clove oil

[Dorkhedeos]

i dont see how you can compare a cold blooded animal to a warm blooded animal. and now that i think of it, if you shoot a fish to euthanise it, the person shooting will probably go to the hospital

 

[specks]

I am so glad this topic appeared on the forum. I have a danio who for the last 4 days has been swimming erraticaly, he would sink to the bottom of the tank then shoot right back again spiraling as he went. He would then go like the clappers at the surface for several minutes. Today he has been attacked by his fellow tank mates to the point where he lost a fin, a bit of his tail & has damage to his side. Before reading this thread I would'nt have been able to help him, I would have to wait for my son or my husband to come home & deal with the situation. Today however I was able to net him & with the clove oil I purchased "just in case" put him out of his misery. I had never heard of this tecnique before & am grateful it has been brought to my attention.





little danio

 

[BOD]

yay go this topic for helping sum1 LOL!!!

 

[sylvia]

Coicidentaly, I had to euthanise a small cory I purchased lately that had exactly the same erratic swimming symptoms discussed here whilst in quarantine. I also used the clove oil method and it was quick and hopefuly as humane as possible.

I'd like to make a distinction between using ice water and freezing. When you drop a fish in frozen water the shock will imeediately stun it and render it unconsious. Then, depending on the exact effect it had on the fish (which can be unpredictable), you may still have to actualy kill it or it may already be dead. It is, however, a quick, efficient and humane way to send a TROPICAL fish UNCONSCIOUS. It won't necessarily kill the fish and it normaly has little effect on coldwater species.

Freezing, on the other hand, is very inhumane. The process is slow and painful. If the fish is placed in a plastic bag - with or without water - befroehand, it may as well just be left to suffocate. If it is kept in water, the water will begin to freeze and the fish will gradualy and painfuly die. If the fish is still alive when crystals start forming in its body, you can imagine the agony it would have to suffer.

RIP Cactus the bronze cory. (and also RIP Seaweed - my little old zebra danio who died last night - she had been lethargic from old age recently...)

 

[BOD]

awww rip little danio and cory ..... i think some good points ahve been bought up in this topic an bout wots rite and wots wrong....good advice for ppl who want to help there fish and stop them from suffering...well done ppl!

edit - and im glad im not the only one who has a crazy swimming fish...im sure though it mite have sumthing to do with the nervous system that the fish just cant controll and every now and again the nerves just go into overdrive which makes the fish swim erratically....ne thoughts??

 

[sylvia]

There's actualy a disease that causes erratic swimming and is the reason I decided to put the fish down. Mine had not been eating and was constantly going to the surface to gulp air. I would have put this down to water quality problems under normal circumstances but I always monitor the water quality in quarantine tanks very carefuly and the very fact that it was in quarantine and had not come from the most reliable of sources kept me from risking the spread of any disease and I decided to put it out of its misery. I also had another cory with it which seems perfectly healthy and is realy the reason I didn't want to have both in the same tank. Some fish with swimming problems can also have swim bladder infections or serious damage to fins. In my case, it was neither of these which normaly are reversible - at least if caught in time. The other cory has not displayed any symptoms so I would think the problem had to be some kind of disease - possibly one that is passed on by tankmates eating the dead body (which wasn't possible as I had removed the sick fish long before it died). I also think it would have taken quite a bit longer for the fish to die naturaly - at least through the night, possibly a few more days - but it was lying on its back, breathing rapidly, and I could not bare to watch it suffering any longer. If prodded slightly, it would start to swim upwards erraticaly, swirling and spinning as if it had lost its ability to tell when it was upright. I tried feeding it but it would not eat anything - usualy once a fish has stopper eating it is doomed. That's when I removed it and euthanised. It actualy struggled quite a bit against the clove oil which is not the usual (that's why I think it would have made it a few more days it was still quite strong) and it kept coming up for air until it fell unconscious. A few secconds later the gills stopped. Through-out the process the fish always lay either on its back or side. Yesterday it had been laying still all day so I never saw it swim - erraticaly or otherwise. I wish I new exactly what had been wrong with it but I don't. I just hope it didn't suffer too much.

 

[BOD]

well my molly...still eats and acts normally most of the time...she physically doesnt seem to have ne thing wrong wiv her apart from the way it sometimes swim as ive explained it baffles me really..im not goin to do ne thing about it unless it seems to be suffereing and just looking and her now just happilly pecking at the stones...