Albino fish and eyesight

Lab_Rat

Lab_Rat

Merry Christmas!
Dec 3, 2009
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I've always heard that albino fish don't have problems with eyesight, but I've currently got 4 Aulonocara jacobfreibergi "Eureka Red" albinos and they don't seem to be able to find food like their normal counterparts. The 3 normal colored eureka reds have all grown much faster and are noticeably larger with rounder bellies than the albinos.

All 4 albinos are at the bottom of the pecking order and are thin. I feed plenty, and I see them go after the food and miss a lot. Almost like they can't see the food to target it. No signs of parasites, and no other fish have that problem. They seem to have more trouble when the food is directly under the light, so I'm adding some floaters to help block some light.

I don't normally buy albino fish, so idk if mine are just weird or what. Has anyone else had this problem with albinos where the normal colored counterparts seem to do much better?
 
Interesting! I think it may apply to fish as well as it does to humans. What you are saying makes sense out of one of my Oscars. He often misses the foods even when in my hand. He misses more often when the light is on! He is part Lemon and part Lutino which is a strain from albino.

I wonder if anyone has performed a study on the possibility?
 
I was always under the impression that albino animals had bad eyes. Actually, my mom's maiden name is Albin, and a lot of the guys in the albin family (including my brother) are blue eyed blondes. Turns out that a lot of the blue eyed blondes (also including my brother) are color blind. Kind of leaves me to think we had an albino in our family a while back, but it's hard to tell because my grandfather moved with his step-uncle or something when he was a boy.
 
As I've always understood it, it isn't so much that they always have bad eyesight. The idea was that since they lack many of the normal protections, their eyes are more prone to getting damaged then non-albinos. Usually it ranges anywhere from simple light-sensitivity to blindness.


Never really researched it a lot personally though so can't say 100% for sure. I love albino small animals (had an albino ferret that never seemed to have vision problems), but for some reason albino fish don't really appeal to me.
 
out of all my fish i only have two albinos, cories. i've never noticed them having any issue finding food, navigating the tank (even after a major rescape), and they are chubbier and just as active than any of my other cories. the only difference between the albinos and the other cories is that i am able to put my hand near the albinos and even touch their tail fins/rear half without them freaking out like the others do.

i've also owned albino mice in the past that had no problems with eyesight.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. I think I'm going to switch to a smaller pellet so the albinos have a better chance at getting more. I'm also feeding them in the morning with the light off. Hopefully they'll catch up to the normal colored ones.
 
What about feeding them something like strips or nori which they can graze at for a while? I use plastic clothespins to weigh down the strips...I raised krib fry thanks in part to nori strips :)
 
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