I'm not sure if anyone keeps these or if there's any interest. And I'm not looking for advice or an explanation, except perhaps for curiosity's sake.
I just wanted to share my experiences with them.
At one time I was quite fascinated with these. I had an unplanted 10G almost dedicated to them, with 50/50 actinics and a stark black and white scape to bring out their (un)natural beauty. Their hyperactive nature was also entertaining.
Things went fine until until females started to fill with eggs. One male went dominant, and relentlessly harassed the other males. Eventually the weakest ones started wasting away, then dying.
I hoped this was just an unusually aggressive male, so I removed him, then packed the tank with more to fill out the school size. A new male took up the role. More deaths.
Then I put that male and the largest female in a hastily assembled breeding tank, not really expecting anything. To my surprise, the next day there were eggs everywhere; and soon thereafter, tons of tiny little fluorescent red fish!
About 50 grew large enough to be transferred to various other planted high- and low-tech community tanks. No problems.
At least until my first 50% Python water change. Within a minute or two, every Glofish in that low-tech tank was floating dead. Every other fish was fine. What the heck?
That took out half my Glofish in one shot.
Obviously, they're incredibly more sensitive to something than other fish, but I wasn't certain what. There's very little chlorine/chloramine in our water here, and I do condition; so I'm fairly sure it's not that.
Next test was with just a few Glofish. I carefully adjusted the fill water temperature to the tank temperature. Again, dead Glofish in about a minute.
More experiments followed. Even temperature adjusted, pH adjusted, conditioned, aerated, and aged replacement water still caused deaths. It took longer for death to happen, about 15-20 minutes; but they still went from apparently fine to dead or dying in about a minute.
Eventually I figured something out. 50% water change = dead Glofish. 33% water change = live Glofish with no ill effects whatsoever; even straight from the tap with no adjustments.
Weird.
So I moved the remaining Glofish to my 46G and resigned myself to 33% water changes on it.
It worked ok, but very rarely, one would suffer a rapid death, while the rest of the Glofish were unaffected. The ones I bred never showed any hint of aggressive nature, and got along fine.
So it went for years until yesterday, when I lost my last five Glofish. The only thing I did differently was to add a trickle of hot water from the tap, since the cold water was very cold. They were all approaching the end of their normal lifespan anyway.
I'm sorry to see them go, but also relieved; it's a load off my mind to do a water change without wondering if something is going to die.
I just wanted to share my experiences with them.
At one time I was quite fascinated with these. I had an unplanted 10G almost dedicated to them, with 50/50 actinics and a stark black and white scape to bring out their (un)natural beauty. Their hyperactive nature was also entertaining.
Things went fine until until females started to fill with eggs. One male went dominant, and relentlessly harassed the other males. Eventually the weakest ones started wasting away, then dying.
I hoped this was just an unusually aggressive male, so I removed him, then packed the tank with more to fill out the school size. A new male took up the role. More deaths.
Then I put that male and the largest female in a hastily assembled breeding tank, not really expecting anything. To my surprise, the next day there were eggs everywhere; and soon thereafter, tons of tiny little fluorescent red fish!
About 50 grew large enough to be transferred to various other planted high- and low-tech community tanks. No problems.
At least until my first 50% Python water change. Within a minute or two, every Glofish in that low-tech tank was floating dead. Every other fish was fine. What the heck?
That took out half my Glofish in one shot.
Obviously, they're incredibly more sensitive to something than other fish, but I wasn't certain what. There's very little chlorine/chloramine in our water here, and I do condition; so I'm fairly sure it's not that.
Next test was with just a few Glofish. I carefully adjusted the fill water temperature to the tank temperature. Again, dead Glofish in about a minute.
More experiments followed. Even temperature adjusted, pH adjusted, conditioned, aerated, and aged replacement water still caused deaths. It took longer for death to happen, about 15-20 minutes; but they still went from apparently fine to dead or dying in about a minute.
Eventually I figured something out. 50% water change = dead Glofish. 33% water change = live Glofish with no ill effects whatsoever; even straight from the tap with no adjustments.
Weird.
So I moved the remaining Glofish to my 46G and resigned myself to 33% water changes on it.
It worked ok, but very rarely, one would suffer a rapid death, while the rest of the Glofish were unaffected. The ones I bred never showed any hint of aggressive nature, and got along fine.
So it went for years until yesterday, when I lost my last five Glofish. The only thing I did differently was to add a trickle of hot water from the tap, since the cold water was very cold. They were all approaching the end of their normal lifespan anyway.
I'm sorry to see them go, but also relieved; it's a load off my mind to do a water change without wondering if something is going to die.