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My LFS has got a few tiny red danios. A quick research suggests that they are genetically modified and being sold under the trademark of "GloFish". No doubt, they look very beautiful.
I dont know if its right to get "things" like these. I'm still not sure if the mutations made to create this fluorescence isn't dangerous for the fish (itself and others).. The "invertors", however, claim that these fish have been created to protect the environment.
Anybody with experience with this fish, please share your experience.

here's some info

http://www.fishmartinc.com/glofish.htm

Some detail:

http://www.glofish.com/about.asp

Yea, these fish are about 4 years old or so now. Glofish are (if i recall correctly) danio eggs infused with florescent genes from coral. It doesn't hurt the fish, but it makes them look stupid. There was a big ethical debate on these fish, and their sales flopped worse than florida election recounts.

They were expensive, and not all they were cracked up to be. I'm surprised they're still selling them.

These fish were created for environmental purposes to help determine pollution levels in streams and rivers. When in the presence of pollution, the pink color fades.
In my opinion, buying these fish is no worse than buying fancy goldfish. The coloring does not hurt the fish at all, and while they are not what you'd call natural by any means, I suppose they have their place in the aquarium hobby, certainly moreso than dyed or tattooed fish which look plain ugly, the poor tortured things.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I wasn't aware they've been around for so much time. Its the first time I've seen a pink danio, and yes, it was too beautiful for a danio but it did have a "plastic fish" sort of appearance. My first thought was dyed fish.
Of course I'm not buying those now.

I have seen these fish, and yes I do think
they are nice and colorful, but so are regular
danios!
Glo-fish have been banned in Canada, and being caught selling them carries a very weighty fine.


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Originally, I think it was assumed that the pink glo-gene wouldn't breed true, but i think the percentage of times that it does is a lot higher than origianlly expected, so releasing them into the wild could become a big problem.

They are not dyed fish, though.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I was at a LFS the other day and was horrified to see a parrot fish with flowers tatooed on each side (very ornate flowers at that). The fish had already been sold, awaiting pick up by its new owner. I though it was awful. The glowfish are not died, so don't experience the trama, this fish must have gone through. I still prefer the real thing, however.

I have two of them in the main tank to go along with 4 regular Danios and two crosses between the Glo and Zebra Danios and I really like them. As for breeding, in two separate spawnings of about 100 hundred each I have only had about 25 that carry on the some of the Pink(they have a pink outline but they still maintain the zebra strip and gold behind the strips for both the males and females. I have only had one fish the came looking like an albino sans the discolored eyes. He looks more like a Gold Mountain Danio then anything else to be honest. They act just like normal Danios so they are abselutly not to be release.

"No whammy, No whammy, No whammy, STOP!!"

1984-Michael Larsen On Press Your Luck

I read the articles & looked at the pictures. If my LFS offered them for sale..........right now.......... if I wanted to pay double for them.......... I would buy them. I see no reason not to. They are going to be right out there for sale anyway weather we approve or not. I know they were "playing God" with these fish by genetically altering the original ones....... but is that much different than what we have done with breeding fancy fish over the decades? Look at the original guppies or angel fish for example. And the more we fool with them, the weaker they get. Look at what we have done with wolves...... all the different kinds of dogs now......... each breed with it's particular weak points. I heard that bull dogs can't even deliver their own puppies cause the heads are too big to come out. They have to go to the vet. for a C section.

We did all this naturally over time. The scientists did it quicker in labs.. Granted, they did use genes from other species......... but it's not like they created a monster. These fish are supposed to be no different than the others except for their color. So, the only real point I can see anyone arguing here is the mixing of species............ which reminds me............ haven't I read that parrot fish are mixed species & that they can't even close their mouth?

Oh! Speaking of genetically altered.......... what about our food?? Ok.......... I better quit here................but you get my point. IMHO

Thankfully genetically altered foods are
also starting to be monitored in Canada.


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I do have alot more problems with some selective breeding attempts or more natural hybrids that have their health affected than by genetically altered fish that can live out their lives without issue. I'd rather buy glofish than some of the goldfish varieties out there that can't even swim properly because of their odd shaped bodies or hybrids like parrots that often have disabilities and health issues.

As for bulldogs I haven't heard of problems giving birth so much as lots of heart and breathing problems because of the squished noses they've been bred to have. There are a few other breeds like that. They have such trouble getting air that it puts stress on their whole body and they often die of overheating or heart attacks.

Yep, some of the "English Bulldogs"
cannot mate or deliver puppies without human
assistance. The males are too short and heavy to rise
up for the mount, so often their human owners assist.
The massive size of the pups heads and front ends
often prevents natural birth, so the pups may be c-section.
Some bulldogs called the "Olde English Bulldog", are still
substantially taller and longer legged, and so can actually
mate and have puppies naturally, they simply arent as
squat, low down, and heavy as the regular english bulldogs.

