Do they really?

Question

Do they really inject painted Glass Fish with ink when they are little to make them change colors? If so, wouldn't that be potentially harmful to the fish?
And if they dont inject them, how do they get that pretty color?

Pictures:
http://www.petfish.net/articles/pix/Painted_loki.jpg
http://www.petpig.com/fish/fish/Glass-Fish.jpg
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/gallery/characins/painted_tetras_sm.jpg

Answer 1

The ones you linked are all injected. Some, like jellybean parrots, are dipped. And the tattooing?? It's all horribly cruel and inhumane. Please don't buy ANYthing from a pet store selling dyed fish, and TELL THEM why you're boycotting them.

Tara is right, that there is the glofish, an artifically created strain of zebra danio, that is that bright (though I've only seen them in yellow, pink, and red.. not blue or green); they aren't dyed but rather genetically tampered with and then born that way. (There are pictures of them at www.glofish.com) It doesn't involve pain or health hazards to the fish and they can even pass the color on to their babies, so I have no problem with it, but some people find it unnatural and still object to it. That's up to you.

Just be sure you can recognize a dyed fish so that you can avoid EVER buying one -- if in doubt, don't buy it! The employees very often either don't know or will deliberately lie to you -- and tell your friends, too!

Answer 2

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they do. I don't know much about it, I just figured it out recently that they did that sort of thing to fish when I started seeing fish with "I (heart) you" tattooed on them. Like the others said, I'm pretty sure it's not very humane.

But from experience, I can tell you that the color on those injected fish doesn't last forever. I don't remember how long it usually lasts since it was years ago that we had them, but I remember we used to keep buying those fish, not understanding why their color kept fading away.

Answer 3

neither encourage nor condone severe cruelty to animals, even small helpless fish. Several varieties of fish are being artificially colored to improve marketability. Amongst these fish are the Colored Skirts, Painted Glass Fish, Painted Tiger Barbs, and Colored Botias.

The practice of painting fish, also called juicing or dying the fish, appears to have actually started in the late 1970s with the Glass Perch (Chanda ranga or Chanda wolfii), also known as the Indian Glassfish, the Indian Glass Tetra, the Glass Tetra, or simply as the Glassfish, being injected or "juiced" with stripes of bright colored pigments along their dorsal and ventral lines. Though this produces a very striking looking fish, the hobbyists of the day quickly realized that this coloration was artificial, and protest throughout most of the US and Western Europe appeared to have eliminated these fish from the hobby, to everyone's relief (possibly except the suppliers).

However, in the late 1980s, this fish worked its way back into the marketplace. This time either people are less concerned about the welfare of these animals, or there are enough shops that are more interested in the bottom line than the welfare of these animals, that they do not appear to be disappearing from the market, but this affliction of juicing or dying has spread to many other species and varieties.

The "Painted" Glass Fish is not a natural color morph. Small pockets of dye are injected just below the skin using a large gauge needle. The puncture wounds inflicted on these fish must be traumatic. Unlike a tattoo, the wound does not heal with the new pigment dispersed into surrounding cells, but the dye appears to remain liquid in the pockets where it was injected, until such time as the dye has worked its way out of the body or the fish's immune system has eliminated it. Of the few of these fish that survive this process, most will die within the two months following the trauma, and those that still survive will have lost their coloration within six to ten months. Only about 10% of the fish that survive for sale will keep their coloration for any length of time. The practice of painting these fish has nearly eliminated the availability of the unpainted variety in the pet industry.

Answer 4

They do inject them, all tho recently they have been genetically engineering "glow fish" which have a jelly fish gene implanted into the fish egg before it is hatched. So it is "born" that way some can even reproduce fluorescent fish because the gene is already part of their DNA.

Answer 5

They really do inject them. It's cruel and most of them die before getting to the stores and then the rest of them die shortly after making it home to your tank.

Don't buy fish from stores that sell the dyed glass fish.

Answer 6

omg. those fish are beautiful. i've never heard of them before and i looked them up and i'm shocked! yes, they are injected with ink. how incredibly cruel. they're so pretty tho. wow
lol, the guy's answer under mine came from the website i put as the source. too funny

Answer 7

Yes, they do. And yes, it stresses the fish at the very least. All for a pretty color to make the fish sell, even though the color will fade in a few months and the fish will go back to looking like "normal" glass fish: http://www.aquanovel.com/images/peces/parambassis2.jpg - if they live that long.

An even more disturbing trend is the tattooing of fish: http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=850 Additional photos: http://www.petfishtalk.com/rss_feeds/images/070207_tattooed_fish.jpg , http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/thumbnails/thumb_leeclint_dyed_amphilophus.jpg , http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/images/karengray_dyedparrots.jpg

There's just something wrong with this practice!

Answer 8

i guess they do. i see parrot fishes in different color variety. the back fins are chopped off leaving the bottom and top. i once saw markings "I heart U". kind of cruel as you can say

Answer 9

they inject some of them heres the info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Fish

Answer 10

they do inject them