Would you buy Fruit Tetra ?

Fruit Tetra are available at some chain stores that sell fish, including Walmart. Sometimes they are sold under the name of Mixed Fruit Tetra.



Fruit Tetra is not a natural fish species. These pretty looking fish are in fact the work of dye and injection. Artificial colors are injected into ordinary Tetra fish to make them look colorful. Many fish die in the painful process. The surviving fish might not live long either because of the shock they went through during the injection.

I personally would not buy any artificially "dyed" fish, because it is animal cruelty in my opinion. I don't even get it why some people want to do that. There are hundreds if not thousands species of fish available out there for us to choose. Why do we need to inject fish with artificially colors?

Would you buy Fruit Tetra?

Plenty more species of fish are artificially painted/dyed. It's including but not limited to White Tetra, Glassfish, Oscar, Corydoras. Many novice fish keepers are not really aware of they are not natural. They are more likely to buy these "pretty" fish because of their coloration. These dye injected fish are more susceptible to infection and fungus after the physical torture and mental stress they went through. They should be boycotted by everyone.

Is the process really painful? Why would they do that if it causes pain? I watched an episode of "Big Bang Theory" and the one geek took some elements from jelly fish and injected them into his tetras, he did this so he could have fish night lights - LoL-

To answer your question, yes, I would buy the fish, but until now, I did not know they were dyed to look that way. It bothers me that you said it is a painful process

Injecting dye under the skin is obviously a painful thing to do. Many of these fish don't live through it, and the survivors are often weakened and do not live long.

When people run a business, they only care about profit. Produce colorful fish to catch customers' eyes and making profit by selling them is their goal. Whether the fish suffer or not is none of their concern.

(12-12-2012, 04:40 PM)Thor Wrote: Injecting dye under the skin is obviously a painful thing to do. Many of these fish don't live through it, and the survivors are often weakened and do not live long.

When people run a business, they only care about profit. Produce colorful fish to catch customers' eyes and making profit by selling them is their goal. Whether the fish suffer or not is none of their concern.

Hey, do you think they should hang up a sign or something to let consumers know that the fish are enhanced? I didn't know about this until I read it on the forum. I admit I'm not a fish genius, but there seems to be a lot going on with fish that a lot of people have no idea about. I realize it's only a fish, but I don't like to harm anything, even spiders. (fleas are an exception)

Since the law does not require them to show how any product is manufactured, the same goes for fish. They have no need to show the fish is a product of (dye) injection.

If you have paid attention to Walmart's fish section, you might have seen those colorful little fish in the following picture.

These colorful little fish are called glofish. They are in fact a product of injecting jellyfish DNA into the eggs of Zebra Danio. Walmart also found no need to tell people they are genetically engineered. I guess most people won't care either.

That is horrible that they inject these poor fish with dyes. I have seen such fish at Wal Mart and thought they were pretty, but knowing that they are put through this awful process I would never buy them or anything like that.