All you need the formalin for is to fix it. I guess just throw it in a bucket of formalin, maybe 50% formalin solution (not 50% formaldehyde! This would probably be fatal to every organic substance within a 20 mile radius!

), 50% seawater. I'm not so sure about this stage as the octopus I got was already fixed. All we did was pour off the formalin with running water, in a controlled environment, and put the octopus in a large enough container and filled it with tapwater. I just left it steeping for a bout 2-3 days, changing the water about once a day! Formalin has a distinct smell, so you know that all the excess is gone when the animal stops smelling of the stuff. Then I suppose once it's washed out, you can put it in an ethanol solution... although technically I guess you could put it in distilled water since all the tissue id fixed anyway, but don't hold me to that! I think that's pretty much what we did, probably broke a couple environmental health rules but hey, at leats we got the specimen!! Mind you, my brain is shutting down due to too much exposure to dissertation-writing, so I might just be havering a lot of rubbish! But I did have a lovely
Eledone cirrhosa which I donated to the uni as a study aid.
Supoosedly you can "deactivate" formalin by adding powedered milk. Formalin binds to any organic molecule, so technically it should basically turn to a toxic cheese! Although addmittedly I don't know about this, can anyone verify??
Graeme