Toxicity of Fire Retardant Chemicals to Aquatic Organisms: Progress Report

Table 5

Table 5. Acute toxicity (96-hour LC50; mg/L; 95% confidence interval in parentheses) of five fire retardant chemicals to fathead minnow exposed in ASTM soft and hard waters at four life stages. Astericks denote a significant difference (p=0.05) between soft and hard water for a test formulation. Letters in common denote no significant difference (p=0.05) among life stages within a test formulation and water quality.

Chemical	Water type	Life stage
Chemical	Water type	Egg¹	Swim-up	30 day	60 day
Fire-Trol LCG-R	Soft	2317^a*	1080^b	1676^3c	1797^ac
	Soft	(1802-2830)	(880-1353)	(1300-2160)	(1466-2247)
	Hard	6705^a*	519^b	1181^c	1676^3c
	Hard	(5720-8281)	(389-654)	(1255-1924)	(1300-2160)
Fire-Trol GTS-R	Soft	787^a*	233^b*	494^c*	605^3ac*
	Soft	(529-1025)	(184-301)	(432-573)	(470-780)
	Hard	363^2a*	135^b*	193^c*	320^a*
	Hard	(280-470)	(105-165)	(153-235)	(252-392)
Phos-Chek D-75-F	Soft	2250^a*	420^b*	572^bc*	612^c
	Soft	(1736-2748)	(320-532)	(455-780)	(444-770)
	Hard	1569^a*	168^b*	237^c*	490^d
	Hard	(1255-1924)	(136-207)	(194-296)	(378-597)
Phos-Chek WD-881	Soft	32^24a	14^b	22^3a*	22^3a*
	Soft	(10-47)	(11-17)	(17-28)	(17-28)
	Hard	26^a	14^b	13^3b*	13^3b*
	Hard	(21-33)	(11-17)	(10-17)	(10-17)
Silv-Ex	Soft	32^a	22^3b	20^b	22^3b
	Soft	(25-39)	(17-28)	(16-25)	(17-28)
	Hard	28^a	20^ab	19^b	22^3ab
	Hard	(23-37)	(16-25)	(15-24)	(17-28)
¹Test temperature was 2°C for all tests with eggs; all other life stages were tested at 25°C. ²LC50 calculated using binomial test. ³No partial kills; 95% confidence interval: lower limit = highest test concentration with 0% mortality, and upper limit = lowest test concentration with 100% mortality. ⁴LC50 determined with low concentration omitted.