Mike’s Fish Tank – History of the Glo Fish

Here is the history of the glo fish. The original zebrafish, or zebra danio from which the glo fish was developed is a native of rivers in India and Bangladesh. It measures three centimeters long and has gold and dark blue stripes. Over 200 million zebra danios have been sold in the U.S. in the last 50 years. Despite the number of zebrafish sold, they have never established any wild populations in the United States, primarily because they are tropical fish, unable to survive in the temperate North American climate.

In 1999 a doctor and his colleagues at the University of Singapore were working with a gene that encodes the green fluorescent protein originally extracted from a jellyfish, that naturally produced bright green fluorescence. They inserted the gene into a zebrafish embryo, allowing it to integrate into the zebrafish’s genome, which caused the fish to be brightly fluorescent under both natural white light and ultra-violet light. Their goal was to develop a fish that could detect pollution by selectively fluorescing in the presence of environmental toxins.

Shortly thereafter, the team developed a line of red fluorescent zebrafish by adding a gene from a sea coral, and an orange zebrafish, by adding a variant of the jellyfish gene. 

Glo fish were introduced to the U.S. market in late 2003 after more than 2 years of extensive environmental research and consultation with various Federal and State agencies. Because tropical aquarium fish are not used for food purposes, they pose no threat to the food supply.

There was no evidence that the genetically altered zebra danio posed any more threat to the environment then their unaltered counterparts which have long been sold in the United States. In the absence of a clear risk to the public health, the FDA found no reason to regulate these particular fish. Thus Glofish entered the aquarium trade, and are very very popular. They also have developed a purple and blue strain glofish.

Just recently a  flo. green tetra and flo. green tiger barb have just entered the marketplace. They are a bit pricey now but I expect their prices will fall as more are produced.

Pets A Plenty is located on Rte 281 Cortland, across from Tops Market in the TJ Nails Plaza. 753-9213. Open 7 days a week. We now have a website. www.petsaplety.biz. check it out. I post care sheets, coupons, new animal arrivals, contests and more. Any questions, email me at friskyy@hotmail.com

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