silver
Fish Gatherer
you all read!!
* The Lionhead have an egg shaped body and no dorsal fin. With EXTENSIVE breeding the fins are short and the caudal are divided. The head is covered with a raspberry - like headgrowth or Wen. The Wen grows slowly, taking as much as 3 years to complete . Lionheads are poor swimmers and can not compete with normally finned fish for food. Lionheads may have their vision obscured and breathing impaired by the degree of headgrowth. It is difficult for the fish to balance itself. It swims and eats slowly and gracefully. Some Lionhead have their heads pointing downwards when they are not moving. When swimming, the often turn somersaults
* Blood Parrot Cichlids, which a hybrid between the Red Devil and a Sevrum (this is similar to what creates baloon bellied guppies, mollies, and platies) are being dipped to produce Red Parrots, Violet Parrots, Blue Parrots, Purple Parrots, Green Parrots, Gold Parrots, and Yellow Parrots. The Blood Parrot is being bred not to have tails.
* The butterfly discus, which are bred not to have tails (this makes it very difficult for them to swim).
*The lutino and albino morphs of the "Black Skirt Tetra" (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi) are injected with dyes and fed dye laced foods as fry to produce blue skirt tetras, red skirt tetras, purple skirt tetras, blueberry tetras, grape tetras, strawberry tetras, patriot tetras, Halloween tetras, and mixed fruit tetras.
*Some "Skunk Botia" (Botia morleti) are injected with dyes and painted to produce purple, red, and blue loaches.
*Another botia, the blue loach or blue botia, and is not dyed - though a painted blue botia is now available. Apparently the natural blue wasn't blue enough.
*Painted Tinfoil Barbs (Barbus schwanefeldi) are available, though I could not tell the difference between the painted and non painted versions with three exceptions - the painted ones had a darker eye, the painted ones seemed to have difficulty seeing (they would bump into stationary objects in the water), and I could not get a painted one to live over three months...
*Red Painted Tiger Barbs and Green Painted Tiger Barbs are produced from gold, albino, and red color morphs of the Tiger Barb (Barbus Tetrazona) that have been injected with red and green dyes (I do not know why there don't seem to be blue, purple, or black versions of these fish). The particularly odd thing about these (and this is frustrating as well) is that there are perfectly good red and green varieties of these fish available through selective breeding...
*recently the Bala Shark (tricolor shark) is being dyed to produce a "Gold Bala Shark"
*Albino morphs of the Oscar are being painted to produce Blue Oscars, Red Oscars (though there is also a Red Oscar that is not painted), Yellow Oscars, Blueberry Oscars, Gold Oscars (though I understand that there is also a Gold Oscar that is not painted, but has a more yellowish tint to the normal salmon to orange coloration) and Purpe Oscars. These Albino Oscars that have either been injected with dye or placed in a dyed tank with additional chemicals that damage or destroy the fishes natural slime coat so the dye can soak in. The fish tend to be sickly and prone to disease and if they live long enough the color will fade. This is a cruel practice and I urge the reader not to purchase these fish and condone it.
*Albino Palaetus and Aeneus cory catfish (Corydoras paleatus and C. aeneus) are being injected with dyes to produce colored spots on the top of the caudal peduncle between the dorsal and caudal (tail) fins. These are available in blue, green, red, orange, and purple.
*Honey Gourami are being injected with blue dye between the caudal and dorsal fins on the top of the caudal peduncle to produce a 'blue sunset gourami' and a 'green sunset gourami.
*Albino Plecostomus (Hypostomus spp.) are injected with dye to create the Blue Albino Plecostomus. This is the only color I have seen, however, I would be sure that there are green, pink, purple, yellow, and the other colors you see in other painted fish.
*The "Painted" Glass Fish is not a natural color morph. Small pockets of dye are injected just below the skin using a large guage needle. The puncture wounds inflicted on these fish must be traumatic.
The carcinogenic pigments used on the colored tetra and colored botia are stored in vacuoles in cells creating a faint background color. The more intensely colored areas are created by injecting the fish with more of the dye in strategic locations. The fish's immune system then proceeds to fight this infection until the dye has been removed from the system. This added stress makes these fish highly susceptible to any other infection which they may be exposed to, since they are unable to defend themselves from it.
