Tan Kar Soon , Julian Ransangan

Borneo Marine Research Institute, University Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2015, Vol. 5, No. 9   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2015.05.0009
Received: 05 Jan., 2015    Accepted: 25 Jan., 2015    Published: 10 Feb., 2015

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Soon and Ransangan, 2015, Cold Lugol’s solution as an alternative of formaldehyde-base preservative in preserving stomach content of shellfish, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.5, No.9 1-4 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2015.05.0009)

Formaldehyde has long been the standard preservative for stomach content of bivalves in the feeding preference studies of the animal. However, formaldehyde-base preservatives are highly toxic and carcinogenic to human. Many other preservatives particularly Lugol’s solution and alcohol are known to be effective in preserving phytoplankton sample in water. However, the performance of these preservatives in preserving phytoplankton in the gut of mussels is not fully understood. Current study compared the preservative efficiency of formaldehyde, Lugol’s solution, alcohol and filtered seawater on the phytoplankton in the stomach of green mussel. Mussel samples were collected from green mussel farm at Marudu Bay and preserved in mixture of 5% formaldehyde and glutardialdehyde (3:1), 1% Lugol’s solution, 70% alcohol and filtered seawater, then stored in 4°C. The phytoplankton composition in the gut of mussels was identified and counted according to different preservatives. The result demonstrates that the preservative performance of cold alcohol and filtered seawater is not encouraging. However, the cell abundance and composition preserved in Lugol’s solution is similar to that in the mixture of formaldehyde and glutardialdehyde, suggesting Lugol’s solution can be used as a safe alternative to formaldehyde-base preservative.

Alternative preservative; Gut content of mussel; Phytoplankton; Formaldehyde; Lugol’s solution