The thing that is really my pet peeve is all these
"balloon fish".
That really bugs me. I had my sister buy me a balloon
blue ram, and it lived only like not even a year, just
dropped dead one day despite looking perfectly healthy
just hours before.
My other rams are going on 5 years old! So to live
1 year is not much for these fish.


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Balloon fish!? Haven't heard of them.......... being new here. What are those??

The "Balloon Fish" she is referring to are those species that have been bred into an abnormal round shape (though the term generally excludes fancy goldfish). Mollies, corys, and I believe some other species have been bred into ballon varieties. These fish are generally not as healthy as their normal counterparts and are not as adept at swimmming.

Regarding genetically-modified organisms, one time I said something about how most people don't know anything about the issue and GMOs are not the "monsters" people make them out to be, and my vegan friend was like "Don't you know how they make genetically engineered crops? They spray mutated genes all over the fields from an airplane, and the genes can get into nature and cause other things to mutate". And she was totally serious. All I could do was laugh. She must have read that from the PETA website or something like that.

In my personal experience, I have found that the vast, vast majority of people who are against genetic engineering have absolutely no idea what the hell they're talking about.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

How can we compare Selective breeding with Gene manipulation? Selective breeding is natural. Its just about transferring the selective traits to the offspring. Not introducing anything from outside.
Gene manipulation, in my opinion, is highly un-natural though. I'm not sure the genetic engineers who produced those GloFish have any idea what side effects those alien proteins/genes are going to have on the fish. The fish may look normal or even happy but only a fish can tell if its really normal or not.
Most aquarists despise hybrids (again, natural). Accepting genetically altered fish should be out of question!

Thanks Natalie. Yuk! I wouldn't buy a fish that was physically compromised like that. I
don't think it's fair to the fish.

I don't know anything about genetic engineering, except maybe that article I read about the danios. In that case they made it sound harmless.

In the case of your friend............ well I don't see the reasoning or can't make any sense out of that!?
..............................

I can see your point mughal113. I use to automatically rule out anything"unnatural", but I've become more flexible & open minded lately. Things are progressing so quickly it's getting harder to decide what to accept & what to refuse. Just because something was done in a lab. as compared to over centuries of selective breeding, doesn't necessarily rule it out for me. I will take a glofish over a bull dog any day.

Speaking of highly unnatural........ what about ovens with electric burners? Our distant ancestors would have considered that unnatural. And now the microwave I just heated my coffee up in? And it's coming into flu shot season.......... I could go on & on.

Genetic engineering is here to stay. Maybe the best we can do is just to judge each individual case as it comes up & try to use some common sense & human compassion. That's all I know to do anyway. But you may have a point. After all.......... how do we know that happy acting danio breeding all over the tank doesn't have a headache the whole time he is doing it?

"How can we compare Selective breeding with Gene manipulation?"

They are both ways to produce a different end product, in this case a fish. Selective breeding gives us a crippled goldfish or a longfinned angel, genetic modification gives us a danio with unusual coloration.

I find that I prefer the bright red danios over most other manmade fish variations and hybrids. These danios appear to suffer no negative side effects from their genetic differences, yet many hybrids and fish from selective breeding programs do. If the Glo-fish were negatively affected in some way, they would experience stress as a result. It is well-known that a continually stressed fish lives a shorter life. I have not read of a shorter lifespan for the glowing danios, so I just have to assume that they aren't bothered by their condition. The only obvious problem they have is being easier to predators to spot, but they should not be housed with predators in an aquarium anyways.

"Most aquarists despise hybrids (again, natural)."

Hybrids bother me. I'm not talking about natural hybrids, they are almost always rare and usually do not suffer from obvious genetic problems. Even a lot of first-generation tank-bred hybrids (Synodontis and Corydoras catfish, many Malawian cichlids, etc.) are okay. Yet the manmade hybrids sold in stores often have serious problems. Flowerhorns and parrot cichlids are the poster fish when it comes to examples of twisted hybrids. In fact, I can't think of any others right now. But, regardless of any health issues, they are produced in mass quantities and marketed to average hobbyists. Of course, they snap them up. These are the hybrids I and most other responsible hobbyists have a problem with.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