Farm-raised salmon have been dyed pink.
The flesh of farmed salmon is naturally grayish. Wild salmon's brightly colored flesh is the result of the fish eating krill or other small crustaceans, says the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association, a trade group.
The Flower Horn Cichlid: A fish with a gargoyle-like head, the product of a Frankensteinian experiment, is raking in a fortune for aquarium fish dealers in the country. It was crossed within a few species of Chiclid but still has strong resemblance of Cichlasoma Trimaculatus but with a bigger nuchal hump on the forehead, better colourations and straight bolder black markings or flowers and pearls on the bodies.
From AquariumFish.net:
This hybrid is thought to be the end product of cross breeding between various Cichlasoma species such as C. trimaculatus, C. festae, the Jingang Blood Parrot, and perhaps other species too.
As was stated in some reports, the Flower Horn Fish is also known as a "mutated" breed of fish. Rest assured that this is just a claim.
The Flower Horn Fish has gone through a lot of selective cross breeding in order to have the best characteristics of the respective strains of the Cichlid Fish family.
For instance, most breeders are striving to produce Flower Horn with bigger nuchal hump on the forehead, better coloration, bolder black marking on the body (which at times resembles Chinese characters), more elegant fins, and wider body.
No chemicals, or biogenetic engineering have been incorporated to improve on the traits or characteristics of the Flower Horn. Thus, the claim that this is a mutated fish is unfounded.
From flowerhornexport.com
Facts and Rumors of Flower Horn Fish
Flower Horn fish is a Cichlid which is classified under the genus Cichlasoma that comes from the South American Cichlid family. Within just a few years, it has ignited a new trend in the tropical fish market all over Asia and spreading to western countries as well.
Similar to Blood Parrot fish, Flower Horns originated from selective cross breeding. This beautiful hybrid is thought to be cross-breed between Cichlasoma Trimaculatus, Cichlasoma Festae and Jingang Blood Parrot.
The more pronounced the bulge on the forehead, the costlier it becomes. Superstitious fanciers say the bulge symbolises good feng shui. One fine specimen with the bulging forehead could set you back by as much as between RM10,000 and RM50,000. The dark spots that cover the flanks resemble Chinese calligraphy; punters even swear these resemble four-digit numbers, an that stroking the bulbous head improves their chances of striking it big at the next lottery draw. That explains that overpoweringly fishy smell that’’s been wafting around four-digit lottery outlets in recent weeks.
If anyone has anything to add to this list and or information on any hybrid or dyed fish.....please post. Or correct me!!
I am adding the following, thanks to Wasserpest:
One could add some genetically altered fishies to this horror list! Silver's Edit:Fish genetically modified to glow in colorful patterns have gone on sale in Taiwan and may be coming soon to a pet store near you. The so-called Night Pearls are likely the first genetically modified pets anyone will own. HJ Tsai, a professor at National Taiwan University, created the Night Pearls as a way to make fish organs more visible when studying them under the microscope. Tsai isolated a gene from naturally glowing jellyfish, extracted it, and inserted it into the DNA of zebrafish. To Tsai's surprise, the jellyfish gene made zebrafish glow.
Tsai says that more than 90% of the fish are sterilized, however, and says there should be no concern about the fish polluting natural populations. But marine researchers say there is still a chance that this could happen. Regardless, market reaction to the fish could determine whether they're just the first of many modified pets. Laboratories around the world have produced partially fluorescent pigs, mice and insects, and scientists are already working on cats that don't produce allergens.
Now the first fruits of this collaboration have gone on sale in Taiwan and will soon appear in the US. The Night Pearls glow in different red and green patterns thanks to genes from jellyfish and marine coral. Now the team is working on a glowing dragon fish, which many Asians believe is a lucky species.
The Night Pearl began as a research tool created by HJ Tsai, a professor at National Taiwan University. He was looking for a way to make fish organs easier to see when studying them, and isolated a gene for a fluorescent protein that he had extracted from jellyfish and inserted it into the genome of a zebrafish. To his astonishment, the jellyfish gene made whole zebrafish glow.
The following is thanks to smb:
Here's some more info on it and a link to even more info. Sorry so long.
Dr Stan MacMahon and Dr Peter Burgess explain the damage done to fish when they are barbarically injected with dye.
