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01/12/2004: New Article: The GloFish Chronicles!

Today’s article examines GloFish, the hot new pet fad that lets people buy “glowing” fish for just five bucks a piece. You’ve probably seen ‘em mentioned in the news over the past few months, and the story was just too offbeat to pass up on. Do GloFish match the hype? Not really. I’m sure others will say differently, but my batch wasn’t anywhere near as “otherworldly” as all of the reports and debates suggested. They’re just fish that are kinda sorta shiny. Article provides close-up photos of the three I bought, plus an extra close-up photo of their disgusting fish food. Unless you’ve got a blacklight, they’re nothing to go nuts over.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 112 comments

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A few years ago, a team of geneticists, in tandem with a Belgian surrealist artist, spliced jellyfish genes into rabbits and created rabbits that glow in the dark.
Now, picture doing this with chinchillas! Pii-KA!

Ghosted by G'Tron @ 01/13/2004 4:34 AM EST

yorktown technologies, where more fish than fish is our motto

Ghosted by urquidez @ 01/13/2004 8:38 AM EST

"’Cause someone has to say it: Two goldfish were in their tank. One said to the other, "You drive, I’ll man the guns.""

For some reason, I just imagined this as something that would appear on Family Guy. Strange.

Ghosted by Matt (#2?) @ 01/13/2004 9:53 AM EST

Just saw this article on Yahoo! News:

click here

Ghosted by B-Dawg @ 01/13/2004 10:39 AM EST

I had a goldfish at a very young age until my mother killed it accidently. For years she promised to buy me a new one, but it was not until I was about 12 that I actually did. She came through, though. I got a 30 gallon aquarium w/ all of the toys. I kept various kinds of fish through the years and even set it up as an atrium. I had frogs, salamanders, crabs, and fish all living in there own section. They all got along together, too. Eventually my friend had some parahna that he did not want anymore, so I took care of them. I started to raise feeder fish to feed them. They were very timid of humans (you could stick your hand in the water without being skeletonized) but would go crazy if I through in a fish. They died one day while I was on vacation when the heater broke and boiled them. My brother (who was supposed to be watching out for them) called me to ask if I wanted Pirahna Soup. Jerk.
I have a 125 gallon tank now, but i have to save up another $3000 at least to get the rest of the supplies for my future salt water set up.

Ghosted by Stilewalker @ 01/13/2004 1:26 PM EST

As a well seasoned fishkeeper who currently has 3 active tanks I consider those glofish as cruel attempts to make fishkeeping more appealable to the general public .
This procedure which adds coral DNA into the fish at a young age thus giving them their unatural luminescence (which disappears with time) stresses the fish, causing them to be prone to diseases and parasites in the long time future
If you want real Glofish than get a shoal of Neon tetras or its stablemate the Cardinal Tetra.
Both of these fish have a natural luminescence, don’t cost 5 bucks per fish and will probably last longer than your glofish providing you have an established aquaria
The only I’d use those glofish for would be treats for my Oscar (a large carnivorous fish from the order ciclidae)

Ghosted by Prowlus @ 01/13/2004 2:36 PM EST

Is they like Glo-worms? Oh, And Taquitos. Someone tell matt to reply to me… i really think he’d like the shrieking…

Ghosted by FuzzyFurryFoxie @ 01/13/2004 6:09 PM EST

I too have wanted some glowfish, so I tried to make them out of some goldfish and fiestaware dishes. The fish seemed to like the plates in their water, but after a week it did not give them a glow. Tried also to apply some glow in the dark stickers but they would not stay on. Gave up after that.

Ghosted by MangusDangus @ 01/13/2004 6:27 PM EST

silly silly person. i used to own hundreds of fish and i’ve never heard of GloFish, look more like funky neon tetras. that’s all they are-tetras and the other one looks like a guppie, the features, you know fin shape and placement aren’t the same on the two so it looks like you may have been jyped (sp?) i’m so damn technical….

Ghosted by MallcoreMotion @ 01/13/2004 8:33 PM EST

dude matt, do an article about pro-wrestling…ur the wrestling fan right?

Ghosted by AFI_RT_Jeff Hardy @ 01/13/2004 9:30 PM EST

I have _never_ heard of Glofish before today…

Ghosted by jjgoreha @ 01/13/2004 11:05 PM EST

My cousin owns a petstore. I can honsestly say they refuse to carry these. Neon Tetras put these things to shame.

