a-melenistic bristle nose
a-melenistic bristle nose
Has anyone ever herd of plecos being amelenistic? I have two albino looking brstle nose plecos that bred and they produced both albino looking babies as well as brown babies. This lead me to beleave that they carry a amelenistic gene whitch supresses the dark bigment and that the gene is co-dominate. Anyone else experience this?
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MatsP
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Re: a-melenistic bristle nose
There are certainly amelanistic bristlenoses - and are examples of that - they lack the black/brown melanin pigment, but there's still some yellow pigment in their skin, hence their yellow appearance. There is also pigment in their eyes, as opposed to true albino fish, which have "red" eyes due to lack of pigment in their eyes.
But what you are seeing is probably the fact that there are more than one gene in bristlenoses that produce albino off-spring - after all, the production of skin pigment is a relatively complex process, so it is fairly certain that this process can "break" in several different places with the same result. Many pigments [and other complex chemical products] are quite sensitive to the exact composition, and a minor change in the chemistry will produce something that is colourless instead.
Most likely, your fish comes from two different strains of albino form that have been crossed, producing some brown where both sides don't have the (same) albino gene.
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Mats
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But what you are seeing is probably the fact that there are more than one gene in bristlenoses that produce albino off-spring - after all, the production of skin pigment is a relatively complex process, so it is fairly certain that this process can "break" in several different places with the same result. Many pigments [and other complex chemical products] are quite sensitive to the exact composition, and a minor change in the chemistry will produce something that is colourless instead.
Most likely, your fish comes from two different strains of albino form that have been crossed, producing some brown where both sides don't have the (same) albino gene.
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Mats