Appropriate anesthesia and humane endpoints for zebrafish research procedures reduce suffering during experiments and are increasingly required by institutional animal care frameworks.
Zebrafish anesthesia science has advanced considerably, but practice in many research facilities lags behind the evidence. Imprecise dosing leads to under-anesthesia (fish in pain during procedures) or over-anesthesia (unintended euthanasia). Systematic training in anesthetic preparation, administration, and recovery monitoring is a fundamental welfare requirement for any facility using zebrafish. Institutional animal care committees should require competency demonstration before approving zebrafish procedures.