"Natural" is a rather annoying term usually used by people who are against something but do not really understand why. It's just not "natural". What is natural anyway? It's natural to manipulate genes and traits through selective breeding to create an animal that suffers it's whole life and dies what would probably be called an unnatural death but it's not natural to manipulate genes and traits using science even if it does not harm the animal? I think some people get too hung up on natural. Try the horse world. There's natural horsemanship and natural hoof care and the best horse health board I go to find both terms just sickening. The methods are often abused by people who use the term natural to justify harming their animals both physically or mentally. There's also more "natural" medicines that people often think are completely safe and cure alls which when properly researched turn out to be even more toxic with a higher rate of side effects than medicines considered to be less "natural". Just because it's new to you, seems different, or requires more human intervention does not always make it bad. Although human intervention is often a bad thing. Just because a danio is a different color than it would have been but suffers no ill effects I see no problem with it. It's no different than if we waited around for that color morph to appear and then bred specifically for it. If you think about it things like albino or gold colored fish are a product of man and quite unnatural. When such genes appear in the wild they immediately die out because they are not helpful to the fish. All the colors of the blue gourami are not natural. Most goldfish are not natural. Bettas are not natural. If you only want natural fish then you better head out on a trip across the world to collect them from their native habitats because most you find in stores have been selectively bred and look quite unnatural compared to their wild cousins. Your just used to seeing all those colors so it's normal or natural to you.

" 'Natural' is a rather annoying term usually used by people who are against something but do not really understand why."

I agree with Sham. For many of our aquarium fish, getting eaten by something bigger is natural. We don't encourage that in our tanks. Adding chemicals to water is unnatural, but dechlorinator is vital to most of us. Most everyone (myself included) gets hung up on whether things are "natural" at some point in their life, but it bears reminding that nature's way isn't always the best way. I don't want nature to control my tanks. That could mean one of them loses all its water to evaporation because of some drought, or that a heron gobbles up all the fish.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

"How can we compare Selective breeding with Gene manipulation? Selective breeding is natural. Its just about transferring the selective traits to the offspring. Not introducing anything from outside. Gene manipulation, in my opinion, is highly un-natural though."

Selective breeding of goldfish, for example, is not any more natural the gentically modifying an organism. By selective breeding fancy goldfish, you are letting a fish that would be killed quickly in nature pass on the randomly-occuring, usually harmful gene that popped up in its DNA. How is that natural at all? Mutation is natural, but extreme human intervention that allows harmful mutations in animals to be passed on is not.

Genetic engineering is simply adding a very small portion of DNA into a zygote in a highly controlled environment, which the zygote then incorporates into its own genetic code. When the cell divides, that portion of DNA is replicated as well. It does not mean that in these danios, for example, that the danio is part jellyfish. The structure of DNA is exactly the same in all animals, so once the cells start replicating, that gene is produced by danio and therefore it is danio DNA.

The initial portion of DNA from the jellyfish was merely to give the first cell an "idea" of the gene to make. After that, all of those genes produced in the danio's billions of cells were produced by the danio itself. It's the danio's DNA now, not the jellyfishes'. It's not like the danio has some "foreign substance" inside it's body.

"I'm not sure the genetic engineers who produced those GloFish have any idea what side effects those alien proteins/genes are going to have on the fish. The fish may look normal or even happy but only a fish can tell if its really normal or not."

Yes, they are sure the fish are perfectly healthy and happy. It is quite easy for scientists to measure the amounts of stress horomones in animals' blood, which would show up in excessive amounts if the fish was experiencing any sort of discomfort. And owners of these fish will tell you that the red danios are just as active and vigorous as their regular counterparts.

"Most aquarists despise hybrids (again, natural). Accepting genetically altered fish should be out of question!"

The hybrids found in the hobby are not natural. Platy/Swordtail, Endler's/Guppy, and Red Devil/Midas Cichlid hybrids most certainly do not occur in nature. And in the cases of cichlids that do hybridize in the wild, this is only because humans have destroyed their habitats so badly that the fish are not able to find suitable mates (either because there actually are none left or because the water is to dirty to see well).

Hybrids in the hobby threaten the purity of many endangered species of fish we keep, and they are often sterile, have physical deformities (the Parrotfish is a perfect example), or have other negative qualities. The genetically engineered danios do not have any of these traits, and do not threaten to wipe out the existence of "regular" danios.

And regarding what's natural, as an advocate of humane treatment of all animals, I am more concerned with the quality of a captive animal's life than whether the life of that captive animal is "natural" or not. I feed all my snakes thawed, pre-killed mice because it is more humane for both the mice and the snakes. Snakes don't eat pre-killed mice in nature, but my snakes aren't in nature now are they? They eat the pre-killed mice just as eagerly as live mice, so that's what they are going to be fed even though it isn't "natural".

Likewise, I oppose all selectively-bred traits in animals that prove deleterious to the animal's well-being. Intentionally breeding goldfish that can't swim or balance properly, have huge fluid-filled sacs under their eyes, or are blinded by growths that cover their eyes just seems cruel to me. Similarly, breeding hybrid cichlids with severely deformed mouths and no tails is also unethical to me. Genetically engineering a danio so that it produces red pigment in its body that in no way is harmful to the fish, on the other hand, is perfectly fine.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.