Hi Brad,
Formalin releases Formaldehyde gas which will affect your whole house and family. When doing a Formalin bath it is usually for a half hour and you need to aerate heavily as Formalin depletes the oxygen in the water. For me the risk of exposing my family to a carcinogen is not worth it when there are non toxic methods available.
I would skip the formalin bath as it's nasty for the fish, much worse than copper, and just do a fw bath for 5 minutes. If they have ick go longer if they can take it. If they have ick I would use hyposalinity(1.008) in the QT to control it.
Pretty much all wholesalers and exporters use copper in their holding systems so your fish have already been exposed for at least a month, most likely more as stores generally use copper to.
My recommendation would be the FW dips for the mv and hyposalinity treatment if they have ick.
+1 for Mindy on the Amquel. It is a much better product and doesn't stink like sulfur.
Cheers,
Tim
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