Any fishkeepers here?

[Ironhead]

I have no fish now, though I have had many in my time, but I am thinking of starting a 70 gallon that I have with some native fish of this area. I had one many years ago with native fish but I was to lazy to take care of them back then so I released them. Im thinking I will have Large and small mouth bass, Flat Head, Blue & Yellow Belly catfishes and Blue Gill or as they are called in the South....Brim. There are lots more but better not stuff the tank. Some of these, especially the flat heads get very big.

Has anyone ever thought of or have had native species tanks?

[Tigergenesis]

I am totally against it myself. It's been awhile since I've bought fish or really visited the aquarium section in the petstores-not lost any fish in awhile (knock on wood). So what are all the fish that are injected? I seem to remember the Painted Glass fish - is this right?

[Marla]

Was wondering what you guy's think of certain tropical fish being injected with a dye, or dipped in a dye to make them colorful?

I hate it personally, always have and now my kids hate it too. The animals are interesting or beautiful enough naturally not to need any "makeup." In general, I oppose artificial "beautification" of natural things. It's one thing to trim a shrub or a dog's coat, and quite another to remove, add, or alter natural features of the animal.

[Ironhead]

The painted glass fish is one. There are Blood Parrot Cichlids, Lutino and Albino morph of the Black Skirt Tetra, Skunk Botia, Tin Foil Barb, Red and Green Tiger Barbs, Bala Shark, Albino morphs of the Oscar, Albino Palaetus, Aeneus Cory Catfish, Honey Gourami, Albino Plecostomus, Fruit Loop Tetras......im sure the list goes on. But these are many of the ones that are being injected or dipped in dye's.

[Tigergenesis]

The Bala Sharks? Wow, I had no idea about most of those - especially the Tin Foil Barbs, Bala Shark, and the cories.

[Ironhead]

You can see some of them here....

http://fish.orbust.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7123

[led4urhead]

Was wondering what you guy's think of certain tropical fish being injected with a dye, or dipped in a dye to make them colorful?

Ironhead - People do this? You've got to be kidding me! I've never heard of this before, then again .. i've never kept fish before outside of the 2 goldfish i won at the fair when i was younger. Thats just horrible.

[Tigergenesis]

Thanks for that link!

[sophie42204]

I've heard of it and have always been against it. I knew tetras were dyed, but didn't know about some of the others. In Japan they have genetically altered fish to make them glow in the dark (saw a special on National Geographic just the other day), they look like tetras but I don't know what kind of fish they really are....it's just so wrong!!
EDIT: I just checked out that link and there is a picture of the genetically altered fish that I mentioned.

[Brandon.O]

Those blood parrot cichlid's look so fake its unbelieveable !!