Ancistrus sp. Albino X Albino Equals what?

[mdcham]

What are the differentiating characteristics of these two albino BN genes, both of which have yellow bodies?

As far as I know they look totally identical.

[mdcham]

When you refer the "another mutation with yellow body and black eyes" I assume you are talking about the one that is commonly referred to as the L144 (sp(4) on the database)?

Someone on the forum was insisting there were two forms of the false L144; one with black eyes and the other with blue eyes... I am not sure such a distinction exists but the fish owner said his fish had blue eyes...

I have been following the L144 auctions at AquaBid.com for the past year and it seems to me that there are more than 5 varieties of white (or yellow) bodied BN with blue (or black) eyes. Their body shapes are so different from one another unrelated to long fin versus short fin. For example, some have white spots on their bodies and some do not. Some long finned have super long fins while others have basic long fins. Its hard to tell whether eyes are really black or blue because this can be affected by lighting and photography. When it comes to L144, its very complicated due to too much hybridization I think.

[mdcham]

It is possible that a fish is homozygous for TWO of the albino mutations. I wonder if such fish would be snow white.

here is a post from someone here on the site... perhaps this could answer your questions?

Hi,

well, I am not a biologist, so perhaps a geneticist can better explain (or perhaps even explain why my explanation is wrong).
And after looking it up again, I realize that the english word is actually xanthism..

Those are different kinds of mutations: leucistic individuals do not have melanocytes at all (and thus tend to be white), while xanthistic individuals lack in melanine production, while the xanthophores (producing ceratines) are still functioning at normal levels, thus making the individual yellowish (even reddish; see the "Super-Red" variety).

Thus, a leucistic form should actually be white (see Astyanax jordani for example), while xanthistic forms are yellow.
So from that I do not believe that the black eyed varieties are leucistic, they probably are xanthistic as well (but perhaps with a different form of genetic defect).


With respect to eye colors: I wasn´t suggesting that it is only light that causes blue eyes, and you are right, there indeed are black as well as blue eyes in different forms. What I was hinting at is the fact that a fish with black eyes can appear to have blue eyes in a picture under certain lighting conditions (this is probably not general: not every fish will have blue eyes on pictures under certain conditions).
This means (and this is the most important point I was trying to make with it) that just because a fish has blue eyes on a picture does not automatically mean that it absolutely needs to have blue eyes in real life to fit the bill.

Cheers,
Sandor

edit: you can read the whole thread here: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =5&t=41052

I am in complete agreement with that post. He gives the textual definitions of each phenotype but it does not answer the question of whether aabb genotype will look like a snow white pleco. All the snow white pleco I bought eventually became gold yellow. But that's just my experience and others may disagree.

I have never seen an owner who owns both snow white and also yellow gold pleco. Yellow pleco can become snow white if they are frightened, stressed, or sick.

[mdcham]

I have (3) Leucistic BN's and all three have blue eyes. I have never heard of a Black eyed Leucistic BN until just now in this post! Although I never heard of Two Albino Genes in any other species either, are you sure there is such a thing?

Ron

Look at my prior posts in this thread. This is a fact that has been known for decades in BN pleco world. It is also seen in guppies. See my prior posts.

[mdcham]

In you reference post, viewtopic.php?f=5&t=41052 you mentioned xanthoristic variant, I tried looking it up under Wikipedia and there was no such word, What doe sit mean?

Well, in this case even that won´t help, because there appear to be no real L144 available anymore (there might be one or two hobbyists remaining that still have them, but basically all Germans have the xanthoristic variant of the common bristlenose by now, and we have come to call them Ancistrus sp. "Yellow-Black Eye"). They are being sold as L144 everywhere.

Ron

The term to look up is xanthic. It is just a scientific word for yellowish, meaning the fish lost all pigments except for yellow. Even though the word sounds exotic, it is really just the same as calling something yellow. This refers to the appearance, not a particular gene, and is not any more meaningful than just calling something yellow. You can use it to sound like a professor ha ha. This xanthic appearance is seen in other fish like tiger barbs and guppies, also seen in birds, reptiles, AND humans!!!

In the bristle nosed world, there are at least 2 different xanthic mutations.

[bekateen]

Funny thing about our noses (no pun intended, even though this thread is about bristlenoses): Something can be right under our nose, and we still can't see it!

