ASSESSMENT OF ACUTE TOXICITY AND BEHAVIORAL CHANGES IN FRESHWATER FISH CHANNA PUNCTATA EXPOSED TO ORGANOPHOSPHATE PESTICIDE, ACEPHATE

The present study assesses the acute toxicity and behavioural alterations due to Acephate, an organophosphate pesticide on Channa punctata. The most common acute toxicity test is acute lethality and LC50 is customary to represent the lethality of a test species in terms of mortality and time. The healthy juveniles of fish C. punctata were used for this study. The water quality parameters were in normal range, indicating good water quality for experimentation. The Median lethal concentration values of C. punctata for Acephate in the static test for 24, 48, 72, and 96 h were 1470, 1240, 1080 and 910 mg/l respectively. Zero percent mortality of the fish was observed at the concentration of the toxicant at and below 0.54, 0.48 0.24 and 0.30 mg/l for 1, 2, 3 and 4 days. A hundred percent mortality of fish was observed at the concentration of the toxicant at and above 2470, 2240, 2080 and 1810 mg/l for 1, 2, 3 and 4 days respectively. In the present study, irregular swimming, loss of balance, restlessness, excess secretion of mucous, surfacing activity and gradual decrease in the opercular movement were the common observations in the present study. There were no deaths and behavioral changes were also observed in the control group throughout the experiment