Author(s): R Dinesh, Chandra Prakash, Nalini Poojary, G Kantharajan and Sherry Abraham

Abstract: Generally, fishes are quite sensitive to aquaculture practices like handling, transportation, sizing, and grading, weighing, stripping, blood collection, surgery etc. among which transport is considered as one of the most stressful procedures which results in loss of equilibrium, reduced activity and ultimately, death. Stress induced mortality during live fish transport can be lowered by the application of sedatives that silence and immobilize the activity of the fishes. So far, researchers have tested the efficacy of different sedatives over different fish species. These studies reveal that some sedatives are expensive and unavailable while some are toxic and easily available. Till date, MS-222 is the only sedative approved by the USFDA to be used on food fish transport which also consists of many drawbacks such as high cost, low pH and low efficacy on plasma cortisol control. Therefore, in search of safe, effective and inexpensive sedative, tobacco is considered to be a novel and futuristic sedative in replacing the other expensive and toxic drugs owing to its traits like natural origin, cost efficiency, local availability, biodegradability and non-toxic to fishes and humans.

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