In this thread, there was all this talk about white albino bristlenoses; and when I typed my posts in this thread I wondered what these "white" albinos looked like. I've had ABNs for almost a year now, two females and a recently added male (and more recently a bunch of babies). Then just today it struck me that one of my females is a white morph (or so I presume):

Last Spring, I bought both females (as unsexable juveniles) from different stores; one was the typical yellow color and the other was simply "pale" in comparison. At the time, I didn't think anything of the color difference, because based on what I'd read in other threads, I expected the pale female to "outgrow" that color and turn yellow. Both females were virtually the same size (about 1/2 to 3/4 inch SL) at the time of purchase.

Fast forward almost a year, and the pale female is still is pale: In fact, now she is almost a snow white color compared to the yellow female and compared my male, who is also yellow (see photo). And it's not as if my white female changes from white to yellow and back again - she's always white. Sometimes, when she is stressed, she turns almost pink as she vasodilates and blood flows more heavily near the skin.

Another odd difference: The white female is now less than half as large as the yellow female (the yellow female is about 4 inches SL). Since these females were store bought, I don't know their specific ancestries. But I do know that I bought them from different stores in different cities, and that their genetic ancestries are different. It's possible that my white female is just a lone genetic "runt of the litter;" but I'm also wondering if white ABNs (as a group) are genetically smaller than yellow ABNs (as a group). I am confident that the difference between my two females is NOT the result of one hogging food or socially dominating the other, because I raised each female in separate, virtually identical tanks (each female was raised in a separate 10gal tank used for growing out cory fry, and each tank was maintained in an identical manner; it was only recently, when I purchased the male, that I put the two females into the same tank, to give the male a choice of mates).

Does anybody know if yellow ABNs, as a group, grow larger than white ABNs? Or has anyone grown out white ABNs to the "normal" full size of other ABNs? Does anyone have any experience with both color forms to have an informed opinion about this? Thanks.

Cheers, Eric

EDIT: I changed my description of the white female from "ghost white" to "snow white," because who knows if ghosts are really white, right?!? But clean snow does look white like this fish (I know, there is yellow snow too, but that's something completely different. LOL)

[mattcham]

Thanks for sharing this Eric. It's really interesting that your white albino has stayed white. All my white albinos eventually became yellow albino. You should try to selectively breed that white one. Try to find a white male from the same fish store so that the genetics will not be contaminated. If the fish store no longer sells them, perhaps ask where they sourced it. I have not seen any pleco breeder/seller on Aquabid who maintains separate strains of white and yellow albinos. If your white albino is really genetic (as opposed to a stressed or ill fish), I would say that it is much much rarer than the yellow albino version. I would definitely be interested in purchasing these myself if I knew where to find them.

[bekateen]

Thanks mattcham. As for source, I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the white fish was from either Petco or Petsmart. When I was buying these, they were so small at these stores; I think I bought 5 or 6 total from these sources, and this white fish was the only one to survive (I didn't buy them all at once: I'd buy 3 and two would die, so I returned them under guarantee and get replacements, and so on). The yellow female, and later the yellow male, are both from a small LFS in Modesto California. The female was also small when I got her but she grew vigorously; the male was purchased as young adult.

If you notice in one photo, there are fry in the tank (about 18mm long). But I don't know which female is the mom. I suspect it's the yellow female. I definitely will try to breed the white female. I'll have to cross some male F1s back with her to try and get a white F2. Theoretically that should produce a pure line, IF this white condition is a simple recessive genotype.

That said, I must admit I'm not a big fan of line breeding new mutants; but I also can't be hypocritical, since I DID buy ABNs and I DID intentionally breed them, and even the typical yellow ABNs are line bred mutants. But I'm a little more concerned in this case, given the high mortality of my initial purchases (which could be due to their genetics, but it's more likely just because they were from a chain store, or it could have been my fault since these were my first BNs ever), and also given the slow growth of this female (that's why I'm seeking other people's experiences with white ABNs). If I do succeed and get pure breeding whites, I'd be very alert for and concerned about the presence of any obvious physical deformities, like bad spines, eyes, fins, etc. And if that occurred a lot, then I'd shut the line down.

I do agree that a white ABN is pretty rare, at least where I live. But if it was from Petco or Petsmart, I would expect that there are more around, just because of the sheer number of fish sold in these stores. Either way, I'm happy to have it, and I hope I get some healthy white babies.

Thanks again, Eric

[bekateen]

my white albinos eventually became yellow albino

At what size and age did your white albinos turn yellow?

[mattcham]

My white albinos turned yellow very early, at around 2 inches in length (including tail). Sometimes they go back to being white when they get scared. For example, when catching them or removing their caves for cleaning. Petsmart and Petco source their fish from a California importer. I'm guessing those fish are shipped from Southeast Asia where there are tons of tropical fish farms. The wild fish that are difficult to breed in captivity are imported mainly from South America. I did notice that the albino plecos at my local Petco are snow white, but I thought they were just scared or sick.

