5. Conclusion
The study concludes that the clove extract can be used as an alternate anesthetic (to clove oil and other chemicals); besides it is easily available, cost-effective, eco-friendly, and safer ensuring increased shelf life. The preparation cost for 100 ml clove oil is about US $ 81 whereas 100 ml of clove extract costs only US $ 2. It is feasible and affordable to small and large-scale hatcheries to use clove extract instead of clove oil and other chemical anesthetics. Furthermore, the use of anesthetics is a matter of concern, as there are no specific laws and regulations on their usage. US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved MS-222 as the only anesthetic agent recommended for food fish in the USA. However, it is quite expensive, unavailable locally, preventing the large scale use of MS-222 at commercial scale. Hence it is high time to switch over to exploit clove extract as an ideal anesthetic agent in fresh and marine aquaculture as it is widely available, relatively inexpensive, eco-friendly, and quite safer to the fish and humans.