Glofish:Don't buy them!

froggle1

Glofish were dyed to look the way they do. This can cause many deformities and other problems. Do not buy them, as dying fish is torture to them. Even though they look awesome, they are being tortured.

Lupin

Where did you get your reference they were dyed? They were genetically spliced so no harm is really done.

froggle1

I saw it on another website. How did they get their glow-in-the-dark skin though?I don't understand what genetically splicing is. Anyway, thanks for the info!

pirasha

Yea...glo-fish is one of the few fish that are not actually artificially dyed. They were genetically spliced and bred originally as a indicator for water pollution...if you go on the official website there is actually quite a lot of research on it...it is set up quite nicely. I was right with you when they first became popular because I hate it when fish or other animals are dyed...it harms the animal and doesn't even last. It is disgraceful and proves that animals are nothing but things to sell...however glo-fish are the exception of the rule as they were not originally bred for sale and even now that they are their official website has a lot of good information about them...so they can also provide an educational aspect of it.

froggle1

Yah, I knew that they were made to see if water was polluted, but I didn't know they weren't dyed. Thanks!

pirasha

Okay so the scientists took the fluorescent genes found in jellyfish and spliced them with regular zebras (I believe it was done while still in egg form) anyway this means that the fish now have this fluorescent gene in thier genes..so they can pass it along...it doesn't need to be done with every single egg.

As they are put into polluted water this fluorescent gene causes them to become more and more vibrant the more they are exposed to contaminated waters as it is a stress response (kind of like banding in a betta ) thus these fish were used as an indicator species...the brighter they were the more contaminated the water was...its easier and cheaper to use a species such as this then to continually keep sampling the water to make sure that the clean-up efforts are working.

Well...thats what I got off the top of my head...I would suggest visiting the website..or if you have anything else you don't understand let me know...I researched them a bit a while ago...but I can do a bit more and put it in layman's terms if you need me ^_^ It lets me research fun stuff and procrastinate on others.

MelKurtonic

what fish are dyed??? are they all dyed for selling purposes?

ElectricBlueJackDempsey

Parrot cichlids are sometimes dyed and this is very painful and animal cruelty but glofish are not.

Blabomb

I have never heard of any fish being dyed. I'd love to see a list of some fish that are dyed

MelKurtonic

Death By Dyeing - Fish Death By Dyeing

list of fish that are artificially colored for sale purposes... it's really sad that they put the fish through this :(