Effects of cyanide on fish...

[Anonymous]

Can someone PM me, and give me the link to a paper or article on the effects of cyanide on marine fish?

I'm teaching class on marine fish husbandry soon, and while I know that it's use causes stress and degradation of certain organs and or systems, and causes the eventual fish in question, I'd like some more specific information if possible.

Thanks for any help.

Or, if you feel like writing a quick blurb about it, feel free.
I'd like to educate my students properly on the matter.


Also, what are the current cyanide free zones?
I asked this question before, but looking for an update.


Jim

 

[jhemdal1]

Jim,

In terms of "cyanide free zones", things change all the time, but here is the list that I currently use as being "best bets":

United States
Japan
MAC certified fishes
Red Sea
Temperate Australia
Tropical Australia
Cook Islands – flashlight fish only
Sri Lanka
East Africa
Fiji

I don't have any specific physiologic information for you about the effects of cyanide on fish, but I did run a mortality rate study, it is outlined in my book, Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques. I ran a second study in 2006. In both cases, Fish from the Philippines and Indonesia had mortality rates of 55.9% to 61% 40 days post-importation. The "control" group from regions listed above had mortality rates for the same time frame of 6.2 to 9.3% The sample size was 448 fish for the first study and around 100 for the second one.


Jay Hemdal

 

[Anonymous]

Jim,

In terms of "cyanide free zones", things change all the time, but here is the list that I currently use as being "best bets":

United States
Japan
MAC certified fishes
Red Sea
Temperate Australia
Tropical Australia
Cook Islands – flashlight fish only
Sri Lanka
East Africa
Fiji

I don't have any specific physiologic information for you about the effects of cyanide on fish, but I did run a mortality rate study, it is outlined in my book, Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques. I ran a second study in 2006. In both cases, Fish from the Philippines and Indonesia had mortality rates of 55.9% to 61% 40 days post-importation. The "control" group from regions listed above had mortality rates for the same time frame of 6.2 to 9.3% The sample size was 448 fish for the first study and around 100 for the second one.


Jay Hemdal

Tonga
Mexico
PNG

 

[jhemdal1]

Gresham,

Thanks, I've never brought in animals direct from those regions, in fact I've not dealt with Tonga or PNG fish even through an intermediary. What about Brazil and Belize?


Jay

 

[Anonymous]

Belize has had rumors of CN use so I can't say for sure.

Brazil I never have heard of use, but with such a large mining industry there, coupled with the likes of FARC, I could see CN bing sold on the black market

NOTE: I only say that about FARC as it is a rebel group just like the MILF in PI. The rebels (MILF) + mining industry in PI = CN access to many. I figure FARC would do the same given the chance. They have similiar MO's to that of the MILF (kidnapping, etc).

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks peeps.

 

[Anonymous]

Jay, I'm working on another article for AAOM, can I quote you on those percentages?

I'll throw you a (pers com)

Jim

 

[PeterIMA]

I have published several reviews that include the scientific and the aquarium hobby literature concerning the effects of cyanide of fish. Most of the literature pertains to freshwater fish, but there is some that is marine. The papers were published in 1986 and 1987 but are still relevant today. There is a new book about cyanide testing that I just received. It is a bit pricy. I can send you a copy of relavant chapters about cyanide testing methods. Roman Lanno has a chapter about cyanide effects on biota (fish, inverts. plants etc).

Steven Pro wrote a paper that is downloadable from this the magazine on RDO. Look in its archives.

As far as Jay Hemdal's findings, it would be a mistake to assume that all of the mortality associated with fish from countries where cyanide is used for collecting is actually due to the effects of cyanide per se. Poor handling and stress appear to be more important sources of mortality. I say this because I have been importing net-caught fish from the Philippines and Indonesia and have experienced fairly high DOAs and DAAs. We have improved the handling and shipping procedures (in the villages and for overseas shipments) and markedly reduced the mortality.

