What's your opinion on Glofish?

Injecting things into eggs/embryos is common practice now, it's used to do In-Vitro Fertilization with human babies, and I bet most of you know a kid somewhere from that procedure (even if they don't mention it.)

It's time to get past the genetic manipulation fears - we're learning a ton from it, all the time, and it's kinda neat that they can specially engineer fish, plants etc to do things like be pretty, eat a certain thing, detect a certain chemical.

I think it's also kinda hilarious that everyone typing "unnatural" was doing it on a COMPUTER, probably in a carpeted, heated house with hot and cold water. We all keep fish, right? Did they evolve in aquariums? I'm willing to bet that most of us have received modern medical care, had vaccines and medications injected into our bodies, etc. We live 3 or 4 times the lifespan of our ancestors 10000 years ago, and twice the lifespan of our ancestors just a few generations back. All of this, better lifestyles, better lifespans, better lives is "unnatural." Aquariums, unnatural. Crowntail bettas, moscow guppies, red cherry shrimp... Unnatural. What the heck is the advantage of natural?! We can emulate the natural world, we can revere it, and vacation in it, and try to simulate it in our tanks, but let's not moralize that we're somehow better by reviling scientific advances.

I personally don't have any glofish, because I'm overstocked as it is, but it's kinda cool, and I wouldn't mind having some at some point. I hope we keep having unnatural discoveries that improve people (and fish) lives.

No glofish were harmed during the making of this message.
Click to expand...
 
oh man. . it's so off-topic... but can i resist?

technically, lifespan rates are correct, but we don't actually live longer as individuals than the generations that have come before. the difference is that we have gotten much much better at keeping our children alive past age 5.
 
wataugachicken said:
technically, lifespan rates are correct, but we don't actually live longer as individuals than the generations that have come before. the difference is that we have gotten much much better at keeping our children alive past age 5.
Click to expand...

Seriously? I had no idea, I was going on statistics I've heard quoted regularly in news articles, plus anecdotal evidence of several 110+ individuals in the US right now, plus all the talk about the Baby Boomer generation living longer than before, etc. It never occurred to me to question how we got to that. I always just assumed individuals lived longer. Do you have a source, I'd love to read more about it.
 
I agree with wendamus. I mean, how much different is this from selective breeding? It is not that big of a deal.
I just don't care for the color, I am more into the natural aquarium look right now. I think they are about a decade too late, these fish would have gone great with the florescent castles and multicolored gravel
 
wendamus said:
Seriously? I had no idea, I was going on statistics I've heard quoted regularly in news articles, plus anecdotal evidence of several 110+ individuals in the US right now, plus all the talk about the Baby Boomer generation living longer than before, etc. It never occurred to me to question how we got to that. I always just assumed individuals lived longer. Do you have a source, I'd love to read more about it.
Click to expand...


your kidding right??

improvements in medicine is the largest factor in increased life span of Humans. how is improvements in medicine un natural?

personally I don't think of glofish anymore 'un-natural' than blind cave fish.
;)
 
star_rider said:
your kidding right??

improvements in medicine is the largest factor in increased life span of Humans. how is improvements in medicine un natural?

personally I don't think of glofish anymore 'un-natural' than blind cave fish.
;)
Click to expand...

Firstly, I don't think I will ever own one. That is my choice.

Secondly, we are running down the road to GM everything including humans. We can not stop it so get used to it.

Thirdly, medicine is quite un-natural. Just look at how the organisms are responding to a few decades of antibiotics? We are changing them quite rapidly. They will survive. Quickly there will be no use for antibiotics. However there is decades of research and applications from Russia on phages that will allow us more time before it is a crisis. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage)

Is this bad or good? I don't think we are smart enough as a species to answer that question with any authority. But, in a thousand years our ancestors will have great hindsight on our choices.

We live at a very interesting time.
 
I think these "glofish" are significantly different from regular zebra danios such that no one will mistake the two and inadvertently produce mixed offspring for the market. If they are not injected or altered other than by selective breeding as I understand things, I don't see the big deal. There was a valuable use for them that caused this to be done in the first place. If there are now a surplus of these colored danios being put on the pet trade I see nothing wrong with it, as I see no way that it endangers the bloodlines of non-colored zebra danios or threatens their existance. Cross breeds which are difficult to differentiate from one or both of the parent species I DO see as something that can cause problems in the pet trade, being sold incorrectly as one or the other, whereas this I don't see such potential for problems amongst would-be breeders. As long as hobbyists don't have both in the same tank, accidently breed them, and run the juvies off to the LFS to sell as good old fashioned plain "zebra danios" then there should be no issues. Everyone LOVES cherry shrimp, but pictures I've seen of their predicessors are far closer to glass shrimp in apearance, and the very red ones we keep and show off on line are simply a result of selective breeding, so I see very little difference.

I doubt I'd buy them though, since I don't care much for zebra danios in the first place, and bright pink ones I find even less attractive.

Do they actually glow in the dark though, or are they just floursecent pink under the light? If they actually glow in the dark, I'd consider buying some in a different color perhaps.
 
I just saw these for the first time today at my LFS. They looked like a tank full af jelly beans! The glo-fish website shows only three colors, but this shop had pink, red, orange, yellow and green with many much brighter and some in between. I thought they were cute!
 
I just purchased a couple of them and they are beautiful. I think that it is a way for us freshwater people to get some of those vibrant colors that salt water fish have. I don't want the hassle of a salt water tank, but I can have some of the colors found there. They are beautiful and very playful.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom