Australia's Science Forum

Hi everyone,
Yesterday one of our specimen jars with a tiny snake in it broke. I didn't know what to do so I did some searches on here and came up with using metho 50:50 with distilled water. I've just got it in a beaker at the moment as I threw out all our empty jars not so long ago (in 2 1/2 years I hadn't used any of them and we had 2 big boxes full taking up precious storage space). But, the snake is floating! Is there something else I need to do? It wasn't floating before when it was in the jar. Any advice on what to do next will be much appreciated! I don't know what type of snake it is or what it was stored in before.
Thanks heaps in advance,
Rosalie

We changed all our specimens from formaldehyde to 50%metho. So whatever you had the snake in before, leave it now in 50%metho.
Lada

Just rinse the snake first in plain water to remove any previous solution. Use protective gloves while handling in case it was stored in formaldehyde. Place in a suitably sized jar in a 30/70 (water/metho or water/ethanol) solution. (Honey jars are good as they have plastic lids which won't rust.) Don't worry about it floating as it should eventually submerge once the solution gets into the areas which now have air in them. It may take some time. The specimen will still be preserved even though it is floating.
Lyn.
P.S. I know there are lab techs who use a 50/50 solution but my preference is to go with 30/70 solution. If you actually ordered in the preserving solution it comes labelled as 30/70 water/ethanol solution.

Hey Rosalie,

Definitely go with Lyn. I would venture to say that I've even gone pure meths for a while, then change the solution and use 30/70 water/meths. However, since your snake is already preserved, go the 30/70.

Thanks everyone when I find a jar I will transfer it to 30/70 water/metho but for a day or two I'm guessing it should be ok in the 50:50. Good idea about the jars with plastic lids. If I can find one of those I'll use it in preference to a metal lid.

Thanks again

Rosalie,

Think I've got some spare large square jars at work. Give me a ring Wednesday if you haven't found one, but you'd have to come and collect it then, or else next Tuesday when I'm back again.

I remembered after my post that I have a huge box of specimen jars in my store room so I've used one of those. Thanks for the offer though, Liz I still need to come get some winchesters from you! Who knows when that will happen...

We can organise winchesters easily, Rosalie - they're all packed up ready for St Marys! Though I don't know how many I'll be able to get down there this year now that there's lots of us going. Maybe I can put all the luggage from my car into the other vehicles so I can fill my boot with boxes of bottles.

We can swap winchesters for plastic book bottles! Next term, though, please.

I have a lot of jars of specimens that are half empty/dry, and I am hoping to get around to re-doing them at some stage, so the tips in this forum are very helpful, but I have a couple more questions.
1. I am also doing my chem register at the moment, and I've noticed formaldehyde is still approved and available, (in S.A.) so I'm wondering why you are changing over to meths. Does it give better results? Is formaldehyde banned over in other states? (I thought it was banned here, I'll have to double check)

2. After you have 're-housed' them, do you seal the lids with anything? If so, what do you use?
Thanks for the helpful hints.
Cheers,
Lisa

Over here in the west we have to store all our specimens in a 2 - PHENOXYETHANOL mixture (this solution is inert), unless we want to store all of them in a flammables cupboard. One plus of this (after changing all the solutions in all the jars) is that the specimen does not have to be in jar that is full of fluid. Just a thought.