Some fishkeepers, and possibly even a few traders, may be puzzled as to why so much fuss has been made about dyed fish. On the face of it, the practice of dyeing or ?painting? the fish seems fairly innocuous and the artificially dyed specimens are certainly very eye-catching in their various ?day-glo? colours. So why push for a voluntary ban on selling them? Our investigations have revealed the truth behind the dyed fish saga.
Disco fish
Our first encounter with dyed fish was back in the late 1980?s. Thousands of artificially coloured glassfish, Parambassis ranga (formerly Chanda ranga) were imported into the UK.
The glassfish, so named because of its naturally semi-transparent body, obviously makes it an ideal subject for ?painting?.
They were seen with fluorescent shades of either blue, purple, red, yellow, orange or green produced by dyes.
They were (and still are) imported under the names ?painted glassfish? or ?disco fish? (presumably because their almost fluorescent colours resemble discotheque lights).
How is the dye applied?
Intrigued as to how the dye was applied we decided to carry out a little research. A few coloured glassfish were sedated in MS222 anaesthetic and observed under a binocular microscope. It became apparent that the dye is not on the surface of the fish, but lay under the epidermis.
Furthermore, the dye appeared fluid and could be moved slightly by gently squeezing the coloured area.
This suggested that it must have been injected into the fish at various sites over the body in order to form the distinctive colour patterns. Our fears were confirmed a few years later when we were shown photographs of the colouring process, revealing that each fish is individually injected using a syringe and needle.
The practice of dye injection is undertaken by fish farmers in some regions of Asia (but not Singapore as far as we know). Clearly, the common name ?painted glassfish? is a cruelly misleading description.
If one considers the relative bore size of the injection needle with that of a glassfish, it would be the equivalent of us receiving several jabs using a needle of pencil-sized diameter - not a pleasant thought.
As experienced fish scientists, we would never dream of injecting fish of such small size. No wonder the injection process is alleged to cause high mortalities.
Increasing the risk of disease...
A survey which we carried out in the south of England revealed that over 40% of painted glassfish appeared to be suffering from lymphocystis virus. This disease manifests itself as a small whitish growths on the fish?s body and fins.
An examination of the white growths under the powerful electron microscope confirmed our diagnosis. In contrast, less than 10% of the natural (unpainted) glassfish had lymphocystis.
It is possible that the injection process increases the risk of this disease, perhaps by transmitting the virus from fish to fish via the needle (the same needle is used to inject tens or even hundreds of fish).
Alternatively, the stress of being injected with the dye may lower the fish?s natural immunity to lymphocystis. It must be said that, in our experience, those glassfish which survive the injection process go on to live fairly normal lives, despite the gaudy dyes present within their bodies. In time, the dye fades.
Moral issue
Many people believe that fish do not feel pain and so injecting them with dyes is perfectly acceptable. In fact, increasing scientific evidence suggests that fish are indeed capable of feeling pain, though we have no way of telling whether they perceive painful events in the same way as we do.
So dye injection is likely to be a painful experience for the poor glassfish. In fairness, many traders and hobbyists were mislead, just as we first were, into thinking that these fish were simply painted with the dye.
Now that the truth is out, it?s time to stop this cruel practice, once and for all.
Other species which are sometimes dyed
Glassfish are not the only species which are subjected to artificial colouring.
Many types of albino fish also make ideal ?white cavasses? for colouring. We have observed the following artificially coloured fish in the UK, and suspect there may be others.
Albino versions of Corydoras catfish, such as aeneus; Tiger barbs; Albino Epalzeorhynchus (formerly Labeo) such as the Red-finned shark; Black widow tetras; Rams and some Botia species.
Typically these exhibit red or blue on part of the body, but the dyes are not as bright or gaudy as those used to inject glassfish.
Fish which have pale or semi-transparent bodies such as the glassfish, Kryptoterus, also suffer.
The PFK Ban Dyed Fish Campaign
Practical Fishkeeping ran an award-winning campaign which started in 1996 and asked aquatic retailers to sign a pledge that they would not sell dyed fish. The majority of British retailers signed up and dyed fish are now relatively uncommon in the UK.
