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I was given a pair of young brown BN plecos around October. They apparently liked what I was doing and spawned for me within a month of keeping them. Unfortunately, they shared a tank with some adult angelfish, and as soon as the babies ventured out on their own, they were eaten. That day I got rid of the angels (sounds callus, but I had no interest in angelfish and was just babysitting them. Their owner said they couldn't take them anymore and I don't have the tank space).

Long story short, my plecos have spawned again and now I have the joy of seeing little suckerfaces stuck to the glass. Something I noticed that I find odd was that out of the 30 or so babies, 6 were albino! Since the parents were both brown, I had expected all browns. Instead I got lots of variation in color. Even between the same color babies they range in color. Some of the albinos are the color of butter, and some are more lemony, and they greys range in color from dark to light with some having white bands and spots.

Now it is too soon to tell what they are going to look like when they get older, I'm sure, but I was wondering if anyone could give me a little more insight into the color genetics at work here? Did the parents have a recessive gene to create albino? That would be my best guess since it is almost exactly 1/4 of the spawn.

And here are some pictures just for kicks

If you search in the forum there are probably 50+ topics about this. Just because both of your pair are brown, doesn't mean one of their parents weren't albino.

here is just one such topic I found when using the search feature

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... cs#p192993


EDIT: BTW, congrats on the spawn. Bristlenose are something I cannot seem to breed, but everyone else and their mother can. I wish you luck with your bristlnose and their soon to be 1000's of fry

I have a pair of brown BN's that make brown fry

and another albino pair that makes 100% albino babies

and another brown pair that has mixed brown and albino babies

one of my pairs also produced a juvenile that is almost all black

all standard finnage

I will have to catch him to see how much is not black

JS

It looks like you have a pair that both have genes for albino coloration, but have the brown gene also which is dominant. So the offspring roughly 1/4 have both albino genes, which means they are albino. Of the browns, roughly 1/3 have 2 brown genes and 2/3 have brown and albino genes like the parents. They only way to know what type the brown offspring are would be to breed them with an albino, and see if any albino fry are produced.

I had a trio of browns that produced about 25% albino fry. Some of their brown offspring that were scattered among various tanks to grow out have since matured and started spawning. I expected some albino fry from them too, and have found some, along with a few calico and even a couple super red fry.

I crossed a calio with an albino. It gave the original bn color, calio, albino. The fries were mixed with albino being the least and the original being the most. From there i crossed the F1 original bn color and ended up with the original color, calio and albino. Still the original were the most with reduced calio and albino. I think if i was to do it about 2-3 more generations the original bn color will stabilize.