Surprise Albino Fry

[KaitieG]

I am growing out my first successfuly-saved-from-the-angelfish batch of koi swordtail fry (plus a few random guppies) and my 7 year old son noticed that we have two that appear to be albinos.  I got this picture of one next to a normal colored sibling--they have no black, only orange and white, and their eyes are different.  In thousands of guppy fry I've never had them throw an albino, so this caught me by surprise!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

It may just be the kohaku type where they are bi-color instead of tri-color.  

[anewbie]

not albino with black eyes and red face; but very pretty fish - i've always kept red swordtails but maybe i'll add some koi in the future.

[KaitieG]

On 12/14/2021 at 2:29 PM, anewbie said:

not albino with black eyes and red face; but very pretty fish - i've always kept red swordtails but maybe i'll add some koi in the future.

It doesn't have black eyes--hard to see in the picture but they are white with pink centers.  I actually don't usually like koi colored fish, but I love the koi swordtails (especially as fry--all the colors on the tiny little bodies are so cool)

On 12/14/2021 at 1:47 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

It may just be the kohaku type where they are bi-color instead of tri-color.  

Yes, I think you're right that that's what they'd be called, but at least half the time or so they are referred to as "albino kohaku" so I'm thinking that MIGHT be the name for the albino varient, especially with the red eyes vs. black like the others have?  

[anewbie]

On 12/14/2021 at 2:39 PM, KaitieG said:

It doesn't have black eyes--hard to see in the picture but they are white with pink centers.  I actually don't usually like koi colored fish, but I love the koi swordtails (especially as fry--all the colors on the tiny little bodies are so cool)

Yes, I think you're right that that's what they'd be called, but at least half the time or so they are referred to as "albino kohaku" so I'm thinking that MIGHT be the name for the albino varient, especially with the red eyes vs. black like the others have?  

I'm a bit confused here; how can it be albino with orange face ?

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I think it is due to their resemblance to one of the forms of Koi. From wikipedia so can't be 100% but "Kōhaku is a variety of ornamental koi. The Kōhaku has a white body, with red markings across the body. It is considered one of the ‘Big Three’ varieties of Koi, along with the Sanke, and Showa."

[KaitieG]

On 12/14/2021 at 2:46 PM, anewbie said:

I'm a bit confused here; how can it be albino with orange face ?

So, I obviously didn't research fish coloration before I posted originally...I figured "Pink eyes=albino".  Turns out after doing some searching and reading, these fish are amelanistic.  Albinos would have the pink eyes and white bodies.  Amelanistic fish generally have the pink eyes but can have non-melanin based colorations, so no black, but orange is apparently produced from some other pigment (chromatophore).  At least I think that's what I understand from reading.  I'm a little confused still because one paper said that an animal can be both amelanistic and albino, but that's not always the case.  If anyone knows lots more and wants to explain it, I'm interested!