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.)
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For everyone not wanting to read all that. The.... fish.... is.... alive. That.... is.... good...enough.
Here are my answers and comments to things people said.
duke33;2515126; said:
I wonder if it will have brain damage.
that assumes that fish's brain is inflicted with brain damage during a short time of no oxygen. The human brain is still not predictable who is to say theirs is either? Today I though the human brain starts dieing after 5 minutes. Now a man proves me wrong by going 10 minutes without another breath.
Amaroq;2515148; said:
I read also that if you just dip in a 9v battery for a split second it will act the same
the metal things they put on your chest when you die...a defrigrelator? I know thats not the spelling but I hope you get what I mean. I dunno how well it works because I've never tried it but I suppose its worth a shot. Make sure the fish is in water while you try it.
Spencer
that requires hundred of thousands of volts to revive a human. I hardly believe a nine-volt childish and humorous as it is would do anything, but like the other guy said cook the fish. It is in fact not worth a shot.
dravesef;2515156; said:
i tried this for a half hour on my blood parrot that died in front of my eyes, i was so sad it was my favorite fish. but then a long time ago tried on an oscar and work perfrect fish lived for a couple more years. so it is all up to the fish if it is going to work. and what type of fish did you save?
you assume the blood parrot really was dead. It may have been ready to die. Due a quick or instantanious response it is possible to sae anything.
beantickler;2515250; said:
lol... The fish swims, eats and acts completely normal.
How are you to know what a fish's normal really is?
Fry;2516114; said:
Are you sure it wasn't just drugged for shipping?
Very possible. More than likely it was over drugged. Just enough not to kill it enough to keep it knocked out. This would explain the slow and timed awaking of the fish. I would give that theory at least a 50% chance. If they added too much it is possible that the tranquilizer lasted just long enough the slow recovery and the fish starting to breath would just be the fish's body coming out of the shock and awaking from a medicated sleep.
Phleborrhagia;2517086; said:
Not really, it's just fish CPR
Amaroq, using a 9v battery as a defibrillator is useless, as a defibrillator is used to send an electrical charge across the heart of a person, not to shock their whole body - as what you suggest would do, which would just "cook" the fish - this is also why drowned people are first dried off, because the charge is diminished and the displacement that occurs from the body being covered in water.
I'd suggest that instead of the air pump you use an oxygen cylinder instead (they come in all sizes, and in fact the M2 - which is the smallest - will last for 2 hours and you can buy for about $30) as the high concentration of O2 would be more useful than just pressurizing the surrounding air (which only has 20.9% O2 in it). All in all though, the rest is sound.
eww well what you said was almost completely correct until you talked about the o2 cylinder. In fact it is not pure 0 either. There is no such thing as pure oxygen in any form. Not even in a lab setting. IT is impossible. Oxygen bonds with everything even in a vacuum oxygen bonds covalently with itself. However even oxygen at this state is extremely volatile. If in fact the tanks were just o2. If they happened to interact with almost any other element they would result in a massive chemical reaction. In fact stabilizers are added to the tank in order for the oxygen to stay stable. I believe that they add a noble gas and nitrogen. However like I said I am not sure on the specifics of the stabilizers.
however your description of the process of cpr and defibs is correct.
feel free to pm me if you would like to discuss this further. Thanks
Justin
