Glofish Yes / No

What are your Thoughts on Glofish. Yes or No. I am interested but no very little about them.

My experience with Glofish was with skirt tetra glofish. They are DNA gene altered fish. I had regular unaltered white skirt tetras in with a purple, a green, and a pink glofish. I found the Glofish did not get as large as the white skirt tetras. The regular white skirt tetra also lived longer than the Glofish tetras. Your experience may vary from mine.

I now prefer to keep natural unaltered fish . I have black skirt tetras now and they get pretty large...about 3 inches.

Fishmanic said:

My experience with Glofish was with skirt tetra glofish. They are DNA gene altered fish. I had regular unaltered white skirt tetras in with a purple, a green, and a pink glofish. I found the Glofish did not get as large as the white skirt tetras. The regular white skirt tetra also lived longer than the Glofish tetras. Your experience may vary from mine.

I now prefer to keep natural unaltered fish . I have black skirt tetras now and they get pretty large...about 3 inches.

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Will they breed, and if so what do the fry look like?

The fry would be of color. Its in their dna.

They look like they came out of a 1990s rave.

The EU has severe restrictions on any genetically modified organism. I don't think gm fish have been approved which makes it illegal to import them.

Scientifically, their initial creation purpose is pretty interesting and something i can get behind.

Ive got 1 with my skirts, she's pretty good, but I dont find skirts to be hardy around here in general anymore. So many problems I ended up having to replace as many as I've started with just to keep the shoal intact. So I'm retiring them.

That said, ive had worse issues with the white skirts. One of the ones I have left has tumors externally and I can see some more internally as a lump under her skin. Letting her live out her days though as long as she can.

I did have another gloskirt. But that one was a special case. She choked on a pellet twice and needed to be revived. She was never the same after that, always went cross-eyed, swam terribly. Eventually she got stuck in a plant and couldn't figure out how to swim backwards out of it (she did it before too)

She was one of my favorites though.

I dont think she counts for the hardiness differences between them and normal skirts. Just an abnormally dull individual.


Looks wise, they look way better under natural light than they do the glo light. Even better in black water.

While I don't like how they look, I am not necessarily against them. Each to their own

Often you get the non-natural argument, and I always wonder where the line is drawn? maybe you could elaborate @Fishmanic you used "natural unaltered fish" does this mean you don't like goldfish? Flowerhorns? Bettas? because they are all non-natural altered fish. Or is it just the fact you could probably not select for the fish "naturally"? or are you more of a fan of wild caught fish?

Well-timed thread as we are likely getting our school of glofish this weekend or next week to finalize our 20g stocking. Still undecided between the danio and tetra. Also considering ordering direct from glofish.com. The price is fairly comparable to buying in the store and assuming the store gets them either from the company or a thrid party dealer, then this cuts down on the tanks/transport and theoretically stress the fish are under.

Not a fan TBH. The world has enough species on the verge of extinction and in desperate need of conservation. I think its shameful that huge sums of money are invested in the manufacture of new species for the sole purpose of commercial gain. As @essjay says they are not legal in the EU and I fully support that position and would not support the industry.

seangee said:

Not a fan TBH. The world has enough species on the verge of extinction and in desperate need of conservation. I think its shameful that huge sums of money are invested in the manufacture of new species for the sole purpose of commercial gain. As @essjay says they are not legal in the EU and I fully support that position and would not support the industry.

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Actually they were initially created to test for pollutants around certain facilities in man-made waterways, but to further fund this research, they marketed the glofish. Its marketed towards children, obviously, kids love bright shiny things.
Its a smart marketing move, but unfortunately because they're marketed for children mostly, you know the fish themselves aren't always given the best sort of care since you know how the average person goes and gets fish for their kids and really just doesn't care to properly research first.

So I feel sad about the marketing audience result, but I can understand the science research behind it.

But yeah they're not for everyone. I like my individual, but natural is visually nicer altogether.

LOL - reverse situation here. Got the kids a tank as a reward for a crappy summer and I am now the one most interested. They want glofish as the final stocking so going to get a school.

Chris1212 said:

LOL - reverse situation here. Got the kids a tank as a reward for a crappy summer and I am now the one most interested. They want glofish as the final stocking so going to get a school.

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Lol thats how I started too. Husband went and got our kid a 10g tank, I took over the care. Well now 10 tanks later...

I am not a fan of glofish, I prefer fish to have their natural colors. They do seem popular with kids.

And to think they now sell Glofish Bettas. Bettas are beautiful in their natural colorings. It's a sin..I tell ya.