Dying GloFish!

J

JimTurntable

AC Members
Mar 25, 2009
50
0
0
Sigh. My tank was going so well for a while too...

I got a 30 gallon tank and after a rough few months things were settling down. I only had three gold-bellied tetras and three bloodfins in it. Over the course of two months I added eight Glofish. One died right off the bat but other than that I had no problems. Over the past month I've lost one tetra and four Glofish. One Glofish just died yesterday and another isn't looking so good. They never have any spots or anything on them they just get more and more lethargic until they stop moving and die. Sometimes they can lie at the bottom of the tank for hours or even a full day before finally biting it :(

Ammonia is nil as are nitrites. Nitrates are under 5ppm as well. Ph is around 6.8 or so. I'm using a chemical testing kit for all of this, not strips.

Also, there's this weird greyish gunk on the gravel and sometimes on the glass. It's heavy and a pain to syphon, I've been doing frequent water changes to try and get it out but it's sticking around and I don't want to do more than one big water change a day. Overfeeding maybe? I don't know what else to do!
 
Last edited:
Glofish discussions come up here on occasion, most noting the genetic weakness caused by the "glo" breeding. I've never been a fan of the way these glofish look in the store tanks (compared to a regular zebra danio). Sorry that wasn't of much help, but it might be interesting to see if someone chimes in saying they've had good long-term survival of glofish.
 
Do you know the timeframe of when you bought them and how long they were at the store?

I noticed the glofish shipments in particular often had quite a bit of weak individuals that never made it past a week or two. A few would tough it out, but it was never the entire shipment. It was rather noticeable compared to regular zebras.

It's quite possible that you got some bad stock.
 
The store I bought them from still has many from that same stock and they're all doing fine.

I was reading another glofish post and noticed that someone said they were wasting away. That's kind of happening here. When one finally died he was practically nothing. I haven't seen any distended abdomens though, at least I don't think so! They're small fish!

Is there any proof to the theory that they are somehow weaker because of the engineering? What makes them different than any other tank-bred fish in terms of immunity? That sounds kind of reactionary to me.
 
Reactionary....DID YOU SAY REACTIONARY!!!!!! (just kidding). It may be nothing more than anecdotal evidence, but when enough people are telling the same anecdote that's when I start listening. The creation of these glofish involves far more than just breeding two relatively similar fish to create a slightly different strain.
 
it's bs that glofish are weaker than regular zebra danio. They are just as tough, i have kept 6 in a biorb back when i first started, all survived. And now i have 24 in a 14 gallon, and no issues. They are very active and fearless. Toughest fish i have ever seen.

Not sure what to tell you if ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and ph are as good as you say. The only thing i could think of is the constant large water changes, maybe your tap water is very different than tank water, and that's causing the issue - just a shot in the dark, and i assume temperature remains relatively stable and you are feeding them standard pellet/flakes.

Do you add any chemicals to the tank? what dechlorinator do you use? and kh/gh?
 
I don't have anything to test kh/gh at the moment. The ph is consistently the same though so the hardness is at the right amount to not effect that at least. The increased water changes came after they started dying, not beforehand. And the only chemical I use in my water is prime.

Looks like I'm about to loose another one tonight. No feeding tonight, and then doing one my big water change, that should get rid of all the gunk. After that I'll just have to wait and see I guess. Could a collection of uneaten food in the tank from overfeeding do this? Because I don't know what else it could be. I have another tank with some parrotfish and while I know those aren't the most popular fish out there they are hardy little SOBs and they never leave any extra food on the ground!
 
i dont think that it is inbreeding...there is really no "breeding" for this trait, per say. it is inserted into the genome of the danio and then all of the danio's offspring will express the gene as well. this isnt on the same level as guppies or discus in the strains that they come in and the inbreeding needed to develop them.
 
andyjh said:
Glofish discussions come up here on occasion, most noting the genetic weakness caused by the "glo" breeding. I've never been a fan of the way these glofish look in the store tanks (compared to a regular zebra danio). Sorry that wasn't of much help, but it might be interesting to see if someone chimes in saying they've had good long-term survival of glofish.
Click to expand...

my girlfriend has had hers for over a year now.
i bought it for her because it was "cute", and i set her up a small(er) tank
with it.

this thing is bloody HUGE! it's probably over 3 inches now.
and is the width of a water bottle lid!

strangee...
 
The difference between regular zebra danios and glofish are that researchers in Singapore added a fluorescence gene from a sea coral, to zebra danio eggs to produce glofish this produced the electric green glofish. This gene causes the genetically modified fish to fluoresce or light up in the presence of environmental toxins. Shortly after a line of red fluorescent zebra fish was devoloped by adding a gene from a sea coral, and then the yellow was prduced by using a varient of the jellyfish gene. They were originally created to detect environmental toxins, other then this they are genectically the same to Zebra danios. Glofish are a trademarked fish, and you have to be a registered breeder to sell them for a profit, if yours has babies you can give them away but you cannot sell them. And as far as i know there is only 3 or 4 of them in the U.S. that are registered sellers. Almost all of the glofish supplied to the east coast are from a breeder in florida, so it may have been a bad batch that was infected with some type of pariste. I have some glofish from the very first batch when they were introduced at PetSmart were i work and they are in a display tank, they are now 2 1/2 years old and have laid eggs, none of the eggs have hatched however. My only suggestion is raise the tank temp to 82, and treat with an anti-parasitic or a broad spectrum anti-bacterial.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom