You may have heard the word "probiotic" before...well it is found in the yogurt that we eat. Now scientists at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology have found that be feeding probiotics to baby zebra fish accelerated their development and increased their chances of survival into adulthood. This research could help increase the success of raising rare ornamental fish, and also the fish industry in general. Zebra fish are commonly used in genetic research because scientist can easily track changes in their development, and they also share many of the same genes as humans.

"This is really exciting," said Jacques Ravel, a leading genomic scientist studying the role of the human microbiome in health and disease at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences. "Knowing you can colonize the gut of a zebra fish with a probiotic strain and improve its development becomes an interesting model for us to study the beneficial effect of probiotics in children and adults." He and his colleagues are currently looking into the effect of Lactobacillus rhamnosus probiotics on the gut development of premature infants.
In the zebra fish experiment, researchers added Lactobacillus rhamnosus a probiotic sometimes used to yogurt, to the fish tanks water. The water then passed through the zebra fish's gills, and landed in their gastrointestinal tract. This prevented bad bacteria from growing, and the probiotics also promoted the growth and development of bone, vertebrae and gonads. Adding the probiotics to the water increased the survival rate of the tested zebra fish larvae from 70% to 90%. It is no wonder that I have been told by my doctor to eat more yogurt, there seems to be a lot of good things growing in it.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121203163534.htm