Glofish - What Are They?

[logansmomma1228]

What kind of fish are they? I thought they were neon tetras but when I looked those up I found something completely different. Are they really dyed ? Isn't that inhumane? Thinking about those for the community tank so my little man has something to watch, but not sure .

EDIT: N/M I found an older post on them. Any new infor would be good I guess, sorry to rethread it :p

[dkpate]

Danio's, and they are actually bred with some type of jellyfish dna, which makes them glow. They were actually bred to show scientists is the water they were living in was harmful.

[mfdrookie516]

they're danios with some kind of jellyfish gene inserted in to theirs. I've heard that they were originally 'made' to try and have them detect toxic wastes in water... i've not actually seen proof of that though

[dkpate]

LOL

[logansmomma1228]

Yeah that's what I just read as well. Pretty crazy that they can acheive that. IDK I have not been too fond of them myself, I like more uncommon and interesting fish. But I want to be able to take my son up to the tank and have him be able to see some fishies swimmin around in there. When we go to the LFS the bright colored ones usually catch his eye.

[dkpate]

You could get some eldler's livebearers. My male guppies are crossed with them, and I love them, and they are all sorts of different colors.
endler's livebearer - Google Search

[mfdrookie516]

ok... kinda odd that we posted the exact same info... guess that proves what I heard about the toxic stuff

[logansmomma1228]

thanks dk, those are pretty too. and it looks like they have more variations on them. plus i like livebearers better anyways, lol.

[dkpate]

Found it:

In 1999, Dr. Zhiyuan Gong and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore took a gene from a jellyfish that naturally produced a green fluorescent protein and inserted it into the zebrafish genome. This caused the fish to glow brightly under both natural white light and ultraviolet light. Their goal was to develop a fish that could detect pollution by selectively fluorescing in the presence of environmental toxins. The development of the always fluorescing fish was the first step in this process. Shortly thereafter, his team developed a line of red fluorescent zebra fish by adding a gene from a sea coral, and yellow fluorescent zebra fish, by adding a variant of the jellyfish gene. Later, a team of Taiwanese researchers at the National University of Taiwan, headed by Professor Huai-Jen Tsai, succeeded in creating a medaka (rice fish) with a fluorescent green color.

GloFish - Everything on GloFish (information, latest news, articles,...)

[logansmomma1228]

So... they are only supposed to glow when the water is polluted? Or did they just keep breeding them until they just kept glowing lol.

[mfdrookie516]

Originally Posted by logansmomma1228

So... they are only supposed to glow when the water is polluted? Or did they just keep breeding them until they just kept glowing lol.

yours glow all the time??? uh oh

[dkpate]

LOL!

I think they thought they would look normal until the water was toxic, then they would glow, but it didn't turn out like that, so they now have Glofish. And if yours breed, it's against the law to sell them, since they are trademarked.

[mellawson]

Or you could just sell them at the flea market between the bootleg dvd's and knock-off shoes.

[logansmomma1228]

lmao. no i dont have any rookie but i always see them in the tanks at walmart... no wonder why they are glowing!

[ilostnemo]

if they are trademarked how can a fish store tech. sell them?

[HeathB]

Originally Posted by ilostnemo

if they are trademarked how can a fish store tech. sell them?

Cause the stores buy them from the company who supposedly uses the profits to further advance their "science."

I don't like or dislike them. I think they would probably look pretty nifty against a dark substrate with some occasional black lighting.

[BigJim]

The LFS pays a royalty on every fish. I've heard it's something ridiculous like $1 -$2 per fish. That's why they're so blasted expensive.

[ilostnemo]

lol well id sue the money to further my science on how to breed more and get more money and the ones at my walmart 2.99 so they arent gettin that much money then

[taylorodw]

I live in California, where GloFish are illegal.

Don't bring those glowing fishies around here... we only like all natural, orgaaanic fish, mmkaaay?

[ilostnemo]

ok?