Dear Diana, 

We process and cut many species of fish, including baramundi, whiting,
snapper, salmon, etc. in varying stages of development. Much of this is at
the fry/ fingerling stage. From the information you provide I can't see
anything that should give such a dramatic change in processing results. I
would check to make sure the fry are placed directly into fixative and not
allowed to dry out as this will give you the dried out look. If you want my
processing schedule or any other info, send me an email.
David.

David Taylor
Laboratory Manager
Drs King & Mower
Adelaide, Australia


-----Original Message-----
From: diana_papoulias@usgs.gov [mailto:diana_papoulias@usgs.gov]
Sent: Saturday, 28 October 2000 04:20
To: HistoNet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: tissue processing troubles


Hello,

I hope someone can help us.  We are having a sporadic problem with our fish
tissues coming out of the LX300 Fisher processor.  Sometimes they come out
like very well-cooked bacon other times they are fine.  The samples are
whole rainbow trout fry about 1" long preserved in 10%NBF which have been
transferred to 70% EtOH.  The process is 1hr in : 85%, 95%, 95%, 100%, 100%
EtOH; then 1hr in: histoclear, histoclear, paraffin, paraffin, paraffin.
Paraffin at 58C.  No vacuum.  The printout shows nothing out of the
ordinary during the processing job.

Any ideas about what we are doing wrong would be helpful, or even how to
begin trouble shooting it.

Many thanks,



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Diana Papoulias
Fisheries Biologist, Research
US Geological Survey
Columbia Environmental Research Center
4200 New Haven Rd.
Columbia, Missouri  65201

voice mail: 573-876-1902
e-mail: Diana_Papoulias@usgs.gov
fax: 573-876-1896