On Line Fish Purchasing

[SamLovesCorys]

I personally wouldn't buy, say , Blood red Parrot or any of the malformed genetically modified fish for obvious reasons.
Nor would I buy any that were created purely for profit.
I would have to think long and hard on the Glofish..

But to completely discount a supplier simply because they offered these is a bit ridiculous.

The supplier to your LFS likely has em on the list so in a semi removed way you are still doing business with an offender even if your particular store chooses not to stock them.

As stated previoulsy, my LFS' suppliers won't have them on their list, as they are not legal in the UK.

What was the purpose for inventing the Glofish(R)?

I believe they were initially created as a way of monitoring water pollution. The scientists making them hope one day to create one that only fluoresces when pollution is present.

Interestingly, it came up in my gcse biology paper as a question about genetic modification.

 

[the_lock_man]

It was for medical research to be applied to humans, there's a thread on it in the scientific section I think.

This is what I believed to be the case. I can't remember the exact research project.

 

[Mauigirl]

I personally wouldn't buy, say , Blood red Parrot or any of the malformed genetically modified fish for obvious reasons.
Nor would I buy any that were created purely for profit.
I would have to think long and hard on the Glofish..

But to completely discount a supplier simply because they offered these is a bit ridiculous.

The supplier to your LFS likely has em on the list so in a semi removed way you are still doing business with an offender even if your particular store chooses not to stock them.

As stated previoulsy, my LFS' suppliers won't have them on their list, as they are not legal in the UK.

What was the purpose for inventing the Glofish(R)?

I believe they were initially created as a way of monitoring water pollution. The scientists making them hope one day to create one that only fluoresces when pollution is present.

Interestingly, it came up in my gcse biology paper as a question about genetic modification.

That and also

quote from the golfish site

"For over a decade, fluorescent fish have been relied upon by scientists worldwide to better understand important questions in genetics, molecular biology, and vertebrate development. Fluorescent fish have been particularly helpful in understanding cellular disease and development, as well as cancer and gene therapy"
Just good healthy discussion, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.

 

[SamLovesCorys]

+1

 

[the_lock_man]

I personally wouldn't buy, say , Blood red Parrot or any of the malformed genetically modified fish for obvious reasons.
Nor would I buy any that were created purely for profit.
I would have to think long and hard on the Glofish..

But to completely discount a supplier simply because they offered these is a bit ridiculous.

The supplier to your LFS likely has em on the list so in a semi removed way you are still doing business with an offender even if your particular store chooses not to stock them.

As stated previoulsy, my LFS' suppliers won't have them on their list, as they are not legal in the UK.

What was the purpose for inventing the Glofish(R)?

I believe they were initially created as a way of monitoring water pollution. The scientists making them hope one day to create one that only fluoresces when pollution is present.

Interestingly, it came up in my gcse biology paper as a question about genetic modification.

That and also

quote from the golfish site

"For over a decade, fluorescent fish have been relied upon by scientists worldwide to better understand important questions in genetics, molecular biology, and vertebrate development. Fluorescent fish have been particularly helpful in understanding cellular disease and development, as well as cancer and gene therapy"
Just good healthy discussion, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.

Indeed, nothing better than that. It's when people start getting sarccy at you that it all breaks down.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Goodness, this poor guy's thread has really shifted. I recommend searching out the old glofish thread if you want to keep this one going

 

[crazyforcordoras]

All he asked was if Liveaquaria was a good site... And we give him an rgument aout genetically modified fish.

Edit. The only thing i hate about liveaquaria is the 30$ shipping.

 

[SamLovesCorys]

 

[crazyforcordoras]

Exactly!

 

[Bugdozer]

Blimey, that was a rather aggressive response. Please note that I'm only giving my opinion, and I made that quite clear in my post.

nature produces the mutation for him,

That, for me, is the difference. There is no way that nature could have ever produced the Glofish(R) because the gene used to produce the colour comes, if I understand it correctly, from a jellyfish. Nature, left long enough, could have produced those variations in guppies, gouramis, fighters, etc., if that's the way that it went. Which is why your sarcastic presumption is wrong (as you've probably yourself predicted).