This article was first published in the March 1998 issue of Practical Fishkeeping.
http
/freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginner...paintedfish.htm
Thank You,
Silver
* The Lionhead have an egg shaped body and no dorsal fin. With EXTENSIVE breeding the fins are short and the caudal are divided. The head is covered with a raspberry - like headgrowth or Wen. The Wen grows slowly, taking as much as 3 years to complete . Lionheads are poor swimmers and can not compete with normally finned fish for food. Lionheads may have their vision obscured and breathing impaired by the degree of headgrowth. It is difficult for the fish to balance itself. It swims and eats slowly and gracefully. Some Lionhead have their heads pointing downwards when they are not moving. When swimming, the often turn somersaults
* Blood Parrot Cichlids, which a hybrid between the Red Devil and a Sevrum (this is similar to what creates baloon bellied guppies, mollies, and platies) are being dipped to produce Red Parrots, Violet Parrots, Blue Parrots, Purple Parrots, Green Parrots, Gold Parrots, and Yellow Parrots. The Blood Parrot is being bred not to have tails.
* The butterfly discus, which are bred not to have tails (this makes it very difficult for them to swim).
*The lutino and albino morphs of the "Black Skirt Tetra" (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi) are injected with dyes and fed dye laced foods as fry to produce blue skirt tetras, red skirt tetras, purple skirt tetras, blueberry tetras, grape tetras, strawberry tetras, patriot tetras, Halloween tetras, and mixed fruit tetras.
*Some "Skunk Botia" (Botia morleti) are injected with dyes and painted to produce purple, red, and blue loaches.
*Another botia, the blue loach or blue botia, and is not dyed - though a painted blue botia is now available. Apparently the natural blue wasn't blue enough.
*Painted Tinfoil Barbs (Barbus schwanefeldi) are available, though I could not tell the difference between the painted and non painted versions with three exceptions - the painted ones had a darker eye, the painted ones seemed to have difficulty seeing (they would bump into stationary objects in the water), and I could not get a painted one to live over three months...
*Red Painted Tiger Barbs and Green Painted Tiger Barbs are produced from gold, albino, and red color morphs of the Tiger Barb (Barbus Tetrazona) that have been injected with red and green dyes (I do not know why there don't seem to be blue, purple, or black versions of these fish). The particularly odd thing about these (and this is frustrating as well) is that there are perfectly good red and green varieties of these fish available through selective breeding...
*recently the Bala Shark (tricolor shark) is being dyed to produce a "Gold Bala Shark"
*Albino morphs of the Oscar are being painted to produce Blue Oscars, Red Oscars (though there is also a Red Oscar that is not painted), Yellow Oscars, Blueberry Oscars, Gold Oscars (though I understand that there is also a Gold Oscar that is not painted, but has a more yellowish tint to the normal salmon to orange coloration) and Purpe Oscars. These Albino Oscars that have either been injected with dye or placed in a dyed tank with additional chemicals that damage or destroy the fishes natural slime coat so the dye can soak in. The fish tend to be sickly and prone to disease and if they live long enough the color will fade. This is a cruel practice and I urge the reader not to purchase these fish and condone it.
*Albino Palaetus and Aeneus cory catfish (Corydoras paleatus and C. aeneus) are being injected with dyes to produce colored spots on the top of the caudal peduncle between the dorsal and caudal (tail) fins. These are available in blue, green, red, orange, and purple.
*Honey Gourami are being injected with blue dye between the caudal and dorsal fins on the top of the caudal peduncle to produce a 'blue sunset gourami' and a 'green sunset gourami.
*Albino Plecostomus (Hypostomus spp.) are injected with dye to create the Blue Albino Plecostomus. This is the only color I have seen, however, I would be sure that there are green, pink, purple, yellow, and the other colors you see in other painted fish.
*The "Painted" Glass Fish is not a natural color morph. Small pockets of dye are injected just below the skin using a large guage needle. The puncture wounds inflicted on these fish must be traumatic.
The carcinogenic pigments used on the colored tetra and colored botia are stored in vacuoles in cells creating a faint background color. The more intensely colored areas are created by injecting the fish with more of the dye in strategic locations. The fish's immune system then proceeds to fight this infection until the dye has been removed from the system. This added stress makes these fish highly susceptible to any other infection which they may be exposed to, since they are unable to defend themselves from it.
Farm-raised salmon have been dyed pink.