Ghosted by Smalley @ 01/14/2004 1:11 AM EST

I read the entire article, and Matt fails to answer the most important question about glofish.

What do glofish taste like?

If you’re not going to give the glofish the ol x-entertainment taste test, at least you could let us know if the stuff in the glass jar tastes as nasty as it looks…

Ghosted by Nonesuch @ 01/14/2004 1:11 AM EST

I bought some japenese Koi today cost me $6 a piece..and they’re huge I need a name for the second one though, any ideas? The other one is called Inspector Gadget. I cant find a cool name for the other one…*sigh* help?

Ghosted by Allie @ 01/14/2004 1:20 AM EST

Uhhh… Dr. Claw?

Ghosted by Rewolf J @ 01/14/2004 1:38 AM EST

Where can I get a dog that flies?

Ghosted by The Adamantium Elbow @ 01/14/2004 5:26 AM EST

The second koi should be called "Chief Quimby". Unless they try to kill each other.

I can also lay claim to having kept thousands of different fish species. I always hated the altered fish–the painted ones drive me crazy (the see-through fish with neon colour injected). Glofish are just the next step in manipulating fish buyers. And I have to agree, a tank full of Neon or Cardinal tetras would be way more impressive.

Trajeal–most catfish can scream (talking catfish being very good at it). They squeeze air out from their swimbladders.

More fun are puffer fish, who can do the same thing. Except they get all puffy. And can bite really hard, with really sharp beaks.

Ghosted by Sean @ 01/14/2004 8:15 AM EST

Oh, ouch. Fish that scream AND bite. I think I’m glad that I don’t live in the water.

Another Finding Nemo inconsistency: Why did the filter tube stay filled w/ water after Nemo stopped the motor w/ the pebble? Wouldn’t the water all have drained down back into the tank once the motor stopped?

OT: What code is everyone using to do italics, etc? I tried [i][/i] but it didn’t turn when I previewed my comment.
TIA

Name for the Koi: Dangermouse. They’re both cartoon inspectors from the 80’s w/ arch nemesises (nemisi?) that had hidden faces.

Ghosted by trajeal @ 01/14/2004 9:12 AM EST

Baron von Greenback didn’t have a hidden face!

Ghosted by Nachokhaki @ 01/14/2004 2:24 PM EST

"Aye, Baroni!"

Ghosted by Nachokhaki @ 01/14/2004 2:24 PM EST

If you think screaming and biting fish are scary enough to keep you out of the water, be glad I didn’t go into detail about a little catfish called Candiru.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Ghosted by Sean @ 01/14/2004 5:01 PM EST

Candiru?!? owowowowowow! Just the name makes me walk funny. When I first heard about those fishies, I almost screamed right there in the library.

Ghosted by kingklash @ 01/14/2004 5:31 PM EST

there actually IS a green bunny rabbit, but again, you can only see it under UV. In ordinary light, she’s a plain ol’ albino. Her name is Alba, and you can learn about this adorable mutant at http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor

Ghosted by thingamus @ 01/14/2004 5:40 PM EST

Why do I kill fish so quickly… oh well.

Ghosted by 29 - MR. T @ 01/14/2004 7:53 PM EST

If you want to see the danios glow just put them under a black light. I’m suprised the fish store didn’t do that to prove they glow and help justify the price.

Ghosted by Katuluu @ 01/15/2004 12:11 PM EST

Ah yes…Alba, the Glo-Bunny…I wrote about Eduardo Kac (the artist who collaborated w/the geneticists) in my master’s thesis. Interesting guy. Also interesting that someone should mention glowing chinchillas…when I first heard about the Glo-Bunny, my friend and I discussed the idea of breeding glow-in-the-dark chinchillas, putting oversize hamster tubes (you know, those clear-orange plastic Hartz "habitats" that our small rodent friends seem to enjoy so much) all over the ceiling of his studio, and letting about 25 of those glowing chinchillas run around in there whenever he had parties at his place. Super fun! We’re still waiting for science to catch up…

