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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 on 01/12/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 112 comments

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!

Chestnuts roasted by G'Tron @ 01/13/2004 4:34 AM

yorktown technologies, where more fish than fish is our motto

Chestnuts roasted by urquidez @ 01/13/2004 8:38 AM

"’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.

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

Just saw this article on Yahoo! News:

click here

Chestnuts roasted by B-Dawg @ 01/13/2004 10:39 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Stilewalker @ 01/13/2004 1:26 PM

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)

Chestnuts roasted by Prowlus @ 01/13/2004 2:36 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by FuzzyFurryFoxie @ 01/13/2004 6:09 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by MangusDangus @ 01/13/2004 6:27 PM

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….

Chestnuts roasted by MallcoreMotion @ 01/13/2004 8:33 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by AFI_RT_Jeff Hardy @ 01/13/2004 9:30 PM

I have _never_ heard of Glofish before today…

Chestnuts roasted by jjgoreha @ 01/13/2004 11:05 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Smalley @ 01/14/2004 1:11 AM

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…

Chestnuts roasted by Nonesuch @ 01/14/2004 1:11 AM

I bought some japenese Koi today cost me $6 a piece..and they’re huge :D 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?

Chestnuts roasted by Allie @ 01/14/2004 1:20 AM

Uhhh… Dr. Claw?

Chestnuts roasted by Rewolf J @ 01/14/2004 1:38 AM

Where can I get a dog that flies?

Chestnuts roasted by The Adamantium Elbow @ 01/14/2004 5:26 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Sean @ 01/14/2004 8:15 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by trajeal @ 01/14/2004 9:12 AM

Baron von Greenback didn’t have a hidden face!

Chestnuts roasted by Nachokhaki @ 01/14/2004 2:24 PM

"Aye, Baroni!"

Chestnuts roasted by Nachokhaki @ 01/14/2004 2:24 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Sean @ 01/14/2004 5:01 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 01/14/2004 5:31 PM

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">http://www.ekac.org/gfpbunny.html#gfpbunnyanchor

Chestnuts roasted by thingamus @ 01/14/2004 5:40 PM

Why do I kill fish so quickly… oh well.

Chestnuts roasted by 29 - MR. T @ 01/14/2004 7:53 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Katuluu @ 01/15/2004 12:11 PM

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2004 at 12:40 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.