I'm doing a study on myctophid diets and need to store the stomach contents in a preservative and then freeze.
What is the best preservative for these samples? I've looked into different percentages of ethanol and propylene glycol and Kahle's fluid plus the different preservatives do better in different freezer temperatures.
Hi Kelsey,
are you certain that you want to put them in a preservative before freezing at all? You probably may keep the whole fish frozen and to thaw one by one while processing in the lab day by day.
Best regards, Vlad
Dear colleague!
I don't quite understand why preserve stomachs before freezing. Simple freezing of stoamchs of myctophids is not good too. Based on our experience freezing of planktovorous fishes destroy small crustaceans (copepods etc.). We used formalin (formaldegid) for all planctivorous fishes including myctophids (both stomachs and whole fishes). Of course formalin is not good for health, but it is the best preservator.
Vladimir Laptikhovsky I am going to be freezing them, and then one by one dissecting stomachs, sorry for the lack of information. Andrey V. Dolgov Oh! that's a good idea, what do you think about the colour though? do the crustaceans lose colour or become brittle? I'm just still trying to figure out the best way to keep everything in the stomachs properly preserved, colour and flexibility too.
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