Chocolate Albino Pleco? Great... so what IS it?

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fifthofnovember

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Feb 28, 2010
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One of my first fish I ever got was a chocolate albino pleco, like this one:

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p76/Skiboy-Photo/simbawillieandron006r.jpg

It grew to about 14" and lived to 13 years old, before passing away from a bad case of natural causes. If that fish could have talked, it could have told you some stories.

I'd always kind of wanted another, because I'd gotten so attached to the one I had, and while I used to see them everywhere around the time I got my original one, I haven't seen them in years.

I stopped by a favorite LFS today, and guess who was there? One of my old chocolate albino friends, a little baby of 2" long. Of course I snapped the little thing right up.

I know how to take care of them, obviously, but what actually ARE they? A leucistic morph of something else? Their own separate species? I've always wondered.
 

ianab

AC Members
Sep 19, 2009
515
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New Zealand
A true albino has NO pigment at all, and will have red eyes (the colour of their blood) seen in the back of their eyes as there is no pigment to mask it.

If the eyes are normal black then it's a leucistic varient, which is lacking some of the normal pigment, but not a a true albino.

Both a a genetic variant of the normal coloured fish.

They can be hard to ID as you can't see their normal skin pattern, but both P. gibbiceps and P. pardalis can come in albine and leucistic forms.

See some pics here.
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=88
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=148

Ian
 

fifthofnovember

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Feb 28, 2010
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The eyes are red.

I'm leaning towards P. gibbiceps, since P. pardalis seems to have a higher dorsal fin than either of my fish, even in the wild type. Wish I knew some way to distinguish for sure between the two as they look very similar. Unfortunately, I don't have a key, and Axelrod's atlas is only pictoral.
 

chickenlady

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Dec 28, 2009
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I had one I got from petsmart. They told me that they were just a common pleco that had a reg. color parent and an albino parent,. I tend to believe it because my bristlenose will sometimes produce really light colored fish from mixing a reg. color male, and one of my albino females.
 

ianab

AC Members
Sep 19, 2009
515
0
0
New Zealand
The Gibby usually has the big dorsal fin.

The genetics of Albinos and leucistic fish are different.

Usually if you cross an albino and a normal, you will get normal looking fish, but that are probably carrying the albino gene as a recessive. So the next generation produces a percentage of albino fish again.
 
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