Zebrafish based research is performed at estimated >3250 institutes that spread numerous countries of the world, but there is a focus on Europe, the US and Canada, China, Japan and some other Asian countries. According to Kinth et al. (2013), publications in which zebrafish play a role, have originated from 103 countries. The image above shows the number of laboratories in the top 25 productive countries (according to their number of publications) in zebrafish research. Russia is not part of them.

Globally, it remains unclear just how many zebrafish are used annually. In an international survey on the use and welfare of zebrafish from 2017 the authors suggest an annual broodstock requirement of 5·135 million adult D. rerio.

At the European Zebrafish Resource Center in Karlsruhe they keep and breed different mutants, altogether approximately 30,000 fish. The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s fish facility declaring itself to be one of the largest aquatics research facilities in the world can maintain 500,000 adult zebrafish. The Zebrafish Core Facility of the Miami College of Arts and Sciences houses 20 racks with fish tanks that can easily accommodate 20,000 adult zebrafish. Generally the tanks a free from any decoration or fitments and there are about 25 fish in each tank. Apart from the fish in the water, the tanks are generally empty.