Clove Oil Tragedy

PuffPower · Post by **PuffPower** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:37 pm

My F8, which I have had for 5 years died this morning. I was preparing to trim his beak when it happened. I sedated him in a mixture of 2 gallons of tank water and 4 drops of Clove oil. He went under in about 8 minutes. I clipped his beak and put him in the recovery 10 gallon tank but he never woke up. I don’t get it! How could this have happened? I have done this procedure before at least 4 times (once before on this F8 and the other 3 times with my GSPs). So it didn’t take me long to do the clipping at all. 2 minutes at the very most. I was at a lost when he didn’t wake up, so I just kept waiting and waiting for a full hour, but he never woke up. What happened? He was in perfect health, active and eating well. I am so distraught! I am afraid to use Clove Oil to sedate any fish now. Can anyone shed any light?

messy_da_legend · Post by **messy_da_legend** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:47 pm

Strange. Thats a very weak solution. I usually use 4 drops in a 2 liter container and it takes 1 minute to go to sleep and about 1 minute to come round afterwards usually. Could you have damaged him while trimming?

Sorry for your loss.

Boxermom · Post by **Boxermom** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:11 pm

Hmm... are you using the same container each time with the clove oil? Is it plastic like a bucket? I'm just wondering if over time, clove oil has leeched into the container. I use a glass bowl and use 1-2 drops in approximately 3 cups of water and it seems to work well. Just did it this morning with my newest SAP that came with overly long teeth.

I wonder too if it wasn't exposed to the clove oil for too long. Mine goes under in less than 2 minutes and revives in about the same amount of time. I think 8 minutes is an awful long time.

PuffPower · Post by **PuffPower** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:27 pm

I used a bucket. I don't think oil leaches easily into plastic. Anyway my solution was weak. I know clove oil can also be used for euthanasia, which is why I am always wary of mixing a strong solution. I have heard of some fish taking about 10 minutes to go under, so 8 is really not that long considering the weak solution. I definitely didn't damage him during clipping. I honestly do not know what went wrong.

messy_da_legend · Post by **messy_da_legend** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:24 pm

Has he been clipped before? Maybe he just reacted badly?

Troender · Post by **Troender** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:07 pm

Any kind of making animals sleep does bring some kind of risk. The risk can be big or very small, but there will always be a risk of the animal not surviving, however you do it. That's something we must keep in mind. And this can happen to animals that did tolerate this earlier on. There's an awful lot of things that can affect how the animal react to the sedation. Health is one of the things. Some days they will react stronger on the same amount of whatever you use to sedate it, than it did last time. Some times it will react less. As they have so tiny bodies, that difference will affect them more than larger animals.

Actually this can apply to humans as well. I had an uncle who nearly died under a knee surgery, and that's only with local anesthesia (or whatever it's called in English - probably absolutely the wrong word). He wasn't allergic or anything like that. His heart just didn't like what they were doing, and stopped. Of course my uncle wasn't a fish (at least not that I know of), but it tells me that the risk will be there at any time.

So you don't have to have done anything wrong. Maybe the fish just had "a bad day". The risk will always be there, I'm afraid.

BTW, I hope you understood what I meant. This was definitely difficult to explain in English. My vocabulary wasn't prepared for this kind of explanation :-b

Post by **Pufferpunk** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:31 am

My guess is you used too weak of a solution, leaving him in it too long. It should only take 30 seconds or so, to tranquilize & no more than a minute to clip & get back into FW. 8 minutes + however long it took you to clip, is way too long. Sorry for your loss...

PetPirate · Post by **PetPirate** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:07 am

Sorry to hear of your loss

To follow up on what Troender said... people die under general anaesthesia all the time.

Perhaps we can come up with a way of weighing the puffers and then calculating the strength of clove oil we should use?

PuffPower · Post by **PuffPower** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:17 pm

Thanks everyone, for your kind words! This is one of those things that you think will never happen to you, but when it does, it hurts like hell. I know that there is always a risk factor anytime you sedate an animal or a human. I just never expected this, since Squeegee my F8 has been through this procedure once, and I have performed this procedure four times before. It came as a total shock! I still cannot believe Squeegee is gone. It is one thing when an animal has been sick for quite some time and then passes away. It is an entirely different thing when you lose a healthy animal so very suddenly. I had a very special bond with Squeegee. Every time I stick my hand in the tank, he will swim to my hand, expecting to either get fed or get a little cuddle. When I removed him from his tank for this procedure, I didn’t even have to use a net or a cup. He swam right onto my palm and I used both hands to form a bowl and scooped him up that way. He trusted me so completely. I will never ever sedate any of my fish again. I refuse to take that risk. It is just too painful!

coldmachineUK · Post by **coldmachineUK** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:36 pm

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss, especially being you had him for so long and he was obviously trusting as you say.
As people say though, I guess it's just a risk and there's no telling what might happen on a given day

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Clove Oil Tragedy

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