# Anyone heard of these? 'Balloon' Gourami?



## Pandapop

I thought the 'Balloon Molly', and the distorted 'Puffy Eye Goldfish' were bad enough. Now this? When did *that* happen? 

Boesemani Rainbow Balloon:










Red Rainbow Balloon:










Pearl Gourami Balloon:


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## emc7

All fish throw defects like that now and again. What new is that instead of culling them, people are trumpeting them as a 'new' fish and trying to get a line started. 

IMO, no one should buy them. Don't encourage breeders to make more. Fish that don't look like fish are going to have health problems and die young.


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## TheOldSalt

Disgusting. 
I would never again shop at any store which sold them, and I'd do my level best to get others to join the cause.


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## Pandapop

I would NEVER buy something like that. I won't buy the balloon mollies, or even any goldfish, since the LFS rarely carries 'regular' goldfish anymore. Unless they're the plain orange feeders. I won't buy dyed fish (I'm still iffy about GloFish), either. 

These fish I posted pictures of aren't even appealing to look at in any way... as much as I hate the idea of culling, I think it should be necessary when you get outcomes like these. It's inhumane... they can't expect these fish to live long, either.


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## fishloverzj

Were Balloon mollies a defect?


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## fishloverzj

Glofish weren't died. they're crossed with a sea anenome gene. They were for sewer water tests originally. I love balloon mollies.... I don't think 2 people buying balloon mollies will effect their popoularity.

Also, Balloon mollies live to be 5 years, the same as regular mollies. Sorry guys, I don't really agree.
But yes, I'd never buy that poor creature.. *shuders*


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## Revolution1221

screw that those things are ugly i dont get why people are so insistent on breeding deformities. im glad we dont buy things like this unless of course our boss gets his hands on the order form(hes kind of a moron) everytime he does we end up with painted glass fish, and strawberry tetras. atleast those are injected and not quite as bad as tattood fish.


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## Revolution1221

this is just one of the worste things i have ever seen. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GzXYfK-lD...OI/UikvZ8HumAA/s1600/tattooed+parrot+fish.jpg
i was just reading someone said with the painted parrot fish they actually cut the tails off and inject them with ink. is that true?


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## Pandapop

Those parrot fish just look horrible... the designs tattoo'd onto their bodies just look cluttered and ugly. But that's really besides the point -- people shouldn't be doing this to fish. :c

I did some research on the GloFish shortly after I made my last post, and now I'm a little interested in a small shoal for my 40g... The green ones have to be my favorite. I'm glad they weren't dyed. So they do breed true? Makes me curious to find out what a red and green's spawn would look like...

As for the balloon mollies, I read around online and found a few places a while back, where people stated that they were in fact deformities of the original mollies. Watching them in the tank at the LFS, they almost seem to look as though they have a much harder time getting around...


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## Pandapop

I guess I am a little biased anyway, as I tend to stray far from fish like Balloon Mollies. To me, they look awkward... and I wouldn't be able to tell a pregnant female balloon from a regular balloon....


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## emc7

Balloon started off as a defective sport, probably also a hybrid. The early fish would usually die in their first childbirth, but the strain seems to be getting more hardy with successive generations. But they still have a crooked spine and higher rates of "bloat", miscarriage and death in childbirth. Search the old threats, we hear it over and over. My pregnant balloon molly just died. Non-balloon mollies will out-compete them in a tank. I won't ever buy or recommend them. 

Look at a wild-type green sail-fin molly. Now that is a beautiful fish and likely to live for 10 years.


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## funlad3

At my dentists office once, their tank was almost completely filled with deformed guppies. (With the curved spine... Anyone?) Intead of them sitting on rocks or other decor though, they were swimming around healthy with the few normal fish. I think if the fish are healthy (and its a natural happening, of course...) then go mutants! This is after all how evolution takes place. I DO NOT SUPPORT COMPANIES DOING THIS ON PURPOSE! Only if the fish do it themselves (I'm confusing myself...)


