Hi John, Your email request on anesthetics came to me from a friend. I used sodium bicarbonate and glacial acetic acid this last summer to anesthesize Colorado River cutthroats for surgery. Size ranged from 100 mm to 250 mm and body morphometrics was independent of streams we tagged fish in, some deeper bodied than others.
Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda, is safe, effective, cheap, easy to carry in the field. We used baking soda in conjunction with acetic acid, which is used to liberate carbon dioxide and maintain an acid-base. balance. The combonation brought our trial fish to stage 4 anesthesia in 3-7 minutes with a 3-5 minute recovery period. In the field, it showed the same results with most of our fish swimming out of the live bucket in about 5 minutes. The "recipe" can be developed for many species, however pH of the stream you are tagging in is a determinant of the effectiveness, this can always be standardized for various streams. We worked off of this piece of literature to develop our recipe: Prince et al. 1995. Sodium Bicarbonate and Acetic Acid: An Effective Anesthetic for Field Use. North American Journal Fisheries Management 15: 170-172 Look at this as well, it will give you some pros and cons of 16 other anesthetics: Gilderhus and Marking. 1987. North American Journal of Fisheries Management Hope this helps. Jason S. Luginbill Fisheries Biologist Wyoming Game and Fish Department 351 Astle Ave. Green River, WY 82935 Email: [email protected] Office: 307-875-3225 ext. 242 Cell: 307-707-2733 Fax: 307-875-3242
