AngelSta

Ok, your gonna have to picture the scenerio here, you're going on holidays and you've got a realy sick/old fish which you KNOW is gonna die, u dont wanna leave it there to poisen the water and kill your other fish and you have to kill it. Question is how do you go about this?
I just posted this for future info and no i dont have any sick/dying fish. So wat is the kindest way to do it?

I no this is a touchy topic which most fishlovers dont really want to think about (including me!)

AngelSta

COBettaCouple

http://ezinearticles.com/?Euthanizin...Fish&id=454584 - this is the best article that i've found on putting down a fish.

Neville

Yeah, i think, sometimes killing a fish suffering from an incurable disease is more humane than allowing it to continue suffering. one acceptable way can be placing the fish in water and rapidly cooling the container with ice.

lolagurl

in flbettacouples article freezing is supposed to be very painful..because theyre cold blooded it will take them longer top o die and ice crystals will form and just give them severe pain, neville

COBettaCouple

that is true.. it used to be considered a humane way to put down a fish, but now veternarians and scientists have determined that sharp ice crystals form inside the fish, causing severe pain in a slow death. if you have a blast chiller which is capable of extremely quick freezing, it's considered humane to put a fish that's knocked-out from clove oil or another anesthetic in one of those - they will be frozen long before they can wake up, but in a regular freezer, the anesthetic wears off before death occurs and the fish will wake to extreme pain.

Old Sloppy

Who is qualified to decide what is "Humane" ?

I think whatever is the quickest would be the best answer.

Harry S.

COBettaCouple

i think the professionals who have an extensive understanding of biology, particularly aquatic biology could be considered qualified to study the amount of pain that a method of euthanization causes. That article does go into the quickest method (which is considered humane) also.

0morrokh

That was a very good article...I've added it to my bookmarks.
Here's a description of the clove oil method, probably the most common method nowadays. http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/prof.../cloveoil.html

COBettaCouple

yea, that's how we'd do it.. i'm not certain i'd do decapitation correctly (resulting in pain & suffering for the fish) and it'd be hard to do that to a fish we'd really gotten to love.

0morrokh

Yeah, although it's probably the fastest method, not sure I could make myself chop my fish's head off.....

COBettaCouple

yea, it just feels kinder to let them just go to sleep.

sirdarksol

Putting the fish in already-freezing water will not be slow. Cold-blooded animals die from such things very quickly. However, I do not doubt that it would be painful. I wouldn't use the clove-oil method, either. The American Veterinary Medical Association doesn't support it because they aren't sure about how it kills. Like with the freezing water method, just because it doesn't look like the fish is in pain doesn't mean it isn't. I'd prefer either of the first two methods, as both are a sedative, numbing and knocking the fish out, so that there is no discomfort to the death.

Fish Fry

you could always quarantien the fish in a separate tank and let it die from the disease naturally like it would in the wild or ( and don't take this wrong because i do love my fish) you could just flush the fish and don't worry about it.

sirdarksol

If you prefer natural death, that's understandable (sort of. I actually can't understand it, really, but that's because I have such a strong empathy with all living creatures. I can't stand to see anything suffer). However, flushing your fish isn't the way to go. It will cause extra pain and stress that would not have been experienced had the fish not been flushed. Also, (and this one is going to be really rare) some areas of the world do not have proper sewage treatment, and lack of such could release a fish into the ecosystem. As I said, this is rare, and would be pretty much limited to countries that have no laws regarding sewage treatment.

AngelSta

All of those suggestions are great(some of them I dont think i'll try :) so thanks guys!
I have a friend who got her dad to chop of the fishes head, I think this is a good idea as i wouldnt have the guts to do it myself!
Once again thankyou guys.
AngelSta

0morrokh

Flushing the fish down the toilet is completely cruel and inhumane. Would you want to be flushed down your toilet? That would be so horrible, dying by being slowly poisoned by the disgusting sewer water. Besides, it is bad for the environment to be entroducing the sick fish along with their disease into the "system", and it's also illegal in a lot of places. The best method of euthanizing is always debatable, but flushing is certainly not an ok method.

COBettaCouple

agreed! it's one of the more cruel ways to kill a fish.. it's one of those "lalala, i can't see you" things.

BrianCB

I had a bad experience with my convicts, i made a big mstake when I put water into my tank one time I didnt check the temperature(it was hot a hot bath kind of hot)and I didnt realize until it was too late, as soon as I placed the convicts in there they died I guess they boiled I felt really bad afterwards.