[Histonet] Bouin's without the picric acid?

[Tyrone Genade]

Hello,

I have been using Bouin's fixative on my fish specimens. I had simply
been killing the fish, slitting them down their belly and letting them
lie in Bouin's overnight. This worked well to soften the tissue and in
particular the brain case (I'm interested in the brain but the
dissection is delicate and I'm clumsy). After trying some silver
staining the results were not very good. I have since learned that
picric acid interferes with silver staining (and fluorescent staining
like FluoroJade-B) so no more picric acid for me.

My question is this: can I use Buoin's without picric acid? The
solution is 75 mL saturated picric acid, 25 mL 40% formaldehyde and 5
mL glacial acetic acid to make 100 mL.  If I simply left out the
picric acid, replacing it with distilled water, would this cause
trouble? I am reluctant to switch to PFA as this can destroy certain
antibody epitopes whereas the Bouin's doesn't (so I'm told but I was
also told that Buoin's won't cause trouble at all...).

My other idea was to use PFA and then decalcify in dilute acetic or formic acid.

Any suggestions or advice?

Thanks
-- 
Tyrone Genade
http://tgenade.freeshell.org
email: tgenade <@t> gmail.com
tel: +27-84-632-1925 (c)
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