How to revive a dead fish. (shipping D.O.A.)

[sponge999]

sponge999...

You sound like an intellegent person when it comes to science, but when it comes to shipping a fish I'm not so sure. Who do you know of that drugs or sedates a fish for shipping? The fish was shipped incorrectly and a heatpack was misused. The fish was laying in water with ice floating in it. What I figure is the fish froze. Maybe not to "death" but to near death. The fish was in my hands not breathing for almost an hour and who knows how long it wasn't breathing before I got it.

Whether you and your irrational and rational side think my thread is BS is not my concern. What is my concern is that all of the people that read this thread now have some information to maybe try and save there fish if this event ever happens to them.

Now, aside from you calling me out and saying that I may or may not have posted something that really happened... I agree with your comments.

bagg buddies contain minute amounts of sedatives. While these usually do not do much besides calm the fish. "morphine for fish" if incorrectly dosed it could lead to death.
with that new information i can guess that it was not the DO colder water has more o2 than warmer water.
As far as the heat pack malfunction that should totally be on the shipper. I would have refused to pay for it and gotten my $ back. Paypal always sides with the buyer. Just remember that for DOAs.
Their are to many variables to factor in and I don't know that much about that particular fish.

 

[Danger_Chicken]

Well I have many people to reply to so bare with me. First my own opinion of the situation. Just last week a German man held his own breath for 10min 12 sec without passing out. However the average person strains after only a minute. Why? Because they think about it too much. When the brain is not functioning (thinking) the body can do amazing things. A man was thrown over 5 miles by a tornado at 200mph. He hit the ground with a force that should have made him a puddle. However a lamp had knocked him out first. His body was completely limp during the experience and he was not awake. He had minor bruising and some scratches. When the person is not conscious the body focuses 100% of its attention on one thing survival. Had he been awake flailing around and what not he would have been a puddle. He more than likely would have tensed his bones and muscles for impact and thus cause them to break and tear more. Being that he was limp his body absorbed the blow like a bouncy ball. He hit the ground and bounced right off 4 times.... skidding to a stop (cuts and bruises)
With that said your fish was likely not dead. I will not theorize the billions of possibilities as others have. The main 3 are sedation, full body shut down (I am sure fish are able to do this better than we are from lack of "free thought" or "Reason".), or coma/semi comatose. The guess that he was merely sleeping was pure stupidity. If someone was grabbing and sticking a tube down your throat would you wake up? Which brings me to sedation, he might have been breathing like a shark does. They do not move their gills they breathe as water passes over them. It is possible that in transit he knocked himself out by another object or merely had some sort of influence to make him "sleep". I define "sleep" as something different because sleep still involves brain activity. (Dreaming). (Sleepwalking ECT.) It is also possible that with the lack of oxygen his body went into a "safe mode or sleep mode" if you will. Pardon the Microsoft comparisons. IF he were in fact dead he would not be alive right not. Death is defined as all body function ceasing. Obviously the fish's brain was still functioning. This could have happened in several common ways fish anatomy is different comparing humans inability to live without oxygen to fish's is also stupid. There are no common similarities besides having backbones and being animals. When I mean nothing else I mean nothing check their taxonomy and correct me if I am wrong.
Fish's brains are obviously smaller and their capabilities cannot be known. I am sure none of us our experts on the neurology of fish.. Because their is no study for the neurology of fish. Why? that is so is a completely different philosophical topic. We are also not familiar with the safe guards or engineering of the body of the fish. It is pompous and ignorant to assume that all organs in every animal do the same thing in situations or functions. Fish live in water we live on land the thought that they could drown is absurd. They hypothetically could in fact have lost what limited consciousness they have as a result from loss of oxygen in the water. In order to conserve this oxygen the body may have rationed it for strict amounts in order to attain maximum survival. The body doesn't panic the mind does. The body doesn't see death coming the mind does. This being said the body could not possibly know the direness of situations. It may have triggered some non-conscious nerve ending that enabled this process to occur.
This is closely related to the third possibility.
Basically to summarizes that it is beyond our comprehension technology and ability to discover the true nature of this issue with our given information. This leaves us with the root of the issue. Can we trust him with his assumption that the fish was in fact dead? Do we have the knowledge to truly conclude any fact from this situation? and do we really need to? The truth is why would he lie about the fish's survival that must be true. The fish is in fact still alive. Why and how we will don't know and possible may never know. We don't need to know. While my irrational side wants to say BS to this post. my rational side wants to say plausible. My rational side also wants to apologize for my irrational side =p. ( he can't be rational sometimes.)
Justin

I'll take a wild guess - was/are a philosophy major? An interesting read but you've made some incorrect assumptions and asked some questions that only an over thinking philosopher without expereince in the area of discussion would ask (not implying, just giving an example) "How are you to know what a fish's normal really is?" While this is a staple question, enough observation will reveal the norm, making the question superfluous.

