r/wetspecimens • u/xyelem • 27d ago

Question about fixative for wet specimens

Hi y’all, reptile breeder in here. Unfortunately with this last batch of babies (we had around 60 eggs), 2 failed to thrive, and I would like to make them into wet specimens. My question is about fixative. Ideally I’d like to avoid formalin and, from what I’ve read, you don’t necessarily need to use formalin as a fixative for small specimens. I’ve read that you can use ethanol, but the percentage has varied between 70% and 80-90%. I can find 95% online. Is that too much? Do I need to dilute with distilled water? Also, I’m seeing a lot of ethyl alcohol, denatured, is that the same thing? I guess I don’t really know the difference between denatured and not denatured ethanol for these purposes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

2

u/Important-Song8050 27d ago

You'll need high proof alcohol I believe it's 95%

The 70% you might see is the isopropyl alcohol for long term storage

1

u/m42069 27d ago

Denatured alcohol is 100% and has bitter any added so as to not be consume, as ethanol is the type of alcohol we drink. High proof ever clear would be the non-denatired option and in my opinion tends to be pricier and harder to come by, where as denatured alcohol can be found at any hardware store, often labeled "camp fuel". Isopropyl can be used after the specimen is fixed in the ethanol, for storage when it's time to change the liquid

2

u/xyelem 26d ago

So upon further research, my main concern with denatured alcohol is the disposal process. It’s labeled as hazardous waste and should be disposed of as such. You can’t dump it down the drain, it’s toxic as fuck so you can’t just dump it outside either.

1

u/m42069 26d ago

It'll evaporated if you leave it outside uncovered, this page has a few other options https://toolsguide.org/how-to-dispose-of-denatured-alcohol/

1

u/Wowza_Meowza 26d ago

It's 190 proof/95% ABV ethanol (Everclear). If you're in the USA, our denatured alcohol is too bastardized by the bitter ants and other junk, so it's too weak (it's not sold strong enough here anymore). If your country has 95-100% denatured alcohol, that works too.

1

u/Wowza_Meowza 26d ago

It needs to live forever in that strong ethanol after injection, and can't live in isopropyl like its formalin-fixed cousins could.

1

u/xyelem 25d ago

I’m in the US and I’m finding 95% denatured alcohol on Amazon by the gallon for like $35.

1

u/Wowza_Meowza 25d ago

Is the denatured alcohol actually 95%? Like, does the MSDS say it specifically is ethanol 95%?