EMERGENCY: Need to euthanize fish!

The slow method would be less painful if looking at it scientifically. The nerve endings in the nervous system react most to fast changes.

Example: put your hands in a bucket of hot tap water, you will feel a burning sensation. Now but your hands in a bucket of Luke warm water and slowly raise the temp. You will notice you can withstand a much higher temp more comfortably doing it slowly.

Another thing, look at people that get frostbite. Their feet are slowly frozen not flash frozen. Their tissues become dead before they even realize it.

Or lobsters when you cook them... Drop em in boiling water they scream and jerk about. Raise the temp slowly and they never even react.

The fish go into shock far before ice crystals ever form on them.

Slow is most definitely less painful.
 
Well then this whole thread is completely wrong. Seems to be pretty researched and well writen up for wrong information. This was posted earlier and it was also the thread I read and got my information from. http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148361

Freezing (Live) Fish – There is a right and a wrong way to “Freeze a Fish.” Fish are very sensitive to temperature changes, and a few degrees can easily send a healthy fish into shock (See: Methods Approved for the ‘Right’ procedure)
Wrong Approach is to simply place an ailing fish into a bowl of water and place them into a freezer. Many employ this technique as it ‘appears’ placid. However, the reality is they are freezing to-death much like you or I would. The thrashing and ‘signs of agony’ are absent because their metabolism is shutting down, their bodily functions begin to slow dramatically, and blood recedes into their core in their futile attempt for survival. Eventually, they slip into a sleep, and die. How long does it take to make ice?

Freezing –
Correct Approach is to place a bowl of water into a freezer and let stand until a thin crust of ice has formed. The ice should be sufficiently formed to require one to break threw the surface. The goal is to ideally reach a Fahrenheit temperature of 29 degrees (or less). Once achieved, a fish may be placed in the bowl. Nearly instant, it is a very quick and efficient method by most accounts.
 
Tropical fish especially will feel themselves freezing. Cold water fish can and do survive water near freezing; look in a frozen pond and see live fish under there, I have.

A cold water fish will go into a dormancy as they get colder, so they would be less likely to feel themselves freezing, but tropicals will feel it.

Dropping the fish into water that has frozen over on the surface, after breaking a big enough hole for the fish to cleanly fall all the way into the water and submerge completely will almost certainly trigger an electrical disruption of the heart and cause almost instant death due to the shock.

The article is correct.

In view of the condition of the fish I would try to do this as quickly as possible, and it will take too long for you to get a good size container of water at the freezing point.

Brad, I'm so sorry this has happened. Please try to perform the coup d'gras for him as quickly as possible.

I think if you get a wet towel and gently place him in it, lay him on the driveway or other concrete surface, be certain where exactly the head is, and use a baseball bat, which will give you some distance from the impact.

If you have a very heavy object, such as a brick, you can deliver the blow. The trick is to be precise in your aim so you don't have to deliver repeated blows.

Bleach would be a terrible death, very painful. No household medicines or chemicals would do the trick.

Clove oil numbs and anesthetizes as well as puts the fish into an unconscious state, but you need pure clove oil and it has to be mixed vigorously to emulsify it. (oil in water)
 
I can publish a very well written article that states dog feces is the best cure for the common cold. But you can't argue with science or the way a central nervous system works.

Quickly dumping a fish in freezing water might kill it faster, but we are talking about which one causes less "pain" in the fish.

Humans and animals will both have a stronger reaction to rapid changes in temp. Vs slow gradual changes.

If we wanna argue which is quickest than why not just chop the head off, crush the entire body with blunt force, or throw it against the ground?
 
I can provide papers, as was requested in an earlier post, but I'll have to dig through my files to find it. It was an article by the American Veterinary Association.

I agree with CWO4Gunner, if you can do it that way. A sharp meat cleaver has some weight to it, but you have to be committed to a very muscular swing with it. You don't want to have to keep chopping.

This is so sad, I'm sorry that I had to even utter those words, but the truth is... doing it that way there is that possibility. I know, personally, I couldn't do it this way because of the very fear of that... that I wouldn't be able to finish him in one swing. I'm a female and pretty strong, but I just couldn't attempt it that way.
 
ExPeNsIvE HoBbY said:
I can publish a very well written article that states dog feces is the best cure for the common cold. But you can't argue with science or the way a central nervous system works.

Quickly dumping a fish in freezing water might kill it faster, but we are talking about which one causes less "pain" in the fish.

Humans and animals will both have a stronger reaction to rapid changes in temp. Vs slow gradual changes.

If we wanna argue which is quickest than why not just chop the head off, crush the entire body with blunt force, or throw it against the ground?
Click to expand...

I gotta agree with EH here. Quicker doesn't mean less painful. Would you rather fall asleep and die as your body shuts down, or have sudden horrific pain and then die?
 
Everyone is going to have their thoughts....each to his own.

No need for papers on the common cold.

Thanks.
 
I feel the need to point out that the AVMA also does NOT approve the use of clove oil, which seems to be the most accepted method here.


This is directly from www.avma.org from their euthanasia pdf.

Clove oil — Because adequate and appropriate clinical trials have not been performed on fish to evaluate its effects, use of clove oil is not acceptable.
 
Well, not like they are a great authority on fishies.....lmao....
 
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