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## hXcChic22

I have seen the balloon gouramis before... and you won't believe how expensive they were compared to the normal ones! Like $13 compared to $5. 
I have yet to EVER see a balloon molly live past 6 months (in our tanks anyway). I think we had one that lasted for 6 or so before we sold it off to downsize. We had a couple naturally from our mama mollies, and they all died before they reached maturity. I know it's not water problems because we have some fish that have been in that same tank for over a year (including another molly) that are doing just fine. 

@Emc - we found one of those sailfins at a pet store and bought him! He had the biggest sail I'd ever seen, but unfortunately he seemed to love picking fights and got his just desserts by getting beat up by a betta, never recovered.


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## Revolution1221

Pandapop said:


> I did some research on the GloFish shortly after I made my last post, and now I'm a little interested in a small shoal for my 40g... The green ones have to be my favorite. I'm glad they weren't dyed. So they do breed true? Makes me curious to find out what a red and green's spawn would look like..


good luck breeding them tho. i heard that they are all steralized before leaving the companys facility. ocasionaly one or two will make it out without the staralization working but the chances of getting two let alone a male and female are slim to none. and not to mention the fact that if you are caught breeding them its copy right infringment. hmmm a copy righted animal just seems odd to me. i think most of them are diseased tho because anywhere i go i see like 30%-50% of the ones in the tanks have sunk in stomachs. wether you go to petsmart/petco, walmart, or any lfs they always seem sickly(at least from what i have seen). its funny also because i believe they are illegal in california do to the fact that they are geneticaly modified.
EDIT: i do wonder though what they would look like if you cross the colors. perhabs the babies just come out either or otherwise they probably just come out looking ugly or you would think the company would already be doing this. and i dont get why they havn't done this to more expensive fish that people actually like haha no offense zebra danios i just dont like you  the least they could do is come out with some more colors. and i go curious and went on their website perhabs they are not steralized because i cannot find any information on it it may have just a rumor... ill keep looking. i do know they are still copyrited because i found that.


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## Pandapop

Are you sure they're not just copyrighted and illegal to sell, if reproduced? By what you say, it sounds pretty impossible to do (especially for me -- I couldn't get my regular longfin leopard danios to breed). Although I think I'd be adding them to a tank just to bring in a little more color, anyway. 

I DID read somewhere that they breed true. But it didn't state whether or not it was with their own color, or with mixed colors. But you won't get regular danios in any spawns, I suppose. I'm not 100% sure that information is accurate. 

That just makes me even more curious about the color breeding though, haha. Although you're right -- if it worked, the company would probably put more colors on the market (assuming they came out nice-looking).


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## hXcChic22

I'm pretty sure the company could do NOTHING about them breeding (if they did) as long as you didn't go shouting about it to everyone. Same as any "illegal" activity, like keeping native fish without a permit. Don't go telling everybody and their mom about it, and you probably won't get caught.


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## emc7

I read they'd breed true, if they'd breed.


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## Bettawhisperer

The really tragic part of all this is that we as breeders and fish fanciers know better but the general public doesn't and so they buy them thinking oh this is cool I'll have something know one else does and that is why the breeders of these poor fish make so much money with them............And yes Balloon mollies are a deformity.


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## TheOldSalt

Balloon fish-- are missing some vertebrae, which shortens their bodies and makes them balloon out in response. A big mess.

Glofish- will breed true IF you breed the same colors to each other. If you breed different colors to each other, you only get albinos with a yellowish tinge.
They are not sterilized, but it is illegal to breed them. That doesn't stop them from breeding, though, but you aren't allowed to distribute the fry. All you can legally do is either keep them or use them as extra-festive snacks for big fish.


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## Mikaila31

Its not illegal to breed glowfish. Its illegal to sell the ones you do breed. Basically because of all the time an research their creators put into them. If they were not patented fish farms could breed them at a much lower cost then the creators because they don't need to makeup the cost that went into their development. They certainly are not sterile, they are just zebra dainos after all. The Green fluorescent protein gene is a very important gene in biology and a lot of scientific research. They can use it to mark a lot of specific genes in an organism, such as certain cells and see how/ where they travel in the body in real time with small organisms. It has been used for a long time. The zebra daino also called the zebra fish is considered a model organism so the creation of the glofish is not really surprising. The zebra daino has been glowing for a long time. Its not the only animal that glows. Mice, axolotls, cats, to name a few, plants can glow too. How they glow depends completely on what cells you mark with the green fluorescent protein. 

