Use of Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) and Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) in toxicity tests on different industrial effluents in Taiwan.

In Taiwan, aquatic toxicity tests for industrial effluents are not required for discharge permits. However, relying on traditional chemical and physical characteristics of an effluent to monitor and regulate such discharges to manage water quality of a receiving water is insufficient. In this study, we used two fish species, Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) and tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus), and three toxic endpoints, including acute and subacute toxicity, to determine toxicity of seven different types of industrial effluents. Prior to the study, two reference toxicants were tested on two fish species. The LC50s of CdCl2 for tilapia and medaka juveniles were 29.6 +/- 15.3 mg/L and 2.2 +/- 1.2 mg/L, respectively. The sensitivity of medaka embryo mortality and hatching inhibition to CdCl2 were about the same, with the LC50 and EC50 of 0.3 +/- 0.1 mg/L and 0.1 +/- 0.1 mg/L, respectively. The LC50s for tilapia and medaka juveniles to sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) were 19.7 +/- 10.6 mg/L and 12.5 +/- 5.9 mg/L. The medaka embryo was less sensitive to SDS than to CdCl2. The embryo's LC50 for SDS was 5.8 +/- 2.8 mg/L and the hatching inhibition EC50 was 1.3 +/- 1.1 mg/L. Results of toxicity tests on different effluents showed that the electroplating effluent was the most toxic, followed by acrylonitrile manufacturing and pulp/paper mill discharges. The LC50s of the electroplating effluent to different assays were in the range of several percents of the whole effluent. The pulp/paper effluent was toxic only to the medaka embryo. The rest of the industrial effluents tested showed either moderate or no toxicity to the animals.