The flesh of farmed salmon is naturally grayish. Wild salmon's brightly colored flesh is the result of the fish eating krill or other small crustaceans, says the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association, a trade group.
The Flower Horn Cichlid: A fish with a gargoyle-like head, the product of a Frankensteinian experiment, is raking in a fortune for aquarium fish dealers in the country. It was crossed within a few species of Chiclid but still has strong resemblance of Cichlasoma Trimaculatus but with a bigger nuchal hump on the forehead, better colourations and straight bolder black markings or flowers and pearls on the bodies.
From AquariumFish.net:
This hybrid is thought to be the end product of cross breeding between various Cichlasoma species such as C. trimaculatus, C. festae, the Jingang Blood Parrot, and perhaps other species too.
As was stated in some reports, the Flower Horn Fish is also known as a "mutated" breed of fish. Rest assured that this is just a claim.
The Flower Horn Fish has gone through a lot of selective cross breeding in order to have the best characteristics of the respective strains of the Cichlid Fish family.
For instance, most breeders are striving to produce Flower Horn with bigger nuchal hump on the forehead, better coloration, bolder black marking on the body (which at times resembles Chinese characters), more elegant fins, and wider body.
No chemicals, or biogenetic engineering have been incorporated to improve on the traits or characteristics of the Flower Horn. Thus, the claim that this is a mutated fish is unfounded.
From flowerhornexport.com
Facts and Rumors of Flower Horn Fish
Flower Horn fish is a Cichlid which is classified under the genus Cichlasoma that comes from the South American Cichlid family. Within just a few years, it has ignited a new trend in the tropical fish market all over Asia and spreading to western countries as well.
Similar to Blood Parrot fish, Flower Horns originated from selective cross breeding. This beautiful hybrid is thought to be cross-breed between Cichlasoma Trimaculatus, Cichlasoma Festae and Jingang Blood Parrot.
The more pronounced the bulge on the forehead, the costlier it becomes. Superstitious fanciers say the bulge symbolises good feng shui. One fine specimen with the bulging forehead could set you back by as much as between RM10,000 and RM50,000. The dark spots that cover the flanks resemble Chinese calligraphy; punters even swear these resemble four-digit numbers, an that stroking the bulbous head improves their chances of striking it big at the next lottery draw. That explains that overpoweringly fishy smell that’’s been wafting around four-digit lottery outlets in recent weeks.
If anyone has anything to add to this list and or information on any hybrid or dyed fish.....please post. Or correct me!!
I am adding the following, thanks to Wasserpest:
One could add some genetically altered fishies to this horror list! Silver's Edit:Fish genetically modified to glow in colorful patterns have gone on sale in Taiwan and may be coming soon to a pet store near you. The so-called Night Pearls are likely the first genetically modified pets anyone will own. HJ Tsai, a professor at National Taiwan University, created the Night Pearls as a way to make fish organs more visible when studying them under the microscope. Tsai isolated a gene from naturally glowing jellyfish, extracted it, and inserted it into the DNA of zebrafish. To Tsai's surprise, the jellyfish gene made zebrafish glow.
Tsai says that more than 90% of the fish are sterilized, however, and says there should be no concern about the fish polluting natural populations. But marine researchers say there is still a chance that this could happen. Regardless, market reaction to the fish could determine whether they're just the first of many modified pets. Laboratories around the world have produced partially fluorescent pigs, mice and insects, and scientists are already working on cats that don't produce allergens.
Now the first fruits of this collaboration have gone on sale in Taiwan and will soon appear in the US. The Night Pearls glow in different red and green patterns thanks to genes from jellyfish and marine coral. Now the team is working on a glowing dragon fish, which many Asians believe is a lucky species.
The Night Pearl began as a research tool created by HJ Tsai, a professor at National Taiwan University. He was looking for a way to make fish organs easier to see when studying them, and isolated a gene for a fluorescent protein that he had extracted from jellyfish and inserted it into the genome of a zebrafish. To his astonishment, the jellyfish gene made whole zebrafish glow.
The following is thanks to smb:
Here's some more info on it and a link to even more info. Sorry so long.
Dr Stan MacMahon and Dr Peter Burgess explain the damage done to fish when they are barbarically injected with dye.