This hobby has become vary popular in the last couple decades and with it lots of artificial selection. I do hate "balloon" "longfin" and number of other mutations. However guys this is nothing new. While most responsible breeders would of culled those fish since IMO they have a pretty harmful mutation, not all do. The fish often suffer genetic problems simply because their body is not meant to be squished like that. Longfins tend to impede movement simply for our aesthetics. The question here is mainly to do with ethics. When does a mutation become debilitating to the point where it should not be encouraged? balloon fish are not the first. First fish were goldfish and if you are going to hate the balloon mutation then you must also question the fancy goldfish. All fancy goldfish came from the common goldfish. The difficult here is you can not simply decry all mutations. What negative effects did the shubunkin suffer? how about the bubble-eye? 

This is nothing new people, it was started not long after this hobby really got started. Here is a fun thing to do! Go to your pet shop and count how many fish they are selling in their completely unaltered state, basically "wild-type fish". What did the fish look like before people played around with it? This cuts ALL mutations, which includes color strains, fin variations, ect. For most shop this will cover most if not all livebearers, angelfish, and bettas for starters. Now compare how many "tank-type" fish there are compared to true wild types. 

Now the next question to ask is would the public as a whole care? Well if you take the dog as an example I'm going to say they don't care much.


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## emc7

I like wild-type fish. But any hobby breeding is going to be selective (no way to keep all the fry), so I can fault breeders for going for color or size or finage. But I'd also like healthy fish to be a goal.

I really hate those squished, double-tail goldfish. Yeah, the fish learns to deal and doesn't bash its brains out on the side of a teeny tank because it can't swim fast. But I'd rather people not keep pond fish in tanks. 

My criteria is quality of life. Slightly longer fins are pretty. Fins that drag on the bottom aren't good. They get torn and infected. Colors, anything goes as long as the fry still know mommy. Major deformities that give the fish a shortened life expectancy are not ok in my book. You can keep 'unculled' fish, but please don't let them breed. Aquarium fish have enough health issue that we don't need to be mass-producing 'special needs' fish. 

Yes, they are more profitable, you charge more for something no one else sells, then they die in a few months and you get to sell another one. Repeat until the buyer drops the hobby because "fish are too fragile". 

I wouldn't mind dying and tattooing except that it hurts the fish. You have to be against it all until someone can prove a process is done safely and humanely. Glofish don't bother me. Pink cats, sure, why not. But i'm not holding the cat down. Feeding foods to get best color doesn't bother me as long as the buyer know a special diet is needed to keep the color.


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## Blue Cray

Those aren't "balloon" they are short-bodied fish, some people pay out the ass for these kind of fish. I had a breeding group of short-bodied blue texas cichlids and I made a killing off of them. $40 for a 2" fish is worth it to me to sell. If it is indeed a SB morf and not a man made fish, the fish will not have a shortened life span and will not pass on the gene until the 3rd gen of fish. There is a ton of money to be made on fish like these, the fish don't get harmed and they do not suffer. I do not see why you guys be trippin' on these fish, you don't yell at a midget and say they are disgusting.


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## TheOldSalt

Midgets have health problems aplenty, thank you very much, but the thing is, nobody deliberately MADE them that way.


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## fishloverzj

Revolution1221 said:


> good luck breeding them tho. i heard that they are all steralized before leaving the companys facility. ocasionaly one or two will make it out without the staralization working but the chances of getting two let alone a male and female are slim to none. and not to mention the fact that if you are caught breeding them its copy right infringment. hmmm a copy righted animal just seems odd to me. i think most of them are diseased tho because anywhere i go i see like 30%-50% of the ones in the tanks have sunk in stomachs. wether you go to petsmart/petco, walmart, or any lfs they always seem sickly(at least from what i have seen). its funny also because i believe they are illegal in california do to the fact that they are geneticaly modified.
> EDIT: i do wonder though what they would look like if you cross the colors. perhabs the babies just come out either or otherwise they probably just come out looking ugly or you would think the company would already be doing this. and i dont get why they havn't done this to more expensive fish that people actually like haha no offense zebra danios i just dont like you  the least they could do is come out with some more colors. and i go curious and went on their website perhabs they are not steralized because i cannot find any information on it it may have just a rumor... ill keep looking. i do know they are still copyrited because i found that.


