Known concentration of foraline in Safety Stop - Rapid Fish Quarantine Bath?

[Focustronic_Jonas]

Hi all. See my question in headline.
As the protocol is identical to the common high concentration of formalin bath that for instance humble fish present,(bath time 45 min max, heavy aeration ) I assume this product make same concentration of the formalin. Do anyone know ?

/Jonas

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi all. See my question in headline.
As the protocol is identical to the common high concentration of formalin bath that for instance humble fish present,(bath time 45 min max, heavy aeration ) I assume this product make same concentration of the formalin. Do anyone know ?

/Jonas

I’ve never been able to find out that information.

Here is the thing though - many years ago, I had developed a triage method for shipped in fish that used a standard formalin dip as one part of it. After running done trials, I found the mortality rate was really bad. It turns out giving a fish a formalin bath right after shipment is a bad idea. Fish need to test a few days first.

Formalin has other uses, like for treating brooklynella, but without knowing the concentration, you can’t really use safety stop for that purpose. You might need to contact the company.

Also - done go higher than 167 ppm for 45 minutes with a formalin dip. There are a few people saying 250 ppm - but that is misused information, and was taken from reference that was for cold water marine fish, not tropical.

 

[Vested]

Also - done go higher than 167 ppm for 45 minutes with a formalin dip. There are a few people saying 250 ppm - but that is misused information, and was taken from reference that was for cold water marine fish, not tropical.

Can you share your source for this?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Can you share your source for this?

Off the top of my head, Noga 2010, Herwig 1975, it is a pretty standard reference in aquaculture.

 

[Vested]

Off the top of my head, Noga 2010, Herwig 1975, it is a pretty standard reference in aquaculture.

Add 0.125–0.250 ml formalin/l (= 125–250 ppm = 0.47–0.95 ml formalin/gallon), and treat for up to 60 minutes. This can be repeated two to three times once daily if needed. When temperatures are high (>21°C [= 70°F] for warm water fish or >10°C [= 50°F] for cold water fish), do not use >167 ppm (= 0.167 ml/l = 184 mg/liter = 0.63 ml/ gallon) (Warren 1981; Jensen and Durborow 1984). The maximum dose should only be used every 3 days. Up to 167ppm can be used on concurrent days (Post 1983). Formalin is usually contraindicated if the temperature is >27°C (80°F).

The couple things from Nogas book I've seen above, sounds like there's a lot of debate about what the strength/duration of formalin baths should be. HF has seen uronema get through 150ppm and I haven't seen any fish have trouble in a bath at 200-250ppm as long as water temps are below 78. Just curious if you had anymore sources or data for this stuff not saying anyone is perfect and I think it depends on the fish as well.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

The couple things from Nogas book I've seen above, sounds like there's a lot of debate about what the strength/duration of formalin baths should be. HF has seen uronema get through 150ppm and I haven't seen any fish have trouble in a bath at 200-250ppm as long as water temps are below 78. Just curious if you had anymore sources or data for this stuff not saying anyone is perfect and I think it depends on the fish as well.

I'm not sure what you mean - Noga clearly says not to use formalin higher than the standard 166 ppm if the water temperature is greater than 70 F. The only difference is that he says the bath can be an hour and I cut it short at 45 minutes. Herwig gives: 250 ppm for 1 hour if the water temperature is below 10 C, 200 ppm if the temp is between 10 to 15 c. and 166 ppm if the water temperature is higher than 15 c.

I've done literally thousands of formalin baths over the past 50 years. After seeing some toxicity issues, I dropped my standard dose to 150 ppm for 45 minutes with good aeration. That works for diagnostic dips and to buy some time for fluke infestations.

I rarely use formalin anymore, and rarely suggest its use here on R2R, except for Brooklynella and only if the person doing the treatment has an apparent good PPE and handling safety regimen.

Here is an excerpt from my Uronema article as it pertains to formalin:

Disease Control: A variety of treatments have been suggested for Uronema infections, but full control is rarely seen following any of these treatments. Part of the issue seems to be that Uronema is ubiquitous, (naturally occurring in marine aquariums) and reinfection is commonplace. Bath treatments may fail because the medication used does not target the intercellular protozoans, only those living externally on the skin of the fish. Copper treatments may reduce the numbers of these ciliates, but good control is not seen until ionic copper levels reach 0.23 ppm, and this too close to the lethal limit for many species of fish. Formalin baths of various concentration and duration have been proposed, but this treatment is only effective against external protozoans. Formalin treatments are administered on a sliding scale of concentration versus duration. Most fish can tolerate continual exposure to formalin at 25 ppm. On the other hand, formalin concentrations of 166 ppm may only be tolerated for one hour. It seems that the best control of Uronema may be found by dosing formalin at 75 ppm for three hours, and then changing enough of the aquarium’s water to reduce the formalin level to the well-tolerated 25 ppm level (by changing 66% of the aquarium’s water). Remember to take into account the length of time to perform the water change into the three-hour treatment time (for example, if it takes one hour to drain and fill the tank, you would need to begin that task beginning after the second hour of the treatment).

 

[Vested]

I've done literally thousands of formalin baths over the past 50 years. After seeing some toxicity issues, I dropped my standard dose to 150 ppm for 45 minutes with good aeration. That works for diagnostic dips and to buy some time for fluke infestations.

I rarely use formalin anymore, and rarely suggest its use here on R2R, except for Brooklynella and only if the person doing the treatment has an apparent good PPE and handling safety regimen.

Just sharing the information id read so far and my experience with higher concentrations. Looking for more material, sounded like you had experience that I wanted to hear about. Appreciate it.