Hello all. It saddens me to say that one of my ropefish came Ill, and before I could start diagnosing what may be wrong my Delhezi took it as prey and began to devour it. I got the Delhezi to drop the rope, however the rope is turned upside down and spasms occasionally. I don’t have clove oil on hand at the moment and it’s night, I really doubt they’ll recover after this attack. Do I have a humane way to euthanize at home?
Ropefish euthanasia
- Thread starter EelWranglerSeb
- Start date
I’d take a knife and quickly cut its head off. If no clove oil available.
Brick...fish on brick...second brick brought down fast and hard. Unpleasant, to say the least, but literally instantaneous death, the literal definition of a humane euthanasia.
And, incidentally, far more humane, by an order of magnitude, than that horrid clove oil that the squeamish like to suggest. That stuff is nothing but a salve for guilty consciences and squeamish constitutions.
And, incidentally, far more humane, by an order of magnitude, than that horrid clove oil that the squeamish like to suggest. That stuff is nothing but a salve for guilty consciences and squeamish constitutions.
A simpler less messy method is to put the fish into a plastic fish bag (or other heavy duty bag) without water and swiftly "smack" it down hard onto concrete. No mess to clean up and easy disposal. It's a very fast death.
Clove oil reduces oxygen by smothering gill filaments so not very effective on air breathing fish which don't depend on gills.
Clove oil reduces oxygen by smothering gill filaments so not very effective on air breathing fish which don't depend on gills.
Thank you all for the input. Thankfully the suffering was short lived without euthanasia, I will keep all your advice in mind for the future. I’ll be posting a more in depth thread about the event soon. This was my first real issue in my monster tank and although upsetting to lose a fish, it’s exciting to learn from it and study further.