The Acute and Chronic Effects
of Standard Sodium Alkyl Benzene
Sulfonate Upon the Pumpkinseed
Sunfish, Lepomis gibbosus (Linn.)
and the
Bluegill Sunfish L. macrochirus Raf.
J. CAIRNS, JR., Curator
and
A. SCHEIER, Biologist
Department of Limnology
Academy of Natural Sciences
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
A number of comparatively recent publications have noted the striking
expansion in use of synthetic detergents which has occurred in the past 12
years (1,2,3,4,5). The most common active agent in these detergents is
alkyl benzene sulfonate (ABS); Vaughn (5) and Hammerton (6) have indicated
that synthetic detergents occur persistently in a variety of natural waters.
Thus, it is quite likely that fish and other aquatic organisms will be continuously exposed to these materials except in areas quite remote from civiliza -
tion. The purpose of the experiments reported in this paper was to determine
the chronic or long-term effects of "sublethal" concentrations of ABS upon
the ability of sunfish to function normally.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
An excellent and relatively recent paper by Henderson, et al., (2) contains a review of much of the literature concerned with the toxicity of detergents to fish and also some of the background information necessary to the
understanding of the general problem. This paper reports results of bioassays
with ABS in both hard and soft dilution waters.   Ninety-six hr TLm values for
fathead minnows average 6. 6 ppm (range 3. 6 to 9.2 ppm) in soTTwater and
4.3 ppm (range 3. 5 to 5.1 ppm) in hard water for four ABS compounds frequently used in household syndets. The toxicity was apparently somewhat
decreased in the presence of builders. Tests with 100 per cent ABS in soft
water using bluegills as test organisms produced the following TLm's: 24 hr
-- 8.2 ppm, 48 hr -- 7.5 ppm, 96 hr -- 5. 6 ppm. In the conclusions the
authors note that the accumulative or chronic toxic effect apparently was not
great and that on the basis of their experiments and available information,
concentrations of ABS exceeding one or two ppm may be expected to have
some effect on the more sensitive fishes and other aquatic organisms in natural waters.
Schmid and Mann (7) report a reduction of the epithelium accompanied
by a loss of the mucous cells on the top of the gill lamina starting at a concentration of five mg/1 of dodecylbenzenesulpnonate (DBS).   An increasing
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