That is my opinion. If it differs from yours, which it clearly does, there is nothing wrong with that. But please have the courtesy to respect it as such.

Genetics is a branch of science. It is not open to opinion. Your statement "There is no way that nature could have ever produced the Glofish(R) because the gene used to produce the colour comes, if I understand it correctly, from a jellyfish" is factually incorrect. It is extremely unlikely that the mutation would occur naturally but it's absolutely possible that it could. You cannot disagree with that and call it a valid opinion. For example, light emitting luciferase reaction has evolved through individual natural mutation in fireflies, the sea pansy, dinoflagellates, and the jack-o-lantern mushroom, none of which are closely related to each other. It's perfectly possible that a freshwater fish might spontaneously produce the same protein as the jellyfish through natural mutation.

What is a valid opinion is to be happy with the ethics of inbreeding fish to make them pretty but feeble, and to be less happy with producing a similar effect by direct genetic manipulation, and you're entitled to that. That's where we differ, but don't say that a mutation process is "impossible" just because humans did it before mother nature got round to that particular one (if ever).

 

[TekFish]

Just a quick question, it says that the Glofish® can breed just as well as an unmodified zebra Danio, what happens if you breed 2 of different colours. Do you get something in between? One or the other? Will it look like a normal Danio like what happens when you randomly breed Guppies? Just asking...


TekFish

 

[Bugdozer]

Just a quick question, it says that the Glofish® can breed just as well as an unmodified zebra Danio, what happens if you breed 2 of different colours. Do you get something in between? One or the other? Will it look like a normal Danio like what happens when you randomly breed Guppies? Just asking...


TekFish

It will depend on whether the gene for each colour is dominant or recessive over each other and whether the normal danio colouring gene is stil in there. For example: if the pink colour gene is dominant over a yellow colour one then you'll get all pink offspring, if it's dominant over the normal danio colour gene but that's still present in both yellow and pink variants then you'll get a mix of normal/pink/yellow offspring. To get a mixed colour the genes would have to both be present at once rather than being variants of the same gene. I don't know which of these is the case, though. Look up the info about tongue rolling in humans to get a good idea of how dominant and recessive genes are transmitted and expressed.

 

[colleen0309]

Back to the ops original question. I found that liveaquaria.com is an excellent source for fish. All arrived happy and healthy.

 

[the_lock_man]

Blimey, that was a rather aggressive response. Please note that I'm only giving my opinion, and I made that quite clear in my post.

nature produces the mutation for him,

That, for me, is the difference. There is no way that nature could have ever produced the Glofish(R) because the gene used to produce the colour comes, if I understand it correctly, from a jellyfish. Nature, left long enough, could have produced those variations in guppies, gouramis, fighters, etc., if that's the way that it went. Which is why your sarcastic presumption is wrong (as you've probably yourself predicted).

That is my opinion. If it differs from yours, which it clearly does, there is nothing wrong with that. But please have the courtesy to respect it as such.

Genetics is a branch of science. It is not open to opinion. Your statement "There is no way that nature could have ever produced the Glofish(R) because the gene used to produce the colour comes, if I understand it correctly, from a jellyfish" is factually incorrect. It is extremely unlikely that the mutation would occur naturally but it's absolutely possible that it could. You cannot disagree with that and call it a valid opinion. For example, light emitting luciferase reaction has evolved through individual natural mutation in fireflies, the sea pansy, dinoflagellates, and the jack-o-lantern mushroom, none of which are closely related to each other. It's perfectly possible that a freshwater fish might spontaneously produce the same protein as the jellyfish through natural mutation.

What is a valid opinion is to be happy with the ethics of inbreeding fish to make them pretty but feeble, and to be less happy with producing a similar effect by direct genetic manipulation, and you're entitled to that. That's where we differ, but don't say that a mutation process is "impossible" just because humans did it before mother nature got round to that particular one (if ever).

It's funny, my kids often try to win an argument by taking it away from the original point, and your pedantry in that response is similar. You clearly understood the point that was being made. Why make yourself look infantile by explaining the difference between impossible and extremely unlikely?

 

[crazyforcordoras]

If we are talking about liveaquaria again, i can say they have an amazing selection of fish.