The objective of this study is to evaluate the anesthetic effects of clove oil
and tricaine methanesulfonate (MS-222) on the Far Eastern catfish,
Silurus asotus
, by measuring the times to anesthesia and
recovery. Each anesthetic effect of clove oil and MS-222 was tested in two
groups of fish with different body sizes: a group of small fish (mean body
length: 15.5±1.58 cm, mean body weight: 50.1±5.91 g, n=20) and a
group of large fish (mean body length: 31.5±4.19 cm, mean body weight:
302.1±15.22 g, n=20). The anesthetics were used at concentrations of 200,
300, 400, 500, and 600 ppm. The results showed significant relationships between
the concentration of the anesthetic and the body size of the fish. Each of these
variables showed statistical significance (
p
<0.05). The
time to anesthesia decreased linearly with increasing concentration in the large
fish for both clove oil and MS-222 (
p
<0.05). Based on an
optimal anesthetic time of approximately 1 min, the preferred concentrations of
the anesthetics were 500 ppm for clove oil and 600 ppm for MS-222. Both the
anesthetic time and the recovery time were shorter for the small fish than for
the large fish (
p
<0.05). Our study showed that the
smaller-sized Far Eastern catfish was more easily anesthetized and recovered
more rapidly from anesthesia than the larger-sized fish.