If your white albino and yellow albino are homozygous for albinism on completely different genes, then 100% of their offspring SHOULD be brown. If their offspring are not 100% brown, it means that one of them is a carrier (heterozygous) for either yellow or white while being homozygous for yellow (or white).

Maybe I'll go back to checking Aquabid regularly to see if anyone has snow white long fin albinos (I've never seen them) to add to my collection.

[bekateen]

My white albinos turned yellow very early, at around 2 inches in length (including tail). Sometimes they go back to being white when they get scared. For example, when catching them or removing their caves for cleaning.

That's interesting. My white female is about that size now (remember she's about half the size of my larger yellow female, which is about 3 1/2" to 4" SL). But I've had both of these females for nearly a year, and they were certainly at least a few months old when I bought them. So what exactly do you mean by "very early?" At what size did you get your females, and how long did you keep them before they changed color? I would say that my white female is so short not because she's so young but because her growth has been so slow (compared to how fast my yellow female grew in the same time). Also, my yellow female has been yellow since the day I first bought her (at about 3/4 inch SL), and I've never seen her fade to white when under stress in the same way that your yellow BNs do or in the way that my white female is all the time.

If your white albino and yellow albino are homozygous for albinism on completely different genes, then 100% of their offspring SHOULD be brown. If their offspring are not 100% brown, it means that one of them is a carrier (heterozygous) for either yellow or white while being homozygous for yellow (or white).

I agree. Additionally, I can imagine other genetic combinations that might produce the results you describe, depending on how the white and yellow phenotypes are controlled. But for now I'll wait to speculate on that. No matter, the quickest way to check this will be to do a test cross of the F1 males back with their parental white female. I know that's incestuous, but that technique should significantly reduce the number of crosses necessary to obtain pure white, again beginning with the premise that white coloration is due to a simple recessive genotype at one gene locus.

I wish I knew which female is the mother of my current batch of juveniles. They are already yellow, and although they are not as yellow as their dad or my big yellow female, they are clearly more yellow than the white female (as can be seen in the photos above and here: image_id=19137). Also, I have no brown juveniles, so I'm reasonably sure that my large yellow female is the mom. I imagine that I'll need to remove her in order to guarantee that my lone male turns his amorous activities towards the white female.

Cheers, Eric

[mattcham]

I got my plecos from different vendors on Aquabid. All are long fin albino. I got some when they were only 1.25 inch (~2.5 months old) and they arrived white but eventually became yellow by the time they were 2 inches (5 to 6 months old). It is possible that they were white upon arrival because they were stressed from shipment. Baby plecos on the Aquabid photos seem to be all yellow even at 1 inch size.

I recall buying 6 plecos from one of the experts at Aquabid (he breeds clown loaches and other rare species). They arrived at 2 inches length and were all yellow. I fed them zucchini and other veggies and I noticed that they were not eating but I attributed it to nervousness. After a week all six started to turn snow white. After 3 weeks three of the 6 plecos died. I contacted the vendor to tell him that they were not eating and he says that he never feeds them vegetables, only pellets (omg seriously?!?). I drop some Hikari pleco pellets and the 3 surviving snow white plecos start eating like crazy. They regained their yellow color after a week, and I eventually weaned them to vegetables in a few months.

Anyway, I wonder if your white pleco is growing slower than your yellow because it has a chronic illness, although it would be strange for it to still be alive for over a year if that were the case. As an aside, my plecos looked as white as yours when they were starving/dying.

In any case, I think a snow white pleco looks really nice and I'll try to develop a snow white long fin pleco using the Petco stock someday. I have other catfish projects running at the moment and don't have the resources. I'm currently developing a longfin albino aeneus (bronze) cory, which is not easy due to two recessive genes (albino and cory long fin are both recessive mutations - in contrast to pleco long fin which is a dominant mutation). Based on genetic punnet squares I will get 6 keepers for every 94 "reject" offspring. With my colony of 30 breeders (only 2 months old at the moment) I expect to complete this project by spring 2016.

[bekateen]

Interesting. Thanks for the background. As I mentioned earlier, it is possible that my white BN is a "runt" (in non-technical terms); growth stunting can be caused by a variety of factors, some serious and others not, some genetic and others not. But I wouldn't say she appears sick in any way, and she seems to eat well, just not as much as the other ABNs (which is what you would expect from a smaller individual). Her daily diet consists of New Life Spectrum Thera A+ pellets and generic algae wafers. There is also a continuous colony of live Tubifex worms in the gravel of the tank. And about once a week I put slices of raw sweet potato, zucchini, cucumber, or beet (not all at once) in the tank. Plus there's wood and some algae in the tank. So I think she has access to a good mixed diet. I'll try to get a better picture of her body so you can see her body shape/fullness.

