green glofish

**Dixie** · 08-06-2010, 03:43 PM

I just read another post about a green glofish being a bully. My grandaughter has 3 glofish that she keeps at my house in my 10g. tank with my corycats. She has a pink one, an orange one, & the green one which is the biggest one and also the meanest one. Because of the other post I just read here, I was wondering if others have noticed the green ones being bullies or do you think it has more to do with the size and or sex of the fish, other than the color?

**Brhino** · 08-06-2010, 04:22 PM

it has to do with the size, strength, and sex, not the color. When I only had three, the red one was the largest and he was the bully, and he picked on the yellow one which was the smallest. Later I got more and had five, and one of the new red was was the smallest and weakest and he got picked on.

**Dixie** · 08-06-2010, 06:09 PM

Thanks for the answer, Brhino. I figured as much but thought I'd ask because I've never had glofish before.

**Brhino** · 08-06-2010, 06:57 PM

if you get a few more it should disperse the aggression better and reduce the stress on the individual fish. If you're interested in maintaining variety, you could consider zebra danios or leopard danios - they're all the same species so they'll all school.

**Hillbilly88** · 08-10-2010, 12:45 AM

mine are all pretty much friends i got 2 yellow glos 2 reds 1 green and 2 zebras and i havent had any aggression out of any of them

**DrNic** · 08-10-2010, 03:26 AM

Originally Posted by Brhino

it has to do with the size, strength, and sex, not the color. When I only had three, the red one was the largest and he was the bully, and he picked on the yellow one which was the smallest. Later I got more and had five, and one of the new red was was the smallest and weakest and he got picked on.

Actually that might not be totally accurate. When these fish were generated, by adding these color genes, the background genetics of the parental fish were not identical. As a result different color batches of these fish have different characteristics. There are MANY reports of the green fish generally being more aggressive than the others, while the yellow ones tended to be smaller as adults. The company seems to have fixed this by re-generating the lines in their newer batches however, so it may depend on which batch you got the fish from.

**Brhino** · 08-10-2010, 03:35 AM

Originally Posted by DrNic

There are MANY reports of the green fish generally being more aggressive than the others, while the yellow ones tended to be smaller as adults.

I'm a little confused by this, because they come in red, orange, and what are officially called green but look yellow to me. There's not a separate yellow and a green, you either call them one thing or the other.

EDIT: maybe you're calling the orange ones yellow? I could see that.

**DrNic** · 08-10-2010, 03:52 AM

Yeah I guess I'm calling the orange ones yellow. Although I can see how the green ones could look yellow as well. Might explain some of the confusion early on.

I swear I saw blue ones at one point but maybe those were just tattooed or something.

**Brhino** · 08-10-2010, 04:08 AM

when I got my first batch I was told they're working on another color. I don't remember what it was and I haven't seen or heard anything since.

In any case here's my own personal data:

Initial group (december 2009):
1 red, 1 orange, 1 green
Size: red>orange>green
Behavior: Red bullied other two, mostly orange. Orange died after 10 days in tank, possibly due to stress from bullying, cycling, or combination of the two.

Second group (early march 2010):
added 1 red, 2 yellow
Size: All fish were smaller than initial group. Yellows quickly grew to become indistinguishable from first yellow, new red remained small. Old red remained largest of all.
Behavior: New red was bullied by all others. Eventually hid in corner permanantly, stopped eating. Appeared near death...

Third group (late march 2010):
added 1 red, 2 unmodified zebra danios (1 male, 1 female)
Size: red in this group was between other two reds in size. Unmodified danios were bigger than all others.
Behavior: Aggression evenly distributed. Red from second group started eating again. All fish appear to be doing well now. All have growth to nearly equal size to the point that reds and yellows are not distinguishable from each other.

**AndorranPrince** · 08-10-2010, 04:56 PM

From my experiences, Glofish are generally smaller and weaker than unmodified danios. I've only ever kept reds, but in my experience they had trouble being bullied by my leopards, and usually capped out at 1". Take note that when you breed glofish (Only illegal if you sell them, mine got eaten by the parents), 25% or so don't have the colouration due to an absence of the man-made mutation, 50% were like the parents, and 25% of the eggs simply never grew, possibly due to having too much of the gene (personal hypothesis).