Topic: Glo fish (zebra danios) issues

[wendyjo]

It is a shame, cause I really love these fish.  They add so much color to my tank.

So far it's only been the yellow and green ones  - the red ones seem fine.  If they stay that way I may pick up a few more of them as they are really the ones that add the most color.

[ShieldWolf]

Interesting bit about the colors. They are all GloFish so why just the greens & yellows having problems. Probably coincidence. I have had just the reds so I have no real first hand input in that matter.

[wendyjo]

Yeah, it probably is a coincidence.  But who knows?  Maybe it has to do with whatever critter they splice the genes with?  Maybe the reds genes (is it coral?) makes them hardier.  Who knows, lol?  But I am keeping close watch on all of them.

[QueenFisher]

It is possible the gene comes from coral, but I was thinking jellyfish for some reason. The website only says the protein genes are "derived from marine organisms." Top secret, huh.

[wendyjo]

I think it depends which color fish you are talking about - I don't think they use the same gene to get the different colors.  Not sure, but I thought I read that somewhere.

[wendyjo]

I should correct myself cause the one I lost to dropsy was red.  But none of the deformed ones so far have been red.

[Cholly]

I think it depends which color fish you are talking about - I don't think they use the same gene to get the different colors.  Not sure, but I thought I read that somewhere.

Maybe not the same gene but the same type organism, jellyfish.

Hi all, as someone who works in the Danio research field, I can testify that these guys will breed. It is an gene insertion event, these guys express YFP, GFP or RFP which are fluorescent proteins originally found in a species of jellyfish. Danios are notorious egg eaters so you need to have a mesh for the eggs to fall through and collect them fast. zfin.org can supply some of the techniques for breeding. I must admit that these guys have a bit more embryonic death than my normal strains. You will also notice that the offspring will not all look exactly as bright as the adults. Sometimes the gene will get transferred completely, sometimes not... Hope this helps and good luck breeding.

[Santaaa]

Let me tell you I had the same problem happen with my glofish I had, a few years back now. Exact same symptoms. Spines would curve and then they would die.  I wonder if it is fish TB like suggested earlier. I had gotten a little frog one of those dwarf frogs for my tank and he died and not long after that they all started dieing. I am wondering if the frog was just coincidence now.  The glofish spines would curve and they would die and then all my other fish would be fine one day and just suddenly be dead the next morning no symptoms or reason why. I even checked the parameters in the tank and they tested perfect. I lost all my fish in that tank. I was depressed by that. No symptoms except for the the glofish spine issue and then they just all started dropping like flies. To this day I have no idea what killed them. I lost my whole tank of fish. I have no idea what the problem was. I will never buy glofish or dwarf frogs again because those were the only changes in the tank was the glofish spines and the new dwarf frog. Everything else was the same.

[wendyjo]

Gah!  Now you have me worried!

A few questions for you:  How long had you had your glofish before you started seeing problems?  Did any of your also develop tumors?  How long after the problems with the glo fish did your other fish start dieing?

[Santaaa]

I am not sure how long I had them. I would say about 6 months to a year. I am not sure to be honest it was awhile ago. As soon as the first glofish died they all started dropping off like flies. Nothing I could do really. They were all the yellow ones. My best friend had them and he told me how great they were but he got them when they first came out. They lived for a long time. I think he may still have one of them left. At least last year he did neither one of us has had time to really talk to each other. Mine all died though. His were all red as that was the original color and mine were all yellow as that was the only color I could get at the time. They were hard to get but then they really flooded the market with them. Never again though will I buy another one.