Texas company battles to sell genetically altered GloFish

saltynewbie

saltynewbie

Member
i saw the story on tv the other day (while i had my hands in my tank :D ) and the fish just look like a red/orange zebra danio. they didnt show a pic of them under blacklight or anything.
 
elguapo

elguapo

Member
fresh water. i used to keep the normal zebras when i was a kid. of coarse they were genetically altered killing machines like these guys. just look at them..... evil..ha
 
reeferdude

reeferdude

Member
What is the big deal? This is great!!! Do you realize how beautiful your reefs could become with fish like this? If you think it is "playing god" and wrong, why would god give us the knowlage to "play god" if he didnt want us to use it?
 
dburr

dburr

Active Member
Reeferdude:
These are not reef fish.
What if; these freash fish somehow get in the wild. They are eaten by bigger fish which are consumed by people? How do we know they are safe? Because they say so? I don't buy it.
Alter these and more will come. I say we get some e-mail going to bann them in US.
IMO, Dan
 
i like fish

i like fish

Member
Lots of good can come from genetic engineering. A lot of the things we eat have been altered. And it's not that far off from breeding goldfish to have huge bubble eyes. :eek:
 
shoreliner11

shoreliner11

Active Member
Well on the upside this can lead to other genetic engineering and maybe eventually none of our fish will have to be caught from the wild. I know there is an alure to having a wild caught fish but, I think it would be a step up for the worlds reefs to stop the harvesting of fish and corals. I love to watch the fish I just don't want a hobby to destroy reef habitat.:(
 
audisteve

audisteve

Member
Understandably most of our fellow fish friends would be rather upset after reading this article. The pure fact in my own mind is that without change, alteration and experimentation we as humans would not be able to progress as a species. Science while some of us dissagree with it's methods and ethics must understand that science is nothing but a pyramid and to attain the top stone of knowledge we must pain stakingly build it stone by stone by stone. Don't dissagree with the science involved, just the method in which it is applied.
Steve T.
 
harlequin

harlequin

Member
By the way these are fresh water, they havent done it yet with salt water fish to my knowledge although clowns I think would be the first step in that direction if they did since they are already aquacultured on a large scale as it is. They original ones were discovered by mistake while they were researching ways to make a fish heart glow(according to that article the fish's heart is similar to our own) in order to better understand how it works. The original scientist declared it a failure and moved on, meanwhile his collegues saw $$$ signs and moved to marketing. Although this article did not state it, the original strain was made to be completely sterile(well 98%) so as to not be able to breed in wild populations if released. Last I heard Petsmart was refusing to carry them, and ***** was being silent about it although that may have changed. My LFS has already said they will not carry them either, but we shall see too.
 
overanalyzer

overanalyzer

Active Member

Originally posted by dburr
Reeferdude:
These are not reef fish.
What if; these freash fish somehow get in the wild. They are eaten by bigger fish which are consumed by people? How do we know they are safe? Because they say so? I don't buy it.
Alter these and more will come. I say we get some e-mail going to bann them in US.
IMO, Dan
Dan - faulty logic ... how do you know that fish you eat from the ocean does not eat jelly fish or other anemones (which are ht genes they used).
You want to get up in arms about something then gripe about the high levels of mercury in fish or read this report and go nuts:
http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/rollbacks/rr2002.pdf
Or if you must focus on live fish get all bent out of shape about those chinese walking catfish that have been decimating rivers over here .....
 
125intx

125intx

Member

Originally posted by morayeel1
hey, glow in the dark house cats, $4000!;)

Save the $4000 and just put the cat in the microwave. :D
Just joking, kids dont try this at home.
 
scotts

scotts

Active Member
Ahh yes the hot topic thread!!!!
Shane you started this off by saying what a shame. What is the shame? the fact that they want to see these fish or the fact that we in California cannot buy them?
Shane this part is not directed at you, but my personal opinion. Do not take it as flaming.
Personally I think it is OK to sell these fish. There was an article in the LA times about these, I will not go into the details, I am also not going to go into the "Playing God" part. For one thing while they are "genetically engineered" it is with natural genes from anenomes. Also they have been using these for over 10 years for research purposes. It took them this long to realize that there might be a commercial market for them.
They also plan to come out with different colors in the future. I think that would be cool and would love to set up a tank with the different colors.
Off my soap box.
Scott
 
reeferdude

reeferdude

Member
When it comes to them getting free and causing havoc there are tons of fish out there that can do far worse dammage to native habitats. Take for example the importation ban on Piranaha to the state of Texas, we have about the same climate (in the south and during summer) as the amazon and if 10 of those little guys got free within a year there wouldnt be any native freshwater fish in texas. I find most people just feel it is wrong but don't know why or have any good reasons.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top