Ghosted by cyberelf @ 01/15/2004 3:09 AM EST

Oh, and a fish story too (I figure since I’ve never posted before, I should try to catch up a bit) – Had a goldfish…won him at the state fair at that booth where you lob a ping-pong ball into a table full of fishbowls, and if it landed in a fishbowl, you won a goldfish. Seems cruel now that I look back at it, but I was like 8 at the time and the possibility of winning a live goldfish was irresistible. So anyway I have my fishie (imaginatively named Goldie), and I go away on summer vacation, and have to leave it with my cousin, who has a big aquarium w/lots of fishies, so I’m thinking it’ll be like Club Med for my fish, since at my house it lived alone in a tiny round bowl. Come back from vacation, and lo and behold…my cousin’s fishies had EATEN MY FISH’S EYES…AND IT WAS STILL ALIVE! Holy crap. But bless its heart, it lived for another year or so…it would just swim along the bottom of the bowl, scooping up whatever food it found there. I renamed it Ray Charles. It was kinda freaky to look at though, swimmin’ around with no eyes. Perhaps that helps explain why I am the way I am today.

Ghosted by cyberelf @ 01/15/2004 3:18 AM EST

CyberElf, might I just say one thing…. AAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGGEEEEEKKKKKK! Great, a new inmage to feature in my nightmares.

Ghosted by kingklash @ 01/15/2004 11:20 AM EST

trajeal: No, you can’t do italics the vBulletin message board way. You gotta do them the HTML way, which is very similar to the vBulletin way, except with the lesser than (points left) and greater than (points right) symbols around the letters instead of the square brackets: (lesser than symbol)i(greater than symbol)word(lesser than symbol)/i(greater than symbol) = word. Same for bold.

Ghosted by Steve Brandon @ 01/15/2004 1:56 PM EST

Now, if anyone wants to know how to make a word with a hyperlink, that’s a tad more complicated because it doesn’t bear much resemblance to vBulletin:

(lesser than symbol)a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/"(greater than symbol)Rotten Tomatoes(lesser than symbol)/a(greater than symbol) = Rotten Tomatoes.

Don’t forget the quotation marks around the URL.

Ghosted by Steve Brandon @ 01/15/2004 2:05 PM EST

kingklash – glad I could help

Ghosted by cyberelf @ 01/15/2004 6:02 PM EST

Thanks! That question was so old, I was sure I wasn’t going to get an answer for it.

A friend of mine had a fish that had all of the fins eaten off, but it continued to live. It must have been top heavy, b/c it would just sorta bounce around the bottom of the tank on its face, w/ its tail sticking straight up. It would try to turn, esp when there was food floating down around it, but it never could manage. It lived for about a year like that.

I want to try this now <> FISH!<>

Ghosted by trajeal @ 01/16/2004 9:35 AM EST

Trying again: Fa-fa-fa-fishy!

Ghosted by trajeal @ 01/16/2004 9:37 AM EST

Ooh, yay!

Ghosted by trajeal @ 01/16/2004 9:37 AM EST

Prowlus: The method you mentioned for introducing the coral genes into the GloFish was used in the first generation of the fish. Unlike the various types of artificially dyed fish on the market, the GloFish actually breed true. I’ll admit that I am not thrilled by florescent danios, at least as a commercial product. On the other hand, the same company that produced these fish has also been working on actual bioluminscent aquarium fish, something that strikes me as much neater. (A florescent object glows when you energize it with an outside lightsource. A luminescent object glows due to an energy reaction within the object. Thus the glowy paint is florescent while a light bulb is luminescent)

Ghosted by Voxpopuli @ 01/16/2004 12:55 PM EST

The pet store I got mine at simply offered them as "Red Danios – $5.99" No mention of genetic modification, glowing, and nary a blacklight in sight. If all the hype ends outside the pet-shop door, no wonder the craze is dropping off — who’d wanna buy what looks like a six-buck red fish? But, hey, I bought two — they look waaaay more bright red than those in the pictures… they do even seem to glow faintly, even under regular light. Must be a different strain. And I haven’t tried the blacklight thing yet — so maybe there is a chance for startling neon glow-in-the-darkness after all. ::shrug::
Oh, and just to add to this litany of Things Nobody Particularly Cares About, I named ‘em Uranium-235 and Rubidium, after the radioactive elements. ::grin:: Yay for Yuri and Ruby.
heh.

Ghosted by Ash @ 01/16/2004 5:44 PM EST

Does anyone remember strawberry twinkies or know if they still make them?