Carolina Biological sells them non-sterilized, but it's illegal to sell them.

I'm glad I turned them on to you though! 

P.S. I still love balloon mollies. I don't really want to breed them though.


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## fishloverzj

Also, I have to point something out. Common Goldfish were originally a mutation of carp. Sorry guys.....


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## emc7

You could argue that bright colors, small size, and slow speed are adaption to a new environment (the aquarium) and that anything that makes a fish get bought and fed is a competitive advantage. But I still feel strongly that its wrong to propagate a strain that will have uncomfortable lives at best for money. Never mind that other people will do it, other people will sell cigarettes if you don't. Still wrong. (not illegal, the two are not the same, nor should they be).

Corporations have no morality because their primary goal is to make money for stock holders. If a corp takes a more moral and less profitable alternative action, it is in breach of 'fiduciary duty' to its stockholders and the person who made the decision can get in trouble. Support efforts to allow corps to be created with binding 'moral code' clauses in their charters.


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## fishloverzj

Yes, I agree.


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## Blue Cray

TheOldSalt said:


> Midgets have health problems aplenty, thank you very much, but the thing is, nobody deliberately MADE them that way.


There is no evidence of these fish being man made, like I said I bred SB texas' myself and they were born this way.


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## emc7

dwarves for aquariums. Makes evolutionary sense like key deer and other tiny island animals. Are your SB fish healthy? As far as I know the glo-fish is the only real "man-made" fish, though there is speculation about some of the "electric blue" fish. Really its just man-altered. Balloon mollies bothered me a lot because they would mostly die in childbirth with stillborn fry. Some of the other "new fish" have something like 10% survival rates. Eventually someone will develop a strain to the point of mostly healthy fish and high survival rates. But the process is slow and nasty for the fish. 

There is one fish where a desirable gene in one copy is the goal. Two copies is always fatal. So you can never breed 2 of the fish without 25% early deaths. You can out-cross them and discard the 50% that don't have the gene. Acceptable loses for a profitable enterprise. Right? But if I carried a gene like that, I would adopt.


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## Superfly724

I've just never understood the whole "balloon" craze. Ever since I was younger I always thought that the goldfish looked kinda dopey just bouncing along. I've always been much more interested in the fish that swim gracefully. Balloon fish just seem to clumsy for me to really enjoy them. I don't want my pet to look as if it's struggling just to move. That's just my personal opinion, though. I guess there's somebody out there that really likes them, or else they wouldn't continually be brought into the hobby.


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## Mikaila31

Blue Cray said:


> There is no evidence of these fish being man made, like I said I bred SB texas' myself and they were born this way.


Artificial selection is "man made". Thats like saying humans had no impact on dog breeds. You specifically said you intentionally breed them for the short body gene, which makes them man made. Unless you find that fish breeding like that in its unaltered natural environment its man made. 

I recently got some rare collection strain rainbows. Rainbow breeders are REALLY obsessive when it comes to hybrids and even natural strain mixing, you don't do it. Of the dozen fish I got one happened to be from a totally different strain and it was a bit of a mess getting it sorted out. They are the same exact species, just different natural variations. Had to sort it out with the breeder and the guy that actually imported them into the country originally. I can't/won't breed them till I move them and separate out the one that is the incorrect strain. They are spawning currently and I intend to cull any chance surviving fry no questions asked until I get them separated. Almost ALL my fish are naturals, ONLY exception is my angels are a tank strain/coloration. This is important to me. IDK how many times I've seen a nice natural planted tank then some idiot stocks it with koi angelfish, like seriously whats the point of that?


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