Glo fish where does it end????

[Magnum Man]

Was browsing at one of my on line fish suppliers, and now there are glo orange Cory’s…. A while back, there was a thread about dyed Arrowanas… what’s next glo angels???

 

[Essjay]

The list of glo fish at the moment is -
zebra danios (the first ones)
tiger barbs
cories, though I don't know which species
X-ray tetras, which they call pristellas
skirt tetras, both normal and long finned
'sharks' - I think they're rainbow sharks
and although the site doesn't mention them in the shop just in their 'learning center', there are also glo-Betta splendens.

So yes, glo-angels are probably on a list for future creation.

 

[Magnum Man]

The Cory’s looked like albino with color in the pictures, and they only had orange right now anyway

 

[Essjay]

But which species of albino, there's more than one albino cory and I'm useless at identifying species

Though albino bronze cories (C. aeneus) is the most common.

 

[Magnum Man]

They have the bettas listed, but out of stock, and 2 listings for orange Cory’s so maybe there are 2 kinds… the orange color is really weak on both

Maybe they can do a service to the Amazon people, and do neon glo piranhas, and let those go wild ( just kidding )

They appear to be aeneus

 

[Byron]

The EU bans glofish outright, and so they should. The hobby scientific side does not approve of modified fish whatever they are. The only way to stop this nonsense is not to buy them. Those developing/selling them are making money, and care nothing for the rest of it. All this effort and money should be spent to save the natural habitats and species. And the hobby, since this only adds fuel to the fire of animal rights organizations.

 

[Back in the fold]

I could just scream .

 

[Alice B]

it ends when no one buys them. I am about to the point of not buying any fish anymore. Kinda like the cutesy betta bowls Pennplax came out with around 2003 and the stupid gumball machine aquarium that won a prize at the trade show - less than a gallon and very little oxygen exchange. The trade is not kind

 

[Colin_T]

If you don't like them, write to the state and federal governments asking them to ban them until more research on the safety has been done. But as Byron mentioned, the only way to stop this is don't buy them. If there's no market for them, the company won't sell any.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

In this hobby we are all faced with the same choices when we buy and species of fish. The two lists below should cover almost any species of fish we can find for our tanks. But not all species of fish are available in all of the options. Some species are not available at all in any configuration.

Where was the fish born:
1. Wild caught.
2. F1 tank bred from wild caught.
3. Tank bred beyond F1.
4. Farm bred- i.e, en masse in captivity using any fish from 1-3 either alones or in combination.

How was the fish bred:
A. Naturally- i.e. requiring at least one male and one female.
B. Natural hybrid. Two different species, able to interbreed, do so in the wild.
C. Captive Hybrid. Two species able to interbreed but would never meet in the wild are bred in captivity.
D. Line Bred within a species over multiple generations to fix a trait. Most commonly for color and/or finnage.
E. Bred by using artificial means- i.e. the fish do not actually spawn with each other.

It is possible to come up with a number of variations mixing the Numbers and Letters above.

But Glofish do not come from any of those possible combinations. They are a genetically engineered fish. And the other species is not a FW fish or even a fish at all.

(Bold and red color below added by me.)

What Are GloFish​

Believe it or not Glofish weren’t originally meant for the trade. The first attempts to create them used Zebra Danios (Danio rerio) as the model organism. Researchers in Singapore were hoping to create fish that would fluoresce (glow) when water pollution was present.

However the first step in the process was perfecting the genetic transfer and visible glow. The scientists opted to insert green fluorescent proteins from marine jellyfish into the Zebra Danio genome.

And it worked! In fact, the resulting fish glowed under both normal and ultraviolet (black) lights. Other genes from corals and anemones carrying red, purple, and yellow proteins were eventually inserted, resulting in a riot of colors never before seen in Zebra Danios.

from https://www.buildyouraquarium.com/what-are-glofish/

I am personally not in favor of these fish being made available to the ornamental trade. It is one thing to mix the genes of such diverse species for the purpose of detecting water pollution, especially in drinking water. It is another to do so purely for profit. I also understand how such a fish would appeal to a child and how most people, including parents, likely do not know how they are created. There is a decent effort made not to state this clearly in the marketing of them. If you Google Glofish, see what you mostly find about how they are made.

 

[emeraldking]

The EU bans glofish outright, and so they should. The hobby scientific side does not approve of modified fish whatever they are. The only way to stop this nonsense is not to buy them. Those developing/selling them are making money, and care nothing for the rest of it. All this effort and money should be spent to save the natural habitats and species. And the hobby, since this only adds fuel to the fire of animal rights organizations.

True!
I'm an exhibitor at relevant vivaristic events. And some exhibitors have tried to offer glo-fish but were stopped by the vet when he saw them being displayed. They were mainly offering glo-fish and they had to shut down their stand. For modified fish like these are prohibited within the EU.

 

[GaryE]

There are two major directions in the hobby. First is "ornamental' fishkeeping. Glo-fish are effective ornaments. They're eye catching and cheap to mass produce. 99% of aquarists keep ornamental fish, and so, glo fish will never end. The farms are trying gene splicing with everything they can - it just doesn't work with every fish. If it did, they'd all be designer fish.

A tiny percentage of hobbyists get into studying nature through their tanks, and think glofish are awful. I'm in that category. There are so few of us we don't matter to what is a huge business. I won't buy glofish, blood parrots, modified gouramis, and a bunch of other petrie dish fish. But who cares what I buy? There are going to be more people who don't like modified fish on a forum, because we tend to get into our hobby more.

 

[GaryE]

Thought of the day: when glofish were banned in Canada, it had nothing to do with any of our concerns. It was based on copyright law, as the fish are copyrighted industrial products and US laws didn't apply here. Once their copyright situation changed, they arrived in pet stores.

We shouldn't mistake bans for any level of concern about genetic splicing.

 

[Magnum Man]

I'm in the same boat with Parrot fish, & balloon fish...

unfortunately I do have some glo fish in a theme tank, which is way out of my normal wheelhouse... my normal is natural looking tanks

 

[GaryE]

I don't know if you are old enough to remember the Joy Division in the late 1970s, but every time I read "where does it end?" I get a huge, anguished voice wailing that line in my head.. I thought the song was about despair, but maybe they were predicting the arrival of GloFish...

Okay, back to fish.