So, while I still favor enforcing laws against cyanide fishing (for MO fish and for food fish), there is also a need to improve the transport, holding, and shipping procedures starting from the point of collection in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Peter Rubec

 

[jhemdal1]

Jim,

Sure you can refer to the numbers, the first set was published in my book, the second set was for in-house use, but the numbers are still firm by any standard I can think of. That said, the following is my OPINION:

I understand Peter's arguement that poorly handled fish from any region can exhibit high mortality. The funny thing is that time and time again, you see the higher mortality rate in fish from just those two areas, despite poorly handled shipments from other regions. I've seen fish from Jeddah go through hell getting here, like they had been shipped by rank amateurs (they probably were) yet they thrived. I've had shipments from Jakarta packed like a dream and catch every break during shipment, and still the fish would die like flies. Something about fish from those two areas just makes them turn over and die more often. It isn't acute shipping stress, that either results in a DOA or takes the animals out within 24 hours or so. It isn't disease, because these fish were held in systems alongside the controls and the controls didn't die. It is something that starts taking these fish down about 10 days post-importation and then decimates them until around day 45 and things start to level off ('cause they are mostly dead by then).

So; call it "early death syndrome" if it suits, blame it on the boogeyman if you want to, the fact is that every time I have the chance to run a controlled study, the mort rate is higher on those fish, and given the reports of how they are collected, I'll attribute it to collection with cyanide.


Jay

 

[Kalkbreath]

Any fare comparison must also use the same fish species.
There are far more species coming out of PI and INDo which changes the overall make up of the fishes
Some of these species out of PI and INDo are poor performers in general and are usually not included in Cyanide free batches.
A balanced study would compare apples to apples.
There also is the huge difference in shipping stress and fish per box counts.
PI by far ships in less water. While mexico , Tonga and such ship in less stressfull larger bags of water.

Kinda odd that Peter is cheer leading from the other side ?

 

[Anonymous]

Here is an excerpt from my Angel article in the specimen selection section where I touch on this. (Your proper quote will be added Jay, thank you.)

Feel free to critique.

Jim

"Unfortunately, the use of Cyanide to collect marine fish is still prevalent in many regions. Fish that are stunned, or “juiced” with cyanide during collection and survive the initial exposure (many die outright) have been shown to have an extremely high mortality rate weeks later, often over 50%. Worse, the fish often appears normal, even spectacular when viewed at the fish store and may even eat well, only to “crash” a few weeks, or even months later for apparently no reason. I have seen at least 2 authors call into question the validity of studies attempting to prove the long-term effects of cyanide on marine fishes, and I commend any effort to add to our knowledge base. However at the same time they do acknowledge that concentrated exposure to cyanide is most definitely deadly to marine organisms, and there are other more recent studies that validate delayed mortality after cyanide exposure. Even if the specific long-term physiological effects of cyanide are still unclear on fish that initially survive exposure, it’s clear that cyanide is a poison, and again in high concentrations it kills fish almost immediately. In my opinion, the need to debate the issue ends there. When dealing with toxins, there are very few examples of “X-amount kills instantly, but Y amount has no ill effect”. It’s the belief of this author based on 22 years of observation at all levels of the hobby, that at least some seemingly inexplicable deaths post-capture are caused by cyanide poisoning. My advice is to let others poke holes in published graphs and charts, and stay away from cyanide caught fish – period. At the very least, the additional physiological stress and negative health effects that this method most likely brings on are not something our Angel friends suffer easily. My own empirical data on Pomocanthids caught in regions such as the Philippines where cyanide fishing is rampant supports this contention."

 

[Kalkbreath]

Your point is taken and understand that the guys and girls on this board have a long history of discussing this topic. ( search and check 2001 through 2004 posts for "cyanide")

Contained within the (REEFS.org) server is likely the single largest collection of cyanide related data and discussions in the world.

If you have yet to rehash our Industry behind exchanges let me illustrate one of the main crux in down playing your numbers a tad.

Jim,

In terms of "cyanide free zones", things change all the time, but here is the list that I currently use as being "best bets":

United States
Japan
MAC certified fishes
Red Sea
Temperate Australia
Tropical Australia
Cook Islands – flashlight fish only
Sri Lanka
East Africa
Fiji

I don't have any specific physiologic information for you about the effects of cyanide on fish, but I did run a mortality rate study, it is outlined in my book, Advanced Marine Aquarium Techniques. I ran a second study in 2006. In both cases, Fish from the Philippines and Indonesia had mortality rates of 55.9% to 61% 40 days post-importation. The "control" group from regions listed above had mortality rates for the same time frame of 6.2 to 9.3% The sample size was 448 fish for the first study and around 100 for the second one.


Jay Hemdal

Your conclusion that 50% of PI fish die DAA due to cyanide exposure is unfounded based on the cyanide detection studies carried out in the Philippines in 1995 through 2001. (Peter Rubec developed a testing program for cyanide which was used on random samples in the Philippines) in which less then fifty percent of fish tested were shown to have been exposed to cyanide.