You know what? As she continues to age and grow, if she suddenly turns from white to yellow, I'll be honest - you will be able to knock me over with a feather! LOL.

Does ANYBODY else have experience with adult white ABNs?

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

I'm currently developing a longfin albino aeneus (bronze) cory, which is not easy due to two recessive genes (albino and cory long fin are both recessive mutations - in contrast to pleco long fin which is a dominant mutation). Based on genetic punnet squares I will get 6 keepers for every 94 "reject" offspring. With my colony of 30 breeders (only 2 months old at the moment) I expect to complete this project by spring 2016.

I don't mean to hijack this thread about ABNs, but your comment on the albino corys makes me think.

Again, this topic (producing new strains) is really not my thing or interest area, but maybe this would simplify your work: As I see your project, the numbers you cite (94% reject, 6% keepers) are based on a simple Mendelian dihybrid cross of two heterozygous F1s (AaLl x AaLl, with a = albino and l = longfin), which you first created by crossing an albino shortfin (aaLL) and a bronze longfin (AAll). The potential problem with your method is that the statistics are based on "random" mating involving gametes which (theoretically) are obtained from the entire population of F1s. Practically speaking, what you're saying is that for every pair of F1s you cross with each other, you have a 1/16 chance that their fry will be aall - albino and longfin. You might get lucky on the first cross, but there's no guarantee you'll find the right cross, even after 16 attempts. Moreover, for all the 15/16ths of rejected spawns you'll get, you will have no idea if they are homozygous bronze shortfin or heterozygous bronze shortfin. So here's something to try:

Start the same: Cross your albino shortfin (aaLL) and bronze longfin (AAll) parents to create the F1 generation of all heterozygotes (AaLl). If you take any of these F1 fish and test cross them with albino shortfins (but preferably not with the original aaLL parent), then half of all of the matings you get will produce 100% albino F2, and within each spawn of albinos, half of these albinos will be heterozygous for long fin. This means that if you cross ANY F2 albinos back with each other, you have a 25% chance of getting a spawning that produces 100% albino longfins. Overall, this method improves you probabilities from 1/16 to 1/8.

Okay, now that I've typed that out, it seems too simple. I've probably made a mistake somewhere. So if I did, everyone, please feel free to speak up.

P.S., Don't albino longfin Corys already exist? Aren't people already breeding and selling them?

[mattcham]

The problem with that method is that it requires more generations, thus more time. Each generation is a 6 months delay in terms of waiting for growth to puberty and maturity. With my colony of 30 AaLl fish, assuming 50% are female and 50% male, and each female lays 30-50 eggs per month, I am looking at 450-740 eggs per month, and in 6 months that is 2700-4440 eggs. 6% of 2700-4440 eggs is 162-266 keepers (aall). So in 6 months I will have more than enough keepers, plus many extras to sell, as opposed to just starting my F2 cross in 6 months.

The existing albino longfin cory is a peppered cory species, not bronze cory. Their long fins actually look very different. The bronze long fin looks more like a veil, whereas the peppered long fin looks more like a filament. Both are beautiful and I have albino peppered long fins in my collection. Albino long fin peppered are rare because of a behavioral defect. They are voracious egg eaters that eat their own eggs within 1-2 minutes, even if they are well fed and there are only 4 cory in an otherwise empty 125 gallon tank. It's as if they can smell the eggs and it's their favorite food. In order to breed them, you have to watch them lay the eggs and rescue it quickly. They lay eggs after a cool water change, but it can be anytime from 30 minutes to 8 hours. That's a long time to wait and watch! I've only caught them twice by accident, and while I scrape off and rescue some eggs, they are already busy eating the other eggs in the opposite end of the tank.

[bekateen]

The problem with that method is that it requires more generations, thus more time. Each generation is a 6 months delay in terms of waiting for growth to puberty and maturity.

True, that method needs 1 extra generation. But since this "middle" generation is straight forward (50% albino, but you can tell immediately), then in the second generation your odds are 1/4, which is a really good probability. It also has the added benefit of increasing the genetic diversity of your future albino longfin (ALF) breeding stock.

The existing albino longfin cory is a peppered cory species, not bronze cory. Their long fins actually look very different. The bronze long fin looks more like a veil, whereas the peppered long fin looks more like a filament. Both are beautiful...

