abino bita?!

[blueblue]

This fish is an F1 of a pair of wild Ap. Bita. from Tefe.

When i first got it, it looked very normal. However, gradually,
the fish turned to be white (100% white) for the whole body,
including eyes. Is it a problem from its DNA or it's a virus infection?
Please advise.

 

[fishgeek]

albino's are born lacking pigment and generally(in the above water world) have red eye's due to lack of pigment in the retinal cells at the back of the eye- this leads to tapetum reflecting light in a red spectrum

to change white is not my understanding of albinism
nor would the darker eye's that appear hazzy blue of corneal odema to me in the picture
the only knowledge i have of loss of pigment in fish is with tb in goldfish
some other poss are poor water quality- unlikely to affect just one
lack of dietary pigments (maybe a congenital liver shunt may lead to malnutrition because of abberant metabolism) lack of certain light spectrums , neon tetra disease though i am not aware of this causing problems in any cichlids nor in such a generalised way

andrew

 

[blueblue]

albino's are born lacking pigment and generally(in the above water world) have red eye's due to lack of pigment in the retinal cells at the back of the eye- this leads to tapetum reflecting light in a red spectrum

to change white is not my understanding of albinism
nor would the darker eye's that appear hazzy blue of corneal odema to me in the picture
the only knowledge i have of loss of pigment in fish is with tb in goldfish
some other poss are poor water quality- unlikely to affect just one
lack of dietary pigments (maybe a congenital liver shunt may lead to malnutrition because of abberant metabolism) lack of certain light spectrums , neon tetra disease though i am not aware of this causing problems in any cichlids nor in such a generalised way

andrew

Thanks andrew for your reply. Actually, there is a chinese magazine called
Aquazoo News which reported this symptom among F1 of wild Bita. from Tefe.
Of course, it's not the popular kind of albinos that we have all seen. While the fish just started to be very similar to an albino (except the eyes, it's white but not red) after some days, so, are there any propositions regarding this symptom? Are there any known diseases that could make a dwarf cichlid like this (lose pigments)? Thanks.

 

[Joost S]

I agree with Fishgeek. This is not an albino. An albino fish would be white from hatching on. Would be coulorless (white) and would have red eyes. So no albino.

But I never heared of fish (or any other animal) that turned white after a certain period except for those having a special syndrom. This is also possible in the human species. This starts out with having spots of grey/white hair and turns into something that looks like an albino. I don't remeber exactly, but it might be something related to autoimmune reaction to pigmented cells, like vitiligo which is a raction to melanocytes in the skin.