Toxicity of chlorpyrifos insecticide on Asian red-tailed catfish (Hemibagrus nemurus) and its degradation potency using activated carbon

Abstract

The chlorpyrifos is an insecticide with high toxicity and persistence in nature. The activated carbon has the potency to degrade some insecticides through the adsorption process. The research aimed to determine the lethal toxicity (LC50-96 hours) of the chlorpyrifos insecticide or red tail fingerling. The fish with 2.5±0.2 cm in total length and 0.18 ± 0.002 g in body weight were used. The concentrations of the chlorpyrifos as a treatment were 0.0, 1.0, 1.4, 1.9, 2.7, 3.8, 5.6, and 7.5 mg/l. Three kinds of experiments were set up, namely, without activated carbon (as a control), coconut shell activated carbon, and wood activated carbon. Each treatment consisted of three replicates. The probit analysis performed to obtain the LC50-96 hours’ value. The result showed that the LC50-96 hours of Asian catfish was 4.44 mg/l (without activated carbon), 4.84 mg/l (coconut shell activated carbon), and 8.52 mg/l (wood activated carbon). The effectiveness ol activated carbon to reduce the toxic of the chlorpyrifos found on the wood activated carbon (91.9%) then followed by the coconut shell activated carbon was 9.0%. Thus the implementation of the wood activated carbon is fruitful in terms of reducing the chlorpyrifos toxic.