance could have been avoided, or solved. Let me give a few examples...
'My fish species interbred, and now I have all these fry'. You could have and should have taken the approriate precautions to prevent such a mishap, and now it is your responsibility to take care of these fry. If you decide to use them as feeders, feed them only to fish large enough to kill them quickly.
'I bought this fish and now I don't want it'. Do I even need to say anything? 
'My fish was just almost killed by an unusual desplay of aggression'. I would say that, if the fish was injured enough, it is warrented to euthanize it because it would just give it a quicker end.

All that said, I'll going to side with Darkside (no pun intended) because logically, it is the quickest and most humane way. If you were on death row (alright, just imagine it) and you were told you were to choose the way you would die, would you choose a. being frozen alive, b. being put in a capsule where no oxygen existed, sufficating you, or c. being shot in the head with an AK. I know for me, I would choose the shot in the head, because it would be short, and quick. Maybe not he most pleasant, but I would know that within 5 seconds (or probably less) I would be completely dead. It could take a long time to be frozen alive, or sufficated, so that would be the quickest death. Now link that to the debates on the best way to euthanize your fish. And so ends my lenghy response.

Manoah Marton (who is now absolutly convinced that debate is taking over his life)


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I'd choose anesthetic (clove oil). Then freezing.


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## Jamey (Jul 19, 2008)

+1 Darkside...

the only time a fish should have to be killed is if it was nearly killed by tankmates and is unsaveable, and even there you should have been monitoring and been able to fix it before it came to that.


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## chatnoire3 (Dec 13, 2005)

I always clove oil and then freeze. I make sure to clove oil to the point where they're not moving/breathing.


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## kriskm (Dec 1, 2009)

I'm the biggest wuss there is, and I put off euthanizing a sick calvus until I just couldn't stand to watch it suffer anymore. Finally I dropped it into a ziploc baggy and banged the head with a very heavy piece of wood. It was much easier than I thought it would be, and no mess. Frankly, I was relieved. No more fish suffering.


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## TheFishFactory (Jan 28, 2010)

I cut their heads off with a sharp pair of scissors if they are small enough.


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## Manoah Marton (Feb 17, 2009)

kriskm + The FishFactory... :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:


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## Bachachi (Sep 8, 2004)

I know if I was terminally ill, I would just want to go to sleep and not wake up. I would 
imagine fish feel pain also, so I offer this suggestion for fish that are less than four inches.
Place in a cup of carbonated water, the fish will expire from asphyxiation from The dissolved 
carbon dioxide that acts as an anaesthetic overdose and simply puts the fish permanently to sleep.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Bachachi said:


> I know if I was terminally ill, I would just want to go to sleep and not wake up. I would
> imagine fish feel pain also, so I offer this suggestion for fish that are less than four inches.
> Place in a cup of carbonated water, the fish will expire from asphyxiation from The dissolved
> carbon dioxide that acts as an anaesthetic overdose and simply puts the fish permanently to sleep.


Interesting not heard of this one before. Sorry but kind of want to see some evidence that it works. Hate to say it but I smell BS. As far as I know carbon dioxide level has no effect on fish respiration or life.

All the best James


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## Bachachi (Sep 8, 2004)

24Tropheus wrote:


> Interesting not heard of this one before. Sorry but kind of want to see some evidence that it works. Hate to say it but I smell BS. As far as I know carbon dioxide level has no effect on fish respiration or life


This method was suggested in a book titled (Tetra's Popular Guide to Tropical Cichlids )
Authored by David Sands, Dr Paul V Loiselle, and Dr Wayne S Leibel

After stating the simplest way was a swift slam on a hard surface, but for those that
could not do this the above method was suggested for small fish. I've used this 
method once and thought it worked rather well.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Seems I was wrong.
The fish respiratory rate is governed by levels of oxygen.
The effect of increased CO2 in water is to reduce the rate at which CO2 from the fish's own metabolism can be released from the blood through the gills, thus the CO2 in the blood also increases - this is known as hypercapnia - resulting in a drop in the blood pH, an acidosis. At the same time the oxygen-carrying ability of the haemoglobin in the blood is reduced. 
Yep effectively asphyxiates the fish. Dunno if it is painless or not.
Humans subject to reduced oxygen (our respiration rate is determined by CO2 levels) report that confusion comes before loss of concousness but no pain. So kind of guess yep as long as the CO2 levels are not so high as to damage the gills and caurse pain there, then it might well be a painless death.

All the best James


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