Designer Fish

[100%hydrophylic]

all of you are attacking the "what ifs" involving genetic defects that might occur.

well what if through some genetic altering we make tangs less susceptible to ick? what if you can splice a mandarins gene for disease resistance into any other fish? this will lead to less dieing fish, which will lead to less replacing of fish, which will lead to less harvesting in the long run.

 

[crazylegs]

100%- What if one of said fishes gets released into the wild(which you know would happen!) where it is no longer bound by environmental controls and disrupts multiple ecosystems by outcompeting indigenous niche species?

When an animal is no longer in the environment for which it is best suited, it will become stressed. Stressed animals are more vulnerable to disease than healthy animals, right? That's what keeps species localized and where they belong. These environmental controls have evolved and created the reefs and ecosystems that we know today. This has to be taken into consideration before we try to manipulate any type of life to better suit our wants or needs.

 

[100%hydrophylic]

any fish strong enough could be introduced into a foreign reef and mess up local ecosystem. im pretty sure a non native species of lionfish got introduced somewhere and now the reef is infested with them. dont know specifics on the but i read an article a while back. that can happen even if the fish wasn't disease resistant.

i have a question though, why have mandarins not spread everywhere? it certainly is a very popular fish in the marine trade. i think there's something more than disease that's keeping a fish introduced into a foreign environment from taking over a certain niche.

 

[crazylegs]

Predators, prey, environmental extremes, genetic diversity, etc. No, not disease alone.

I think it's easier to understand if you think of what strengths a species has. The mandarin is effective at feeding off pods in stucture. Given pods, structure, and the previously mentioned variables, mandarins probably would survive in fitting environments that they are introduced to. Especially if they can out-compete the existing pod eaters.

 

[Beaun]

any fish strong enough could be introduced into a foreign reef and mess up local ecosystem. im pretty sure a non native species of lionfish got introduced somewhere and now the reef is infested with them. dont know specifics on the but i read an article a while back. that can happen even if the fish wasn't disease resistant.

i have a question though, why have mandarins not spread everywhere? it certainly is a very popular fish in the marine trade. i think there's something more than disease that's keeping a fish introduced into a foreign environment from taking over a certain niche.

Really? Why not introduce non-native species?

V. Lions were introduced into Florida waters and now are all over the Carribean and all the way up to New England in the summer. They out compete other fish and a predators to many species of fish that have no defence against them. Introducing any non-natives species anywhere is a bad thing, you have no idea how it will behave in its new environment and how the natural life will be able to deal with it.

 

[100%hydrophylic]

beaun

...thats my point... lol. im saying that that particular lionfish is not genetically modified is it? genetically modifying a fish doesn't directly lead to that happening. it happens regardless of modification.

his argument sounded like that if we modify any fish, then non native invasion will happen. but i think this is a confusion on cause and effect. one does not cause the other directly. any fish could potentially out compete even if it werent modified, so i dont think modifying for disease resistance has this particular downside.

 

[SurrealSerenity]

wouldn't it be neat if we could create tiny bears and gorillas, small enough to fit in your pocket? Maybe even tiny dolphins and whales. Cool.

Those strangely marked clown fishes are truly repulsive. Ages of evolutionary development producing unmatchable natural beauty, turned into ugly blobs. That there are people willing to pay serious money for these damaged creatures is not surprising, in a world of jersey shore mtv and paint-on-velvet .

+ 1 !!

 

[Beaun]

beaun

...thats my point... lol. im saying that that particular lionfish is not genetically modified is it? genetically modifying a fish doesn't directly lead to that happening. it happens regardless of modification.

his argument sounded like that if we modify any fish, then non native invasion will happen. but i think this is a confusion on cause and effect. one does not cause the other directly. any fish could potentially out compete even if it werent modified, so i dont think modifying for disease resistance has this particular downside.

I see, it came across (at least when I first read it) like you were advocating introducing non-natives. I do agree that it shouldn't make a difference because no fish should ever be introduced where it does not belong.

 

[GhostCon1]

Really? Why not introduce non-native species?

V. Lions were introduced into Florida waters and now are all over the Carribean and all the way up to New England in the summer. They out compete other fish and a predators to many species of fish that have no defence against them. Introducing any non-natives species anywhere is a bad thing, you have no idea how it will behave in its new environment and how the natural life will be able to deal with it.

Well, for personal experience on the problems of nonnative species, we could just talk to our Australian mates :dance:

Or, look in Americans' backyards (in the south) and see how many fire ants there are.