For fifty percent to die from the poison ..... at least fifty percent of the fish would need to be exposed/collected with the substance.

In actuality , less then 30 percent of the fish during the 7 year study were found to contain cyanide preset in their tissues. and during several of the 12 month periods the testers only found around ten percent of the fish screened to have been exposed to cyanide. ....And this was before MAC and the large anti cyanide movement !

This simple math in conjunction with the known survivability of cyanide prone fish like Blue regal tangs from PI to survive just fine despite the inconvenient truth that most if not all Blue tangs collected out of PI are "juiced", supports the reality that most fish collected with cyanide dont die from the event.

I only point this out , not in support of cyanide nor PI fisheries, but to caution that overstating the role which cyanide plays in consumer fish DOAs and DAAs is to downplay the significance handling and shipping stress plays in fish losses once the customer brings the item home.

But you are correct , Tonga and Vanuatu fish are well worth the slightly increased costs..... if simply to exculpate the dealer/importer from any wrong doing. ( whats "Karma" worth )

[Larry and Rick you owe me some kind of PR fee or something off my next order.] Wink.

 

[Anonymous]

Here is an excerpt from my Angel article in the specimen selection section where I touch on this. (Your proper quote will be added Jay, thank you.)

Feel free to critique.

Jim

"Unfortunately, the use of Cyanide to collect marine fish is still prevalent in many regions. Fish that are stunned, or “juiced” with cyanide during collection and survive the initial exposure (many die outright) have been shown to have an extremely high mortality rate weeks later, often over 50%. Worse, the fish often appears normal, even spectacular when viewed at the fish store and may even eat well, only to “crash” a few weeks, or even months later for apparently no reason. I have seen at least 2 authors call into question the validity of studies attempting to prove the long-term effects of cyanide on marine fishes, and I commend any effort to add to our knowledge base. However at the same time they do acknowledge that concentrated exposure to cyanide is most definitely deadly to marine organisms, and there are other more recent studies that validate delayed mortality after cyanide exposure. Even if the specific long-term physiological effects of cyanide are still unclear on fish that initially survive exposure, it’s clear that cyanide is a poison, and again in high concentrations it kills fish almost immediately. In my opinion, the need to debate the issue ends there. When dealing with toxins, there are very few examples of “X-amount kills instantly, but Y amount has no ill effect”. It’s the belief of this author based on 22 years of observation at all levels of the hobby, that at least some seemingly inexplicable deaths post-capture are caused by cyanide poisoning. My advice is to let others poke holes in published graphs and charts, and stay away from cyanide caught fish – period. At the very least, the additional physiological stress and negative health effects that this method most likely brings on are not something our Angel friends suffer easily. My own empirical data on Pomocanthids caught in regions such as the Philippines where cyanide fishing is rampant supports this contention."

Nice Jim! I have cents.
I would like to see something practical about how people should go about staying away from cyanide caught fish. YMMV.

RR

 

[jhemdal1]

Kalkbreath,

This data was excerpted from more in-depth work-ups, so much of the associated detail is missing. I did NOT say 50% of the fish died from cyanide, I said 50% DIED. Remember, there was 6 to 9% mortality in the controls that would be expected to overlay the mortality in the PI and Indo fish. The importer that we used for the first study from Indonesia in the early 1980's eventually admitted that his collectors were using cyanide and the species involved were well over 70% of what we were buying. He is still in business by the way! I had always been told that cyanide is a very transient compound and difficult to test for in moribund fishes, therefore was being under-reported when tested for. Is this not true?

These were two controlled studies, with much overlap in the species involved. I have been an aquarist WAY too long to let a simple thing like disparate hardiness between different species trip me up.
The problem is that getting the resources to study post-importation is marine fishes is just too difficult (thus the reason there was a 25 year gap between my studies). Has anyone else even attempted this? I've not seen controlled studies with 40 to 50 days post importation other than these two.


Jay Hemdal

 

[Anonymous]

Here is an excerpt from my Angel article in the specimen selection section where I touch on this. (Your proper quote will be added Jay, thank you.)

Feel free to critique.

