Yes, I know this is my third topic in about 5 minutes. Hey, they’ve been gathering in my mind–just taken me a coupla days to get around to posting them.
I am a tropical fish enthusiast, and have been since I was in second grade. Anyhoo, at the pet store there are a few variety of fish–“painted glass fish”–that are just that…painted by hand. How the hell is that done? And what kind of paint is used that adheres to a fish without causing it toxic harm? These glass fish are transluscent, and the paint is (typically) a flurescent color, brushed onto their bodies as two stripes: one along the top of their body, and one along the bottom.
This has to get animal rights activists cheesed, but I’ve never heard anything from that quarter. How is it done?
Incidentally, glass fish (also known as a glass perch or Indian glassfish) come from India, Burma, and Thailand, so the painting is likely happening there, although they do readily breed in captivity. Scientific name, for those who care, is Chanda ranga.
There are also variety of barbs that are dyed colors, typically red. Weird.
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I read an opinon piece on this in some magazine a while back. IIRC, the tint is injected into the fish, not brushed on. Also, most buyers were unaware that the colors were not natural.
Ursa… I used to work in a tropical fish store and there are both types. The glassfish are actually painted on (i kid you not) eventually it wears off, sometimes flakes. I always wondered how they did that myself I invisioned a little tiny fish vice to hold them still L. The other type is the dyed type you were talking about, but its not actually dyed its injected into the tissue, that usually fades in time also… but at a slower rate.
When I said the fish were dyed, I didn’t mean they were put in a vat and mixed with dye–I meant it was injected in them. I had a tinfoil barb that had been “dyed” pink. So weird.
I’d still like to know how they paint those little glass fish!
I was going to ask the exact same question about the glass fish, so I don’t know about them. However, about the dyed fish, I remember seeing them as well in a fish store. There were red (and possibly blue, although I’m not sure) fish in a tank, and a label on the tank said they were fed some kind of food with dye in it. I haven’t been to that place in a long time, so I haven’t had a chance to ask about it. I’ve been thinking of getting a fish tank, so maybe I will sometime.
There really isn’t an answer there to your question but someone did mention that the glass fish are bathed in a chemical that retards their ability to create the stress coat of slime necessary for good healh. Apparently a healthy stress coat takes some of the luster away from the “paint job”.
