Yeah so recently I learned that there is formaldehyde in Prime water conditioner. That stuff is bad....After I add the drops to my bucket of clean water I usually stir it with my hand just to mix it up. Should I stop doing this? Should I just add the drops and pour it in the tank? Will it give me cancer? Ahhhh!!!
Formaldehyde breaks down quickly in sunlight or when bacteria get to work.
Humans metabolize formaldehyde quickly into formic acid, so repeated small doses do not accumulate in the body. It takes VERY little (1oz of 37% formaldehyde solution) to kill an adult human or cause serious upper GI tract damage, but that's a very concentrated solution.
Prime is probably less than 5% total volume.
That's not to say you should chug it or anything, but you have very little to worry about, as the formaldehyde in prime will break down very, very quickly once it's out of the bottle.
Many beauty products and creams/lotions contain formaldehyde. Everyone thinks about specimens floating in jars of formaldehyde, but it has a wide number of everyday uses.
Probably has a warning on the bottle saying not to get it in your eyes or mouth or an open wound, but I didn't really assume you'd be doing those things.
I've gotten Prime in my mouth before (I bite my nails so if I get it on my fingers and forget I usually end up with it in my mouth) and I haven't keeled over yet. If you are overly concerned, just use something else to stir the Prime in with or put on rubber gloves when doing water changes.
The one that does hurt to get in open cuts is Seachem Flourish Iron. I've found that stings worst than any of their other products.
We use formaldehyde to treat sick fish as well. Anything in fish medicine called "formalin" is the same thing, just diluted. So, fun fact there. It's pretty common still, even.
Well I guess it's not as dangerous as I thought? I just went to the hospital a couple days ago and it said everywhere that formaldehyde causes cancer and yadda yadda yadda so I freaked out.
Yeah and hopefully you aren't using medication on your fish too often anyway lol. But you are just talking about meds and not Prime, right? It's okay to touch prime a few times a week, right? Maybe even every day if you have a lot of tanks?
Some consumers are using Fish Mox as a low cost alternative for doctor and dentist visits. This kind of stuff scares me lol.
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