Re: [Killietalk] Killietalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 14

[Wright Huntley <whuntley at verizon_net>]

Marshall is right on! Acriflavin is a good anti-bacterial, but it also 
is quite a strong mutagen. Whether that gives 2-headed babies, or cancer 
is not certain, but it does alter genetic material, like many strong dyes.

Used in very mild doses, with methylene blue to provide the extra 
oxygen, it is a fine way to improve hatch. At those levels, it probably 
isn't a big hazard to the fish keeper. I still avoid stained fingers, etc.

Wright

Marshall Ostrow wrote:
> Regarding the use of acriflavine as an antifungal agent for water incubated
> eggs, let me offer two warnings. I used this material extensively during my
> graduate research, as I had to raise several thousand Fundulopanchax
> gardneri Akure for the research project I was involved in, and I had to do
> it in a very short period of time. I incubated the eggs in glass Petri
> dishes and I used a very mild solution (several drops to a gallon of water)
> but I kept the eggs in it for the entire 14-day incubation period. Very few
> eggs fungused, but until I discovered the culprit, a consistent 5% of the
> fry had two heads and lived for only a few hours. Finally I began to change
> the incubation water to plain aquarium water after two days, and the
> "two-headed syndrome" immediately vanished. Ever since, and that was in
> 1974, I have used acriflavine for only 24-48 hours on any species whose eggs
> are incubated in water, and rarely have I seen any fungused eggs and never
> again did I see any two-headed fry. I have a photomicrograph of one of my
> two-headed fish which some day I might publish in JAKA.
>
> The other warning is something I read somewhere recently, and I can't for
> the life of me remember where I read it. This warning stated that
> acriflavine can be carcinogenic if the user has too great an exposure to it.
> Now I'm sure that two or three drops per gallon for two days is not going to
> give you or your fish cancer, but it's just a little piece of probably
> useless information that I keep stored in the back of my mind, where I keep
> the plethora of other pieces of useless information!
>
> Marshall Ostrow
>
>
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-- 
Wright Huntley - 805 Valley West Cir., Bishop CA 93514 
whuntley at verizon_net 760 872-3995. Cell 760 937-2276

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