I knew that ALF peppers existed, but I didn't know about ALF bronzes. Thanks. FYI, if you Google "albino longfin aeneus," photos do come up, but I don't know whether they are aeneus or mislabeled photos of ALF peppers.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

...I wonder if your white pleco is growing slower than your yellow because it has a chronic illness, although it would be strange for it to still be alive for over a year if that were the case. As an aside, my plecos looked as white as yours when they were starving/dying.

Here is a better photo of my white ABN, feeding on raw sweet potato. While I wouldn't describe her as stuffed with food, I would say she's been eating okay. (Note: the tail-end of the body looks a little odd shaped because of her position between the sweet potato and the glass - her tail is curled under. When swimming in the tank, she has a typical BN body shape)
Cheers, Eric

[mattcham]

Yes, when I google "albino longfin aeneus" all the images are for peppered cory long fin. I know because they look like my albino longfin peppered and different from the fins of the longfin bronze that I see everywhere including the ones that I own.

Your female white looks very healthy. I've been searching Aquabid for white albino longfin but so far they are all yellow albino LF. I'll keep searching.

[bekateen]

I imagine that I'll need to remove her [the yellow female] in order to guarantee that my lone male turns his amorous activities towards the white female.

FOLLOW-UP:
Sad news. Three days ago, I removed the yellow female from the tank, leaving just the male and my white female together, with the juvies from the last spawn. I hoped that I could get a new spawn with the white female. Yesterday they were healthy, but tonight after work I found the white female jammed at the far end of the male's cave, her pectorals locking her in place, dead. Her abdomen was torn open.

I don't know what happened, but I assume the male was aggressive with her in his cave. No matter though, now my hopes of getting white fry are dashed. As you can imagine, I'm pretty sad for her tonight. I'm sorry, but I guess I won't be able to investigate the mystery of the white ABN.

[Anthonyck]

I have about 6 browns and 14+ albino from my recent breeding of like ABN w/red eyes. So I guess it's not impossible.

[mattcham]

A replied a few days ago but for some reason my reply disappeared. Anyway, I'm so sorry to hear about your white albino. Maybe the cave was too small and she could not escape from the male. Hopefully you can find them again at your local fish store.

[bekateen]

Thanks for your support. As to cave size, I don't think the cave was too small in an absolute sense, because I've already had three spawns in that tank inside the same cave (a 1" diameter bamboo pipe, 5 inches long/deep), all since February 16th, and my white female is the smaller of my two females. So either this same white female used the tube successfully before, or the larger yellow female used the tube successfully.

However, I think the cave may have been to small or too confining for her if the male was being aggressive with her, or if he trapped her and she wasn't ready to spawn... Is that even possible? Will a female enter a male's cave if the female isn't ready to spawn? Yesterday I placed my larger, yellow female back in the tank, and just as a precaution, at the same time I removed the bamboo cave and added a 1.5" diameter black plastic pipe to replace it. Let's see if the fish like that.

Cheers, Eric

[mattcham]

I have a lot of extra caves in my tank and mostly just the males use them. Females don't seem to sleep inside caves even when the cave is empty. On rare occasions I have seen females alone inside a cave but in general I get the sense that the females don't use caves as sleeping quarters unless there is no where else dark/dim to hide. My females almost always sleep on or near my sponge filters during the day and they (females) fight each other for space on the sponges.

[bekateen]

Females don't seem to sleep inside caves even when the cave is empty. On rare occasions I have seen females alone inside a cave but in general I get the sense that the females don't use caves as sleeping quarters unless there is no where else dark/dim to hide. My females almost always sleep on or near my sponge filters during the day and they (females) fight each other for space on the sponges.

That's my experience with my ABN females too. I never see them staying in caves alone, and mine also prefer to hide under or between the foam blocks of my sponge filters. (I say "they" in reference to the time when I had two females... now I have only one, and "she" does this all the time).

Cheers, Eric

[mattcham]

I was at Petco today and they had albino plecos that are snow white (not yellow). I would have purchased some but I have my hands full at the moment. My yellow albino long finned plecos spawned 3 weeks ago and I have about 80 fry at the moment. Perhaps the next generation I'll try to cross the offspring with some snow whites with the goal of producing long finned snow white albinos (as opposed to yellow albinos). The problem with such a cross is that 100% of the fry might end up being brown, and another generation will be needed to find some long finned snow white albinos (only 12% yield).

You can see some of my pleco fry on youtube. They are only 0.5 inch long and they are already yellow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_shPyubff8

[bekateen]

That's good to hear. At least the snow whites are still available.