Found Non-toxic Paint --- Its Safe For Tanks!

[Bignose]

The thing is that whats not toxic to us can in fact be toxic to fish, or can turn toxic if left under water for a great deal of time. It takes a lot of money and a great deal of time to determine if something is toxic or not, just putting some goldfish in with the paint won't tell you a whole lot.

Though fish toxicity is a common route to measure a substance's toxicity. Zebra Danios are a typical test subject, though many other fish have been used. In terms of time and money, what opcn is saying is that the test results need to be statistically significant ( see http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance for example), 1 test is in no way whatsoever significant. 100 tests would be much more meaningful. Think about the issues of testing... you could have just been unlucky enough to have very weak and/or vulnerable fish. Fish do just die once in a while from chance, you could have gotten one of those. Similarly, it could just be chance that the fish you had were resistant or tolerant of that paint. One test cannot separate all these issues. That is where statistical significance comes into play -- and all the repetitions needed to achieve statistical significance. And all those repetitions take up a great deal of time and money,

 

[vic]

Go talk to maintenance folks at the local swimming pool. They will steer you to a safe paint.
Vic

 

[smurfyy_2k3]

10 goldfish... in a 10 gallon tank? thats not even big enough for 1 gold fish

 

[InaneCathode]

Not to mention the ethical ramifications for live animal testing...

 

[TheeMon]

just a little info as of today no fish have died. i also put some of the paint in a tank with danios and guppies(and a pleco) with no ill effects...

 

[Tessla]

With ten goldfish in a ten gallon tank, your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate will likely kill any fish in there much faster than the paint will, toxic or not. Those buggers are messy, and you'd be needing at least 30 gallons for one, let alone ten. You're also testing with a fish that has a normal healthy lifespan of 30-40 years, I don't think you have that long to do any real tests. Not to mention goldfish are extremely durable, just because it doesn't kill a goldfish does not mean that it won't kill a shrimp or a fancy guppy. Danios are another fish that aren't a good test subject as they're practically indestructable, just because they're used in tests to determine if something is toxic to humans doesn't mean it isn't toxic to more delicate fish.

As mentioned, most of the harm will come from slow leaching into the water, you might be able to do a test in an otherwise exceptionally maintained tank with proper stocking and healthy inhabitants over a very long period of time but as is you're opening your tests up to way too many variables. Bignose brings up the very important point of statistical significance.

 

[vinylman]

I wouldn't dare paint anything and put it in a tank. Why not just buy some coloured rocks and decor?. If you buy them from a LFS, there'll be absolutely no harm done.