Albino or Bronze?

[HellaSancho]

Is it likely for bronze and albino corydoras aeneus to breed? I have approximatly 40 5 week old cory fry that are quite white looking but also contain some specling on their bodies. Also, all of these fry have a line going straight from their eyes to their mouth. I have 7 bronze and 4 albino corydoras in my 75 gallon tank. Here is a picture of one of the 5 week olds. Is this an albino or a bronze aeneus? Something in between?

[Jorge]

I think 7 soft rays indicates C. aeneus

[corybreed]

They are the same species. Albino is just that, an albino form of the bronze aeneus. In the wild there are likely albino forms of all species of Corydoras. Most of them do not survive because they are easy prey for other fish. On rare occasions a single speciman of a wild albino Corydoras species such as sterbai makes it to the LFS.

Mark

[arcticwynta]

Yes they can breed as they are the same fish being albino is just lack of pigmentaion..colour.

[HellaSancho]

When they do breed together, a bronze and albino, will the resulting young be a mixture of the 2? some bronze some albino? or will they all come out one or the other? What I mean by mixture is say.. a fish with albino eyes and white pigmentation but with specling.

[housewren]

Each fry should be either albino or bronze. Whether or not you get any albino fry or not would depend on the ancestry of your bronze fish. If it has albino in the ancestry, it may be carrying the albino gene as well as the bronze gene; in which case about 1/2 the fry should be albino. If the bronze parent doesn't have the albino gene, all of the fry will be bronze.

It takes awhile for the pigments to develop and get to their proper locations in the fry. This link: http://www.corycats.com/Spawning_log_19.htm
shows the development of the pigmentation in C. aeneus. If your fry have any dark pigment at all, they should end up bronze.

Cheryl