Fish: Short-term Toxicity Test on Embryo and Sac Fry Stages

In this Short-term Toxicity Test on Fish Embryo and Sac-Fry Stages, the life stages from the newly fertilized egg to the end of the sac-fry stage are exposed.The embryo and sac-fry stages of fish are exposed to five concentrations of the test substance dissolved in water.

A choice, depending on the nature of the test substance, is possible between a semi-static and a flow-through procedure. The test starts with placing at least 30 fertilised eggs divided equally between at least three replicate test chambers per concentration, and is terminated just before the yolk-sac of any larvae in any of the test chambers has been completely absorbed or before mortalities by starvation start in controls.

Lethal and sub-lethal effects are assessed and compared with control values to determine the lowest observed effect concentration and hence the no observed effect concentration. Alternatively, they may be analysed using a regression model in order to estimate the concentration that would cause a given percentage effect.

Vertebrate, Chronic, Freshwater.

OECD (1998), Test No. 212: Fish, Short-term Toxicity Test on Embryo and Sac-Fry Stages, OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals, Section 2, OECD Publishing, Paris.