 

[beantickler]

I'll take a wild guess - was/are a philosophy major? An interesting read but you've made some incorrect assumptions and asked some questions that only an over thinking philosopher without expereince in the area of discussion would ask (not implying, just giving an example) "How are you to know what a fish's normal really is?" While this is a staple question, enough observation will reveal the norm, making the question superfluous.

 

[krzr3000]

That was a mouthful from sponge999, but he is clearly onto something. There is very limited information here, things the o.p. is perhaps even unaware of.

Anyone spending time working at a fish shop will experience jumpers, bangers, and fish going into shock or "heart attacks." I have a fish of my own that was out for a good 10 min when i first netted it, i let it sit in the water for a good 10 min and it came around. But i suppose it went into shock after being caught, or something similar.

When something is dead, it does not come back to life. I think there are far too many variables to make an accurate assumption and be able to define if the fish was actually dead.

 

[canucksfan1]

actually i did something somewhat similar the other day with my 2 inch fh i just got. the water was really cold, and the fish was not moving and kinda sitting on the bottom of the bag on its side.
i got really mad and almost threw the fish away but decided to try to revive it. I put the bag in my jacket with me to slowly warm up the water.
about 15-20 minutes later i could just barely see the fishs gills moving, and 20 minutes after that it was breathing slowly, and the fins on the side were moving a bit like it was trying to get upright.
at this point i put the fish bag in the tank to warm up the water more, and about 15 minutes later it was just like normal.
i am sitting right by the tank right now and the fish is begging for food like always.

my guess is that as you said there was ice in the bag, that the water got really could and the fish was in almost like a hibernative state, not dead, but frozen. and it was more the warming of the water that brought it back around.

 

[beantickler]

That was a mouthful from sponge999, but he is clearly onto something. There is very limited information here, things the o.p. is perhaps even unaware of.

Anyone spending time working at a fish shop will experience jumpers, bangers, and fish going into shock or "heart attacks." I have a fish of my own that was out for a good 10 min when i first netted it, i let it sit in the water for a good 10 min and it came around. But i suppose it went into shock after being caught, or something similar.

When something is dead, it does not come back to life. I think there are far too many variables to make an accurate assumption and be able to define if the fish was actually dead.

So are you going to point out what the limited info is that the OP missed or doesnt know? This thread is for people who had shipping issues. I never said this would work on a fish that hit the floor or you manhandled while netting it out. Whether or not the fish was dead or not is irrelavent. I am not a science major and sorry for my poor choice of words to describe my lifeless looking fish. This thread was made for people to try and save a fish from shipping. It's funny how many people on this forum just post random crap to derail threads.

 

[beantickler]

actually i did something somewhat similar the other day with my 2 inch fh i just got. the water was really cold, and the fish was not moving and kinda sitting on the bottom of the bag on its side.
i got really mad and almost threw the fish away but decided to try to revive it. I put the bag in my jacket with me to slowly warm up the water.
about 15-20 minutes later i could just barely see the fishs gills moving, and 20 minutes after that it was breathing slowly, and the fins on the side were moving a bit like it was trying to get upright.
at this point i put the fish bag in the tank to warm up the water more, and about 15 minutes later it was just like normal.
i am sitting right by the tank right now and the fish is begging for food like always.

my guess is that as you said there was ice in the bag, that the water got really could and the fish was in almost like a hibernative state, not dead, but frozen. and it was more the warming of the water that brought it back around.

As soon as the fish came out of the bag it was in warm water for an hour before it was bresthing.

 

[philhawk]

talk about going off the trail. i dont think it appropriate to correct all the logical errors in that diatribe, so ill just say congrats to the poster for reviving his fish. im sure that a lot of us just toss the fish the minute it we see it floating.

is it expensive to feed your fish?

you know.... cause it only eats BRAINNNNNNNNSSSSS.

NOOOOOO, Zombie fish.

 

[terminalMTS]

thanks beantickler. i haven't had any problems yet, but it is nice to know that there is something to try if i do. congrats on your fish.

as for all the people talking $%&!, this man just took the time to start this thread so that just maybe he could help someone else who has problems with fish that were shipped to them. and now you guys have him on the defensive for trying to be helpful. if you don't believe what he did has any chance of working, don't do it. but don't be an *** to someone who is trying to help others.

 

[Bottomfeeder]

mods plz make this a sticky