And I am 100% against selective breeding for body shape changing, to me the most abhorrent thing we have done to fish is the "Lion" and the "Bubble-eye" gold fish. Just lookin at them you can tell they are not happy. They look seriously ill whenever I see them.

 

[Ryno368]

i agree i am very enraged everytime i see the bubble eye goldfish or glofish. but the sad part is that most people do not even know they are mutations or altered

 

[GhostCon1]

There's also the fish that have injections in them to spell things. Horribly disgusting imo.

 

[expyman]

I must agree the bubbled goldfish have made me sick from the first day I've seen one...
I think they look sick and not happy with their inability to swim properly.

 

[a-T-m]

I think that the term designer is misinterpreted to mean different things.

Designer clownfish, are not engineered or created. Back in the day, some breeder stumbled upon a unique fry, and then selectively breed until the anomaly could be repeated with consistency. Selective breeding does not alter the genome in any way. ORA and any other breeder is going to get the unique looking fish, as well as the normal looking ones in all their hatches. In some near impossible statistic, it is possible for a picasso or misbar to occur in the wild, since these forms are derived from variations within the fish's gene. These fish are not man made, since the traits that make them of "designer" quality are not engineered, but bred to be brought out.

Now, Glo Fish, and miniture animals, I think are morally wrong. Unlike breeding and using putnam's squares to find a specific trait, these processes would be manipulating the genetic make up of the animal to create the desired traits, and ultimately changing its genetic make up. This is something that can't be done, and does not happen in nature, and therefore isn't right.

Regardless of anyone's stance, I agree with Hydroliphic and Beaun; Eventually, we will ultimately face the inclusion of genetically modified fish into our hobby, so the term "designer fish" will encompass those that are selectively bred and genetically engineered. So long as "designer fish" don't enter the wild, their implications can only affect our tanks and economies, and not the wild.

 

[WTyson]

what is exactly wrong with the glofish? its just a neon version of a normal danio. would it not be the same as releasing a normal danio in the wild? also i would assume that the majority of our "designed" fish would be at a competitive disadvantage do to their natural counterparts, because of the the highly stable conditions that they are kept in (ie constant food source, lack of predators, antibiotic treatment of disease). As far as the ethical issues are concerned, humans have been designing crops for the last 5,000-10,000 years, we have domesticated two species (both cats and dogs) and shaped them in every way possible. the cows and chickens that we eat are genetic monsters, and could not survive on their own. So to say that man shaping a particular fish species to look a certain way is wrong, is to go against everything our species has done for the last 10,000 years.

of course those of you who live on a diet of wild berries, and subsistence hunting would be exempt from my previous comments.

biological organisms man has "designed"
wheat
yeast
corn
soy
rice
current versions of chicken, beef, pork
all forms of domesticated cat and dog with the exception of the wolf.
salmon
talapia
most forms of fruit and vegetables

Now i am not saying that humanity has designed each of the above to the degree of the glofish, but we have played a substantial role in selecting the phenotypes that suit us best, therefore driving the genotypes of the populations in directions that would not occur due to normal evolution.

now the effect of introducing alien species to new environments is generally disastrous, and i agree that historically it has almost always (i cannot think on an exception) ended badly.

But then again, the majority (by population) of the large animal species in north America are non-native.

 

[ctenophors rule]

Wouldn't it be neat if we could create tiny bears and gorillas, small enough to fit in your pocket? Maybe even tiny dolphins and whales. Cool.

Those strangely marked clown fishes are truly repulsive. Ages of evolutionary development producing unmatchable natural beauty, turned into ugly blobs. That there are people willing to pay serious money for these damaged creatures is not surprising, in a world of Jersey Shore MTV and paint-on-velvet .

whats repulsive is keeping an animal in a tank to small for it.

Many of the arguements against genetic engineering are based apon the misconception of what is natural.

for one, we are natural so what ever we do is in turn natural. If a hermit crab is brought to an island that it never inhabited before by a dolphin is it native?

for those who think that we (and the dolphin) are preternatural by moving organisms around (not that i am saying this is a good thing) their is an even better arguement to support genetic engineering. (especialy since this is such a week and easily countered one)

our tanks are not natural, so why do the fish need to be? if we could design a fish that didn't get stressed by the smaller than natural spaces, or that was dependant apon a specific chemical in the food to prevent disasters like whats happening with the lion fish in the atlantic and caulerpa in the pacific, or even made its food more receptive ( like i dont know glowing mouthed mandarins) in the end these animals are better off, wont come from the wild, and as such many of the problems associated with our hobby can be avoided.

and if your still not convinced i have a scenario.

if their only exhisted 20 bengal tigers, would it be okay to geneticaly engineer a tiger from egg to adult so that it didn't take any from the wild and raised awareness about them for conservation efforts?

cheers. tommy

(i've been waiting for this discussion for ever!)

