Jumping jellyfish, those fish glow

A recent addition to Seven Seas Pet Store in Jasper brings some funny images to mind, but more on that in a bit, first let’s talk about these new pets.

Eric Majors, owner at Seven Seas, recently added a trademarked fish called GloFish™. The fish glow because they have been genetically engineered with jelly fish DNA.

Audrey Verkamp, a zoologist and employee at Seven Seas, explained there are several types of fish being used to create the GloFish™ and the glowing trait is part of the fish’s DNA. “The DNA of the fish have been altered so they will actually pass the glow-trait along to their offspring,” she explained.

That means customers can potentially have little glowing baby fish.

There are several variants of the fish and Eric even sells tanks that are specially designed with features to enhance the glowing effects of the fish. The tanks use actinic bulbs but customers can also use a black-light for night viewing.

The fish that Seven Seas carries are a type of zebrafish (zebra danios) that were originally engineered in Singapore to change color due to different environmental factors. The developers,  NUS Department of Biological Sciences, created the fish to actually detect pollution in water.

Currently they come in three colors orange (sunburst), fluorescent pink and fluorescent green, but the developers are working on five different colors the fish will display depending on what type of pollutant is in the water.

In addition to zebrafish, NUS is working on adding the glow-trait to carp and goldfish, which immediately brought to mind bow-fishermen being equipped with black lights hunting glowing carp on the Patoka River. Maybe in the near future.

Meanwhile, while the science is being worked out, newcomers to fish ownership can get some interesting fish to display.

Here is a link for information on the development of the fish as well as their environmental impact.