Simply Koi and More Koi

I was researching something for a friend in the states on 2-phenoxyethanol and came across posts on a koi forum about it and cheapo stuff you can buy on amazon
2-phenoxyethanol comes in many, many grades and purity formula is C8H10O2 or linear C6H5OCH2CH2OH

Right my stuff first, its >99% purity, its a highly viscous clear liquid with little or no smell. its not straw coloured and the 2 does not mean it has scent added. I don't mess with it as it comes to me is how it comes to you I simply dispense it,
kusuri's stuff Masuizai by there own statement is "based" on 2-phenoxyethanol which to me implies its mixed with something else so its purity will be down a little
Finally the stuff on ebay and amazon is highly suspect as it for use in aromatherapy and has scent added so its purity will be very poor, so purity is going down all the time

its a very effective anaesthesia with a wide range of sedation depths however its not a very good euthanasia product, it will cause respiratory arrest quite quickly but the heart will beat for some hours after gill movement ceases, Quite what this means in terms of suffering for the fish only the fish will know but I have bought koi back after they have been in solution for a couple of hours

it is not easily dissolved in water, the best way is to inject it into the water through a syringe something like an 18 gauge , this has the effect of atomising it into solution as it leaves the syringe

if it were me I would not use the cheap aromatherapy stuff circa £5.50 100ml , the purity is not guaranteed I'll bet its been stepped on loads of different ways to get it down to that price and the additives mean the koi could be subject to a very horrible experience

Hi Duncan
I wish you had replied to my thread your referring to when I asked the questions relating to phenoxyethanol and euthanasia, never mind to late now.
Just for reference the stuff I purchased was 99% pure, absolutely clear and with no smell, I dispersed it by vigorous agitation before adding the fish.
One of my questions was what's the difference between phenoxyethanol and 2-phenoxyethanol to date it appears that the 2- implies some form of dilution as you have said, so surely the 99% pure stuff I purchased at a fraction of the cost is a far better option than off the shelf koi products when using it for euthanasia????
Or is this the point your making?

PWNN,

There's no difference between phenoxyethanol and 2-phenoxyethanol they are two names for the same chemical compound C8H10O2

Phenoxyethanol is it's common name. These are names that can be a manufacturer's name to impress potential customers such as madeitupium, willysootherase or a real one; Anusol. Alternatively, a common name can be a description of what is in the compound. The name Phenoxyethanol implies that it's an ethanol based compound that has phenol component. There's some oxygen in there so one of those has been oxidised during the process.

The IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry), whose job is to define chemical compounds and give them standard names that are totally unambiguous, use a systematic set of rules. This ensures that a chemist knows what's in the compound just by looking at the IUPAC name which also is sometimes called the systematic name because it has been derived systematically.

So, the IUPAC or systematic name is 2-Phenoxyethanol. One of the common names is simply Phenoxyethanol.

There are a few other common names such as; Phenoxyethyl Alcohol (I can live with that), Ethylene Glycol Monophenyl Ether (someone was showing off), Polyoxyethylene Phenyl Ether (makes no sense to me), and Phenol Ethylene Oxide Adduct (makes even less sense).

BTW I want it clearly understood that I didn't remember those, I looked them up on a chemical database. I know I'm a nerd but there are limits.

In your book it says that it can shred parasites before you scrape can you just clarify this please.

a lot of anaesthetics cause parasites to jump ship, but it should not make much difference, for the record I never sedate a fish for a scrape or gill biopsy it takes practice but it easy to do

dunc