t-ace

there are some really neat danios at the local pet store that are called glofish. they seem to be an un-natural pink or orange color. my girlfriend really wants them, but i dont want to support the people doing this to theses fish, if they are in fact dyed. any comments?

Amanda

No, they are not dyed.
The original glofish eggs were injected with jellyfish DNA. They now breed those colors.

Tony G.

they had these fish at my LFS and i heard they were dyed through their food but i didnt catch which fish

aquarist48

Hello. Amanda is correct...they are not dyed.
Tony, I'm not familiar with any fish that have been dyed via food. However, there is food that is said to be color enhancers. Once fish have been dyed, to my knowledge there is nothing that can be done to prevent them from returning to their original colors.

t-ace

they just seem to be such un-natural colors. just wanted to see what everyones input was because the guy at the pet store didn't know. they are neat looking though and i may add a few to my tank!

Angela_96

Heres a link that explains it.
http://www.glofish.com/

Shawnie

I love them and they are very active....and I agree, they are not dyed....but make sure they are truely glofish and not glass fish that are dyed....

these are the NOT dyed fish that I have glofish.jpg

these are the dyed glass fish Glass-Fish.jpg

t-ace

they are definately the the fish in the top picture, they look just like zebra danios but brightly colored

would they school together if they are different colors? say if one is red and the other two are orange

TheTacoManChach

I had 1 of these with my guppies and he kept chasing them (maybe nipping fins?)
I removed the guppies to my bigger tank and got another neon and now they chase eachother around like crazy!
incredibly active fish.

And they are not dyed they are geneticly engineered!
Kinda like the island of doctor monroe...

Shawnie

yes they all school or chase or whatever you call it together

mine do also!! totally spastic fish

Tony G.

those where the ones the guy at my LFS was talking about, only their colors had washed out.. im confused

ZomZom

Technically the colors are natural, at least in that they are proteins produced by other animals (plankton and/or anemone if I remember correctly). GloFish are just Zebrafish (Zebra Danios) that have had those genes that encode for such proteins spliced into their DNA. Subsequent generations carry those genes just like any other.

The original purpose was to create fish that would fluoresce under UV light in the presence of various pollutants, and also to create fish with various structures that fluoresce so as to be studied easier. The first step in that process was to create fish that always fluoresce under UV light, and once this was done it was pretty obvious that these could be profitable to the ornamental fish market.

Zebrafish are used extensively in scientific research and have been instrumental in the understanding of cancer, particularly in the process by which viruses and oncogenes can cause cancer.

For a fascinating history of the use of zebrafish in cancer research, check out this video at MITWorld

Mikoten

ugh, that is so wrong...danios are beautiful just the way they are, without that BS coloring