A laboratory test with a flow-through system was designed and its applicability for testing antifouling paints of varying efficacies was investigated. Six different formulations of antifouling paints were prepared to have increasing contents (0 to 40 wt.%) of Cu2O, which is the most commonly used antifouling substance, and each formulation of paint was coated on just one surface of every test plate. The test plates were aged for 45 days by rotating them at a speed of 10 knots inside a cylinder drum. A behavioral test was then conducted using five mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) that were pasted onto the coated surface of each aged test plate. The number of the byssus threads produced by each mussel generally decreased with increasing Cu2O content of the paint. The newly designed method was considered valid owing to the high consistency of its results with observations from the field experiment.
A new test for antifouling substances against the young blue mussels, Mytilus edulisgalloprovincialis was developed. Mussels crawl around and search, using their foot, for a suitable substratum to attach themselves to by byssus threads. Repellent substances applied to the substratum inhibit this behavior, leading to the present assay method which is simple and fast, and allows an evaluation of, not only repellent activity, but also toxicity of samples. This assay method can also be carried out under the con ditions closer to natural than those of previous methods, causing less stress to test organisms. The mini mum repellent concentration of p-nonylphenol, which is a known repellent, was one order of magni tude lower when evaluated by the present method than that by the "byssus-thread method", while cupric sulfate was evaluated similarly by both methods. This method is, therefore, useful for the discov ery of nontoxic, antifouling substances from natural sources, including marine organisms.
With the aim of establishing a protocol for evaluating the efficacy of antifouling paints on different organisms, a flow-through laboratory test using triangular boxes was developed for cyprids of the barnacle Amphibalanus (=Balanus) amphitrite. Six different formulations of antifouling paints were prepared in increasing content (0 to 40 wt.%) of Cu2O, which is the most commonly used antifouling substance, and each formulation of paint was coated on one surface of each test plate. The test plates were aged for 45 days by rotating them at a speed of 10 knots inside a cylinder drum with continuously flowing seawater. The settlement behavior of 3-day-old cyprids released inside triangular boxes made from the test plates was observed. A decreasing number of juveniles settled on surfaces of test plates that were coated with paint containing more than 30 wt.% of Cu2O. Results of the laboratory bioassays were consistent with those from the field experiments.
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