How can I preserve this animal?

[kremit2007]

OK, Im posting this for a friend of mine where I go to school. He has a snowflake eel as well and it died this morning for an unknown reason. We were curious, since it doesn't appear to be physically sick, if we could preserve it in a jar. We are Biology majors and so this is kind of interesting to us and it isn't for any other reason. How can I go about doing this?

Again, this eel is dead, so we wouldn't be subjecting a live species to it's demise. Thanks

 

[bertoni]

I thought a lot of the preservatives in use were fairly carcinogenic. Alcohol might be one of the safer ones. A professor should be able to help.

 

[Sk8r]

Pure ethyl alcohol will do it. You may have to go to a liquor store and get Everclear.
Formaldehyde is the lab preservative of choice, but not ordinarily accessible except at a bio lab, and then under restriction.

 

[pagojoe]

I'm with Sk8r. Formaldehyde is tricky, and you probably don't want to store the animal long-term in it anyway. I'd use 95% ethanol. If you can get straight ethanol at the university, it will be a lot cheaper, but it may be less hassle to go buy a liter of Everclear. Tip: don't preserve it in a plastic container.

Cheers,


Don

 

[rickh]

The best thing for you to use is about 70% alcohol. Do no use anything higher, the tissue will shrink too much. Use grain alcohol or cheap high proof booze. Really. The percent alcohol content in drinking alcohol is is measured in proof. Two hundred proof is 100% alcohol. You want 70% so that is 140 proof. R

 

[HumanIMDB]

This has got to be the most "unusual" thread I've seen on RC in a long time...but very cool.

Further expanding on kremit's question, has anyone ever done a postmortem on a dead fish? Say if a very rare/expensive fish dies for no apparent reason (usual suspects definitely ruled out)...do they investigate it or just perform a white porcelain funeral service? Just curious...

 

[Putawaywet]

At the professional level such as a public aquarium fish necropsy's are routinely perfomed. not so much for smaller speicmens like damsels, sardines, etc but definitely on some of the large animals. At the hobby level I'd say they are extremely rare. I would have to say the normal hobbist wouldn't know what they are really look at so it would probably bemore of a curiosity than an investigative tool.

Brett

 

[kremit2007]

Thanks for the suggestions. Being a Biology major AND going to school to be a Doctor, I have readily available sources of both formeldehyde in the lab and pure ethanol. I must say though that the Pathologists I work with tend to be very protective of formeldehyde, for obvious reasons. I will for sure be preserving this animal, and Im glad so many people found this thread interesting. I will post a picture for sure if you guys are interested in seeing the end product. Thanks again..

 

[ALittleSalty]

Maybe have it stuffed instead....LOL. Good luck and show us some pictures of it once it has been stored.

Jon

 

[kremit2007]

Haha, good one. I actually thought of having it stuffed and strategically placed in my tank as an experiment. I wanted to know how the fish would interact, if at all, with the eel. Thanks, and yes, pics will be posted soon.