i am in agreeance, except perhaps in the case of the larger fish, especially puffers and triggers, who to me seem extremely intelligent. my main concern here is not the comfort of the animal as much as it is the survival of the animal. the idea is to reduce losses in captivity, and thereby reduce captures from the wild. but of course you are correct in saying that we cannot know how the fish feel. however developmental psychologists will confirm that behaviour is influenced by environment, and therefore we can make deductions based on the actions of the animals. in the psychological sense, one could almost define dying as a behaviour (in the same way that a plant growing is classed as behaviour). we can assume therefore that dying prematurely says something about the environment the lifeform was contained in.
dear god, someone please help us. 
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-Quinn
Man, n. ...His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth, and Canada. - A. Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, 1906
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