Glo-fish babies and research
I’ll get the full article from the original publication if anyone is interested..it’s OK to distribute it as long as it’s for educational purposes only, or I could offer a summary if that’d be better? I don’t think I should post it, but I can snail mail it out to anyone who wants to see it. I can get the others that you guys don’t have access too. Also, anyone can write the author’s school with a “reprint request” and they’ll mail it to you free of charge.
I’ll look to see what the actual gene came from, but one was from a coral, and another from an anemone. Gene “injection” which is what they do isn’t new, it’s been done in many different kinds of animals, and in this instance, it’s controlled by a muscle-specific gene “promotor” that turns on the gene in the muscle tissue–it’s the actual muscle that’s colored, not the scales!
I can’t be sure, but it is likely (we’ll know more later) that the different colors reside in different areas of the DNA, so that MIGHT be why I’m seeing a pink in my red X green crosses. Again, we have a ton more fish to examine before I can tell you for sure.
What I CAN tell you now is that it is not “sketchy” evidence that they are sterile, as has been reported by some in the hobby. They are breeding and behaving as normal danio fry in all respects, although I do not have any of the orange at this time.
I can also say that it seems the greens are a bit smaller and a bit less hardy than the reds that we have. I don’t have enough of the greens to say this holds true for all of the greens, but it appears so at this point.
They are “glowing” or showing good color under standard, ordinary aquarium flourescents, and they even show great color with ordinary room lighting as well. They are working well for experiments with the students because they are showing color as little as day 5 post hatch!
Right now we have red (to me looks bright pink), baby pink, some that MIGHT end up soft blue, and a few “in-betweens” of a darker baby pink. We should have more colors later, as the students continue with the work.
I’d love to work with some Kudas…I had dwarf SHs years ago, and we were just cycling a tank for them. The Kudas would be a MORE than welcome addition!!! What size fry do you prefer? they are munching on baby brine, microworms, and walter worms, although it seems they prefer the baby brine right now. I can give you cultures of the micros and walters. Funny, because the betta babies seem to prefer the micros and walter worms, but will take down a brine shrimp too.
FWIW, we’ve lost almost none of the fry, but I can tell you I start the egg-layers other than Bettas on cultured paramecium, so that might have made a difference.
Overall, the students are MUCH more into this than into the mutant fruit flies they must count and count and count : )…I’d never let them know it, but I HATED counting flies myself!
Amanda
Category: AquaticLife