Ghosted by Joey @ 01/16/2004 7:02 PM EST

Ummm to the one called "Prowlus" Whats an Oscar and what does "Ciclidae" mean?

Ghosted by Daveykins @ 01/17/2004 9:26 PM EST

Daveykins:

Oscars are a really big predatory fish in the fish family Cichlidae (a group of related fish). I have my doubts a big oscar would even waste the energy on chasing danios.

I had pretty much the same sentiment about the danios, except I keep Polypterus, which you can see at my website. In fact, I actually have fed them danios (but not glofish, that would be a waste of money).

And YAY! The italics worked! I can be taxonomically pure once more!

Ghosted by Sean @ 01/17/2004 10:00 PM EST

Oscars are great fun, they are like the puppy dogs of the fish world. More personality then you can imagine. Mine have a tendancy to ‘beg’ for food and want to be petted

Ghosted by robbdj @ 01/18/2004 12:01 PM EST

Yeah, I doubt anyone will see this, or if its been said b4, but oh well,…

As an actual genetics najor, I can tell you that genetically modified organisms really arent dangerous at all. Nor are they all that hard to make, if you have the gene you want to tag on sequenced. The coolest thing I’ve seen are mice that had GFP (green fluorescent protein) being expressed in their skin. They really glow quite green under UV light. No reason was given for it, that I saw. But GFP is cool, so that’s reason enough.

Ghosted by TOP1214 @ 01/19/2004 12:24 PM EST

Matt,

Nice article, but one suggestion. On of the funniest of the many hilarious items on the site is the old zoo tours that were going on for awhile. The key was the haikus from the animals (I think it was the croc farm). Like the talking Hulk reviews, the personification was just great. Maybe fish Haikus are in the future?
Keep it up. I got Unicron for Xmas. Am slowly adding Microcons.
Signed, A grown man twinkie addict.

Ghosted by been @ 01/19/2004 2:28 PM EST

hey matt whatever happened to the hermit crabs

Ghosted by reso @ 01/21/2004 2:22 AM EST

I fanyone is interested in "glowing" fish, and are wondering why they don’t seem to, I will answer this question for you.
These genetically modified fish have been altered in that a fluorescent protein from a jellyfish called GFP or "green fluorecent protein" has been put into them and is expressed ubiquitously throughout the organism.
What this means is that these fish don’t "glow", they "fluorece". Simply put, by placing these fish under the right fluorescent wavelength, they will glow bright green. Other GFP variants have been created in different colors, including red, cyan and yellow.
if anyone wants to know the genetics behind it email me- gbienwillner@hotmail.com.

Ghosted by the geneticist @ 01/21/2004 8:10 PM EST

This GloFish hype reminds me of Seamonkeys when I was a kid. In the back of every comic book was an ad showing a Seamonkey family, the daughter with a ribbon in her hair, the son with a beach ball, the Dad smoking a pipe. I finally bought a kit at Target when I was in college a few years ago and they truely sucked ass. They looked like tadpoles and died within a week.

Ghosted by Fr8train @ 01/22/2004 12:13 PM EST

I weep for your chinchilla.

Ghosted by Zombie Clay @ 01/22/2004 11:51 PM EST

Neon Tetras are neat little fish, and while they don’t actually ‘glow’ like a light, they have neat neon coloured stripes that are closer to glowing than what I saw in the pcitures here…

Ghosted by Justine @ 01/24/2004 8:43 AM EST

hi there,
I found your article to be enjoyable! Althought, I wish your Glofish were more like mine! Mine are very close to the unbelievable pink found on the glofish site. But, I do have more colorfull rocks and such that could add to it. Email me if you want some of my pics for your site or anything. I have had a blast posting pics of them!

Ghosted by Sarah @ 02/04/2004 12:02 PM EST

If you’re thinking of getting a salt water tank, make sure it’s at least a twenty gallon. Anything smaller should probably be reserved for quarantine. Best bet for starters would be clowns or damsels, both of which are fairly durable. They’ll ‘cycle’ your tank, and they aren’t that expensive. Some damsels will sell from three to ten bucks, and the clowns will typically run fifteen bucks for ocelaris clowns, and like, thirty or more for true perculas.

Ghosted by "Wild" Bill @ 02/07/2004 9:28 AM EST

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