So, whats formalin?

[khanb31]

Alright,

I have this ich medicine that is supposed to work on fish. Its active ingredients are formalin and some dye to make it blue. It doesnt say formalinE, just formalin. Isnt this stuff unsafe for fish? Should i use it instead of copper?

Thoughts? Info?

Jim

 

[tmz]

It is formaldehyde ,which I believe is carcinogenic.. I use it as a dip for fish and as a treatment for brooklynella and flukes.For ich(crytocaryon irritans ) and velvet(amyloodinium) copper is better in my experience.

 

[khanb31]

Well i actually have an angelfish that I would like to treat for flukes to be safe. Should I just dose the formalin for both?

 

[Boomer]

Just read this and let me know if you have any more questions. Fromalin is quite common in the hobby as a dip or for long duration, like a few days. The dye most often used is Malachite Green, which has no cooper. I have never heard of FormalinE. As far a Formalin and it is blue I can only guess it is MB (Methylene-Blue. I have never seen Blue Formalin


Formalin
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/VM061


Malachite Green
http://www.argent-labs.com/malachitegreen.htm

Waht is the nem of the product you have.

 

[tmz]

If you are treating the angel fish prophylacticly for flukes, I would give it a formalin bath and then put it in qt and use copper(preferably cupramine), hyposalinity or tank transfer for ich. I'm not sure formalin is very effective against ich.

 

[Boomer]

No Tom it is not and even if it has Malachite in it. Cupramine is by far the best when it comes to "drugs"/chemials for fish and "ick"

 

[tmz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13355248#post13355248 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Boomer
No Tom it is not and even if it has Malachite in it. Cupramine is by far the best when it comes to "drugs"/chemials for fish and "ick"

Hi Boomer,

I read the link. Thankyou for sharing it. It does indicate under the safety concerns sections that formaldehyde is a known carciniogen and should be handled with protective equipment.

Do you know if the addition of methanol detoxifies it's carcinogenic propeties ? Is methanol added to all commercial hobby products?

BTW not all formalin products are 37% solutions. I use Formalin 3 which is only a 3% solution. When I give a bath , I do it in a gallon of water with 5 ml of Fomalin 3% soution for 40 minutes. This would be less than 1 ml of 37% solution. I made a mistake once and dosed 37% solution to the bath at the level for Formalin 3 and the fish sky rocketted out of the bucket. So it would be very important for anyone using formalin to check the dosing levels and concentration for a particular product very carefully.

A bath dosed properly will clean off the parasites on the skin without ill effect to the fish.

Formalin is my medication of choice for brooklynella and flukes since copper has no effect on these infestations with no free swimming stage.

 

[Boomer]

Hi Tom

First std Foramlin is 37 % and Fromalin 3 is another form but is not std Foramlin.

Formalin is my medication of choice for brooklynella and flukes since copper has no effect on these infestations with no free swimming stage.

Yes it is. However there is still a free swimmng stage of Brook. The issue with Brook is that it can multiply on the fish from asexual reproducion by binary fission, where copper is just not effective at all.

Do you know if the addition of methanol detoxifies it's carcinogenic propeties ? Is methanol added to all commercial hobby products?

No it is added to things like Formalin so you are not producing Paraformaldehyde. Paraformaldehyde is much more carcinogenic and toxic. SeaChem use to make the best there was called Soft Formaldehyde, which was buffered but due to lack of sales they dropped it like many other great meds/chemicals they use to have.

 

[Billybeau1]

Flukes is one of the simplest parasites to get rid of.

From my experience, a simple fresh water dip for about 5 to 6 minutes and the flukes fall right off.

They do not like fresh water. If you shine a flashlight in the bottom of your container after a dip, you will actually see these flukes in the bottom. They look like clear little discs.