Albino fry(exciting and sad, anyone els?)

[Bambi]

I found a TRUE albino among my fry today. Red eyes, no pigment. Most of this is kinda me just talking, so the point of this is posted in BLUE if you don't want to read it all.

I'm excited because of the rarity(and the chance to see if albino as a recessive can be reproduced by breeding to an unrelated betta the grossing brother to sister).

However..most albinos tend to die before they reach breeding age or are too weak to breed..and mine doesn't look to be any different.

So the sad part. he seems to be hanging at the bottom of the tank and has sinking issues. he swims sporadically to the top of the tank in burst and keeps sinking, then seems to gasp for breath where as the other fry are fine.
I just did a very small water change(ten percent, moving them to a 1gallon via cupping method so I can do a 100% on the ten gallon and scrub the gunk from the bottom that's built up over 3 weeks without a snail(the stores here have none in stock..ever, despite being listed as for sale.)

Has anyone els come across an albino in there spawns? And i'm talking a true albino, not just a cellophane. Did you notice any issues?

Both parents were petstore stock and both have passed, as the ones i get from pet stores tend to, withing a few months of coming home with me. So I wasn't expecting the strongest of genetics to begin with.

Since the fry still moves aound the bottom and can reach the surface himself I'm not going to kill-cull him/her. If he can survive accommodation will be made either by myself or to a non-beeding home if he/she has issues in adulthood.
He/she is one of my lager fry so I hope they make it.

[EvilVOG]

Why non-breeding? If he/she survives potential offspring could be worth serious money.

maybe separate it so you can more closely monitor it/ nurse it back to health?

where are you at? I may have extra duckweed to pass along soon.

[Bambi]

If his/her swimming problems persist to adult hood then he/she shouldn't be bed. Any fish showing unhealthy qualities(bent spin or conic swimbladder issues or very bad immune system) shouldn't be bred, they will produce a large number of fy who also show/carry those bad qualities.

the fish you get at petstores that seem to die after a two months for no reason? probably came from lines where the parents shouldn't have been bred.

Also, if he/she is bred it will be for genetic study, not profit. xD
I have been pondering floating him in a shallow container in the larger tank until I can get a heater for a small tank. I have various small containers I use for floating QT fish or introducing females...

I'm watching him/her right now and he seems to get along is a kind of 'hopping' manner he's sticking to the side of the one gallon by me and will occasionally turn to look at me while he searches for food that's fallen down there. He/she 'looks' healthy. But I don't know what swimbladder is supposed to 'look' like.


I'm in southern California.

[Bambi]

So somethings just occurred to me.

Most albinos that have been recorded have been blind are partially so..
Is it possible he's sticking to the bottom because it's easier to find food there and less...frightening? then swimming around and not seeing whee you're going?
Does anyone have any experience with blind betta? Are they in general less active then their seeing counterparts?

[Luimeril]

separate him/her into a shallow container.

it's pretty exciting! i've been studying albinism alot lately, because a character of mine in roleplaying is an albino.

it's possible that he/she has problems seeing. putting him/her into a shallow container may help him/her out in many aspects, including growing stronger. :B

[Bambi]

once the ten gallon finishes warming up and i move the rest of the back into it i'll be putting him/her in her own shallow container.

Back in highschool I had an albino classmate for PE, never talked to him though. ><

[Olympia]

I don't know about the blindness thing, he might be blind, might not be. In nature, albino animals aren't designed for survival in general though. I know for example in bird, being albino makes feathers really weak and frail in particular, and the whole animal tends to be weaker than a coloured one. Snowflake the gorilla died of skin cancer caused by being albino. Many albino animals are blind most likely due to lack of pigment in their eyes, ruining them in some way. I'm guessing his scales will probably be fragile due to lack of pigment also. So he'll probably be really delicate all his life, if he lives and you decide to rehome him, put him in a really good home that you can trust :p

on a side note, I saw a few days ago Canada Betta was selling a true albino male for $200.

[LittleBettas]

Im not sure if this is true in fish, but the gene increases chances of cancer
increases chances of blindness
and usually results in weakend immune systems


Also, sometimes the blindness is actually caused by the lack of color around the eyes (sensitivity to light) so make sure you keep him/her in a low lighted area... I also know that the same thing has been known to cause seziures in some species

[Bambi]

~nods~
All of those are reasons why he/she would be going to a non-breeding home unless he/she makes a complete recovery and lives a normal life.

He/she is in a shallow container floating along side his/her siblings in their nice clean water.

Olympia: There was a poor/sickly looking albino girl for sale on aquabid a couple years ago, but she was priced ungodly high(bids in the thousands) but I don't know if the buyer actually paid or not. Makes me kinda ill to know someone would try to profit off an unhealthy fish(and not even mention it in the description). My fry get natural light, but it's not direct since there's a draft by the window. So it shouldn't be to harsh for him(especially with the extra wall of his/her floating container). I do have lights over the tank but i only use them for night time feedings and can probably make 'shades' for them.

I don't see how the lackof pigment itself would cause cancer or blindness.but I can see that it would make it easier to get, say, skin cancer because you have no protection and i would assume the same for the eye, easier to get damaged by bright lights.

According to the betty spendens site, only one albino(at the time the page was written) had been successfully bred. And albino female to an orange male. No albino fry came from the spawn and i can't find anything on the line being continued.

[Olympia]

I feel bad giving you wikipedia, but it's the best resource I could find. Everything is about human skin on google -_-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin (disorders, like parkinson's can be caused be lack of melanin in humans, similar things are quite possible in betta)

as for blindess:
Melanin (pigment that albinos lack), among other things, absorbs some of the harmfulness of light from reaching the eyes, which is why he needs a darker place to live. (http://www.kodaoptical.com/en/js.asp)

Melanin is in basically every cell, and it probably has lot's of various functions. Unfortunately, most of the research is on mammals Dx

ALSO:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=3&theater
^^ he's already sold, and I can't tell if he's healthy or sickly, but he looks fine. I read that same article about how there were only 1/2 albino betta ever produced, and was shocked when I saw this guy :p