Dajjas
On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Dave Neely wrote:
> There's lots of ways to preserve fish. The technique you use really depends
> on what you want to do with them- if they are just to keep aroung the house
> as "keepsakes" (eeewww, gross!), then you might consider mounting them like
> gamefish. Make a small incision in one side, free the skin away from the
> muscle all around the fish from the inside, scoop as much of the flesh off
> the skeleton with a small spoon, fill the cavity with sand and shape it to
> the desired shape, then fill in around it with sand until it's dry. Dump the
> sand out, spray with polyurethane, and paint. Freeze-drying is another
> alternative.
>
> If the fish are small, sometimes you can dry the whole thing out quickly and
> they'll maintain their shape pretty well. If you live in a humid climate,
> you might have some problems with funky mold and/or bugs. Spraying them with
> polyurethane sealant after they dry helps.
>
> If you want them to build a study collection to refer to when you're having
> trouble IDing live fish, then the best way to do it is by fixing them in 10%
> formalin for a week or more, rinsing well (overnight or longer), and storing
> them in 50% rubbing alcohol or Everclear (95% grain alcohol) diluted down to
> 70%. We use specimens preserved like this in an elementary education
> program, where kids get to play with a whole bunch of different fish taxa.
> As long as you rinse really well after the formalin step, they're safe to
> handle.
>
> Some of the first naturalists even dried fish specimens in a plant press.
> The type specimen of bowfin was preserved this way, and sent back to Europe
> for Linnaeus to describe. It's still in good condition, a couple hundred
> years later.
>
> Packing specimens in salt dries the specimen well, but causes a lot of
> shrinkage. Dehydrating the specimen in 95% grain alcohol is another
> alternative.
>
> cheers,
> Dave
>
> >There are some fish I would like to preserve. Can anyone tell me how to do
> >this? Can the be "mounted" like bigger fish are or what?
>
>
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-- Sajjad Lateef email: sajjad <at> acm.org Chicago, IL web: http://www.lateef.org/sajjad/
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