Predictive Ability of the Daphnia magna IQ Toxicity Test super(TM) for Ten Diverse Water Treatment Additives

The IQ Toxicity Test super(TM), developed by Aqua Survey, is a rapid test for monitoring the toxicity of effluents to the bioindicator organism, Daphnia magna. The results of this test, which relies on the fluorescent response of exposed organisms that have retained sufficient enzyme activity after toxicant exposure to metabolize a fluorescent biomarker, can be obtained in about 2 h. The test was run in two laboratories, using ten water treatment additives. One laboratory ran the test twice and also ran a conventional 48-h test. Results of the rapid tests were in good agreement with each other, and there was good correlation with the 48-h test. Results from the other laboratory, which did a single run of the rapid test, differed significantly. However, the toxicity predicted by the test was in the same order of magnitude as the longer test.