Some fishkeepers, and possibly even a few traders, may be puzzled as to why so much fuss has been made about dyed fish. On the face of it, the practice of dyeing or ?painting? the fish seems fairly innocuous and the artificially dyed specimens are certainly very eye-catching in their various ?day-glo? colours. So why push for a voluntary ban on selling them? Our investigations have revealed the truth behind the dyed fish saga.
Disco fish
Our first encounter with dyed fish was back in the late 1980?s. Thousands of artificially coloured glassfish, Parambassis ranga (formerly Chanda ranga) were imported into the UK.
The glassfish, so named because of its naturally semi-transparent body, obviously makes it an ideal subject for ?painting?.
They were seen with fluorescent shades of either blue, purple, red, yellow, orange or green produced by dyes.
They were (and still are) imported under the names ?painted glassfish? or ?disco fish? (presumably because their almost fluorescent colours resemble discotheque lights).
How is the dye applied?
Intrigued as to how the dye was applied we decided to carry out a little research. A few coloured glassfish were sedated in MS222 anaesthetic and observed under a binocular microscope. It became apparent that the dye is not on the surface of the fish, but lay under the epidermis.
Furthermore, the dye appeared fluid and could be moved slightly by gently squeezing the coloured area.
This suggested that it must have been injected into the fish at various sites over the body in order to form the distinctive colour patterns. Our fears were confirmed a few years later when we were shown photographs of the colouring process, revealing that each fish is individually injected using a syringe and needle.
The practice of dye injection is undertaken by fish farmers in some regions of Asia (but not Singapore as far as we know). Clearly, the common name ?painted glassfish? is a cruelly misleading description.
If one considers the relative bore size of the injection needle with that of a glassfish, it would be the equivalent of us receiving several jabs using a needle of pencil-sized diameter - not a pleasant thought.
As experienced fish scientists, we would never dream of injecting fish of such small size. No wonder the injection process is alleged to cause high mortalities.
Increasing the risk of disease...
A survey which we carried out in the south of England revealed that over 40% of painted glassfish appeared to be suffering from lymphocystis virus. This disease manifests itself as a small whitish growths on the fish?s body and fins.
An examination of the white growths under the powerful electron microscope confirmed our diagnosis. In contrast, less than 10% of the natural (unpainted) glassfish had lymphocystis.
It is possible that the injection process increases the risk of this disease, perhaps by transmitting the virus from fish to fish via the needle (the same needle is used to inject tens or even hundreds of fish).
Alternatively, the stress of being injected with the dye may lower the fish?s natural immunity to lymphocystis. It must be said that, in our experience, those glassfish which survive the injection process go on to live fairly normal lives, despite the gaudy dyes present within their bodies. In time, the dye fades.
Moral issue
Many people believe that fish do not feel pain and so injecting them with dyes is perfectly acceptable. In fact, increasing scientific evidence suggests that fish are indeed capable of feeling pain, though we have no way of telling whether they perceive painful events in the same way as we do.
So dye injection is likely to be a painful experience for the poor glassfish. In fairness, many traders and hobbyists were mislead, just as we first were, into thinking that these fish were simply painted with the dye.
Now that the truth is out, it?s time to stop this cruel practice, once and for all.
Other species which are sometimes dyed
Glassfish are not the only species which are subjected to artificial colouring.
Many types of albino fish also make ideal ?white cavasses? for colouring. We have observed the following artificially coloured fish in the UK, and suspect there may be others.
Albino versions of Corydoras catfish, such as aeneus; Tiger barbs; Albino Epalzeorhynchus (formerly Labeo) such as the Red-finned shark; Black widow tetras; Rams and some Botia species.
Typically these exhibit red or blue on part of the body, but the dyes are not as bright or gaudy as those used to inject glassfish.
Fish which have pale or semi-transparent bodies such as the glassfish, Kryptoterus, also suffer.
The PFK Ban Dyed Fish Campaign
Practical Fishkeeping ran an award-winning campaign which started in 1996 and asked aquatic retailers to sign a pledge that they would not sell dyed fish. The majority of British retailers signed up and dyed fish are now relatively uncommon in the UK.
This article was first published in the March 1998 issue of Practical Fishkeeping.
http
/freshaquarium.about.com/cs/beginner...paintedfish.htm Thank You,
Silver
alone
