Zebra Danio Research (Danio rerio) grade strain, also known as Zebrafish. The Scientific Hatcheries strain started with a Florida pet strain, which should be genetically similar to the Ekkwill (EKW), when that strain was first obtained (genetic drift and loss of genetic diversity in small laboratory populations overtime is a consideration). This EKW type strain was crossed with a true India wild strain (similar to IND as listed on Zfin).
In order to retain genetic diversity in this strain, for the last 10 years, this strain has been maintained with very high effective breeding population numbers. We have never used less than 2000 breeders per generation. This strain has been subject to inadvertent selection pressures for performance at high density, fast growth rate and high fecundity.
Our breeding objective is to maintain a stable, genetically diverse strain of research zebrafish for the research community. This can be very important for experiments in toxicology or pathology where a stable, genetically diverse populations can give reproducible results without fear of genetic change or drift over time.
This strain is always available as breeders (sexed or unsexed), fish of specific ages post fertilization, embryos (live, frozen --LN or dry ice, or prepared).
Scientific Hatcheries