Jim

"Unfortunately, the use of Cyanide to collect marine fish is still prevalent in many regions. Fish that are stunned, or “juiced” with cyanide during collection and survive the initial exposure (many die outright) have been shown to have an extremely high mortality rate weeks later, often over 50%. Worse, the fish often appears normal, even spectacular when viewed at the fish store and may even eat well, only to “crash” a few weeks, or even months later for apparently no reason. I have seen at least 2 authors call into question the validity of studies attempting to prove the long-term effects of cyanide on marine fishes, and I commend any effort to add to our knowledge base. However at the same time they do acknowledge that concentrated exposure to cyanide is most definitely deadly to marine organisms, and there are other more recent studies that validate delayed mortality after cyanide exposure. Even if the specific long-term physiological effects of cyanide are still unclear on fish that initially survive exposure, it’s clear that cyanide is a poison, and again in high concentrations it kills fish almost immediately. In my opinion, the need to debate the issue ends there. When dealing with toxins, there are very few examples of “X-amount kills instantly, but Y amount has no ill effect”. It’s the belief of this author based on 22 years of observation at all levels of the hobby, that at least some seemingly inexplicable deaths post-capture are caused by cyanide poisoning. My advice is to let others poke holes in published graphs and charts, and stay away from cyanide caught fish – period. At the very least, the additional physiological stress and negative health effects that this method most likely brings on are not something our Angel friends suffer easily. My own empirical data on Pomocanthids caught in regions such as the Philippines where cyanide fishing is rampant supports this contention."

Nice Jim! I have cents.
I would like to see something practical about how people should go about staying away from cyanide caught fish. YMMV.

RR

Thanks Rich.
That's in the next paragraph.

Maybe I'll downplay quoting any hard percentages? What do you think Jay?

 

[HELLYEAH]

Tonga
Vanuatu
PNG
Fiji
all clean from cyanide.

 

[clarionreef]

PAPUA NEW GUINEA [PNG]
Now theres a sleeping giant!
It has more square miles of healthy reef cover then Indonesia and as great a species diversity.
The great advantage is though, Papua New Guinea has sat out the entire history of the aquarium trade.
It has missed the poisoning, the crow-barring and pillaging the coral reefs that The Philippines and Indonesia has endured and it has held back long enough to learn from these examples of how not to permit an aquarium trade.
Papua New Guinea...as the next big thing...done right ,could perhaps shame the rest into reform and eat into their market share.
Steve

 

[HELLYEAH]

Belize has had rumors of CN use so I can't say for sure.

Brazil I never have heard of use, but with such a large mining industry there, coupled with the likes of FARC, I could see CN bing sold on the black market

NOTE: I only say that about FARC as it is a rebel group just like the MILF in PI. The rebels (MILF) + mining industry in PI = CN access to many. I figure FARC would do the same given the chance. They have similiar MO's to that of the MILF (kidnapping, etc).

HAHAHA YOU SAID , MILF!!!!HEHEHE

 

[Anonymous]

Sure did and they are no joking matter. Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a far cry from what your joke implies.

http://mnlf.net/

http://www.luwaran.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moro_Islam ... tion_Front

http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=3631

 

[clarionreef]

The hidden gauntlet of procedures in the processing of fishes ie. handling and collecting for quality are still hidden from the trade and hardly as popular for discussion as they should be.

1. The huge, overwhelming effect of incomplete decompression for example on so many fishes is barely in the lexicon yet determines the viability of species after another especially, angels, anthias and fancy wrasses.

2. The bag storage phenomena w/ its link to chronic low level ammonia toxicity is still prevasive, widespread and exerts a huge effect on fishes and their resultant afterlife.

3. The effect of re-cycling of purged cyanide in these same storage bags must have a chilling effect on the gills over the first day of storage, I'm sure.

4. Then there the much speculated upon, much mis-construed effect of cyanide on fishes at the moments of collection and subsequent days after.
Without bringing back 25 years of past tesimony [long since forgotten or even never even read by the current crop of hobbyists] ..I can tell you what I witnessed over a long period of time.
Many fishes died at point of collection....
many died the next day.
Day after day they died in floating live wells w/ super clean seawater flowing thru.
The ones that didn't die....some 70% I estimated...got sold to Manila where they worked there way to the trade in "unsuspecting" ..."oblivious", "detached and innocent" Japan, Europe and America.
Continued after-effects?
None right?
Good for the fish in fact...right?
It hasn't exactly been a topic for research that a trade in denial was interested in. In fact, its far cheaper to just stonewall it, smile and shoot the messenger .
Steve