 

[ctenophors rule]

Now, Glo Fish, and miniture animals, I think are morally wrong. Unlike breeding and using putnam's squares to find a specific trait, these processes would be manipulating the genetic make up of the animal to create the desired traits, and ultimately changing its genetic make up. This is something that can't be done, and does not happen in nature, and therefore isn't right.
.

what about mutations? would it be okay if people exploited a mutation that occured while breeding?

 

[a-T-m]

what about mutations? would it be okay if people exploited a mutation that occured while breeding?

Well that's what picasso clownfish are, a mutation in their barring pattern, and that's what i mentioned in the paragraph above that.

I'd rather have exploitation of a naturally occuring mutation than the manufacture or alteration of a gene.

 

[WTyson]

Well that's what picasso clownfish are, a mutation in their barring pattern, and that's what i mentioned in the paragraph above that.

I'd rather have exploitation of a naturally occurring mutation than the manufacture or alteration of a gene.

What is the difference? so it is ok for us to put pressure on a species (selective breeding) in order for a specimen to form with the phenotype that we want, but not ok to just determine the genotype/gene that codes for that phenotype, and use it to selectively create specimens with the phenotype (and therefore genotype) that we want.

Instead of waiting for "nature" to give us (random mutation) the phenotype we want, science is just taking a more proactive role.

Could there be abuse, of course.

Is there a benefit, most certainly.


Just remember that we are doing the exact same thing as nature, just at a much faster pace, and much more efficiently.

 

[ctenophors rule]

I'd rather have exploitation of a naturally occuring mutation than the manufacture or alteration of a gene.

definitions for mutation copied from various sources.

occurs when a DNA gene is damaged or changed in such a way as to alter the genetic message carried by that gene

A permanent, heritable change in the nucleotide sequence in a gene or a chromosome; the process in which such a change occurs in a gene or in a chromosome

change of the DNA sequence within a gene or chromosome of an organism resulting in the creation of a new character or trait not found in the parental type.

The process by which such a change occurs in a chromosome, either through an alteration in the nucleotide sequence of the DNA coding for a gene or through a change in the physical arrangement of a chromosome

alterations of genes are mutations are alterations of genes.- mine.

you said that sinse their is a "near impossible statistic" that a clownfish will be born a picaso in the wild that it is ok. if i am understanding you right it is because as long as it can happen in nature it is ok.
further evidence "These fish are not man made, since the traits that make them of "designer" quality are not engineered, but bred to be brought out."- A.T.M

now sinse it is nearly impossible (but still possible) for miniature animals and glowing danios would you agree that they are acceptable? i'm finding it difficult to follow your train of thought. (though i likely to be just as liable for that, i truly write like an old french man:lmao

cheers. tommy

 

[a-T-m]

Haha, I don't doubt for a second that my train of thought is hard to follow.

The way i see it:

Percula Clownfish misbarring is a natural mutation. Therefore, it is entirely possible for a picasso clownfish to occur in the wild. This is because of the inheritence and combination of the misbar genes from the lineage that the fish came from.

Now, selective breeding does not put any pressure onto the fish. Not all of the fish will hatch with the desired pattern (grade b picassos, misbars, semi snowflakes....), and those that don't make the cut are not disposed of (at least by any reputable and professional dealer). If they all came out as grade a's, then they wouldn't be marketed at high prices, and sold as designer or unique. This is because a natural occuring mutation isn't mainstream, it doesn't occur in the population's majority. Through selective breeding, we are exploiting the misbar gene, but genetically, they are still clownfish.

Science, in making smaller animals or glofish, is not working at a faster pace than nature. Because nature has no necessity for a pocket sized gorilla; that's what people want, and what people will work to create.

The difficulty that i have with genetic engineering is that it changes the gene of an animal for good. As i stated above, misbar clownfish will create normal offspring, and the offspring with their mutated gene. But, the way i see it, a miniture gorilla will go on and produce more miniture gorillas.

In my own opinion, i cannot seem to justify that because it isn't the exploitation of something found in nature, it is the creation of something new simply because man wants it.

Now there are definitely benefits of doing things like that, and there are downsides. But right now, i think that glofish and imaging tiny gorillas are not strong and positive arguments for genetic engineering in our hobby.

just mah 2 cents

-Austin