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I have seen this term around on various sites... I am wondering, what is meant by "painted" fish? Is this some sort of means that fish are artificially colored or some such?

I'm just curious... I don't own any painting equipment lol!

Thanks...

Yes the term painted fish means just that. They injected he fish with dye. It is very cruel in my opinion, I would stay away from this fish and the LFS that sells them.

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

For further info, http://www.deathbydyeing.org/.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

Is that where these glo-lite tetras come from? Their colors don't seem natural to me...

Thanks for the answers! That just doesn't seem right to me at all! I mean, why woudl ya want one of those? Of cours,e I am not too terribly into brightly colored gravel myself either. I guess I am more of a natural kinda guy!

Scott, do you have the scientific name for this tetra? If it is Hemigrammus erythrozonus you don't have to worry - this very nice little fish is a 'natural'

Not a natural is also the fluorescent danio, but this fish is not dyed - it is genetically engineered to express fluorescent dyes that normally are made by jellyfish. Not harmful to the fish, they are born this way as it is germline at all but certainly a little bit more than jsut a random mutation

only painted or dyed fish I've ever seen are the painted Glass Fish my Local Fish sells em and has for many years people say not to buy from them but they are the only local store near me Petco is like 30 miles away and Petsmart is 20

Even Corydoras & Gouramis are being dyed & it's a real pity.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydoras/
Member of the Malta Aquarist Society - 1970.
http://www.maltaaquarist.com

Glo-lites are natural, as are conchu blue tetras and a few types of corydoras catfish that have orange hilighter stripes etc. Nature does some incredible things with colour!

Look out for things labelled with 'food' names, as well as painted and coloured. Jellybean, blueberry, that sort of thing, they might well fall into the dyed category. The naming all depends on the supplier and the shop.

Be careful with boycotting shops that stock these. Just be sensible about it Quite a few times I have seen good shops be sent these fish as fillers in an order if they didn't have the fish they'd asked for. The shop does still have to make a living and it isn't the fish's fault that they have been treated this way. Several of the shops will give these fish away to knowledgeable homes (the process is pretty traumatic and unhygenic so they need top level care) rather than sell them, but they still sit in a shop tank until that time.

I'm pretty sure they are still running it, PFK magazine was organising a petition and a register of shops that refused to sell dyed fish. Might be worth looking at

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett