We at Angels Plus wanted to find out the genetic inheritance characteristics of the snow white phenotype of ornamental bristlenose.
We wanted to create Longfin Snow White Bristlenose and at the same time, find out the genetic characteristics of the trait. The most logical fish to start with on a cross was a lemon bristlenose, since they look the same except for color. Our first cross was a lemon longfin male to a snow white female.
This pairing produced 100% lemons, which means snow white is recessive to lemon. We then took a longfin F1 lemon male back to another snow white female.
This pairing produced approximately 50% of each color type, which is the expected outcome when the male carries a single recessive gene for snow white. We also got 50% longfins. Interestingly, a single dark offspring also came from this cross. We will save this to see if we can figure out if it's unique.
The snow white females did not produce any longfins when crossed to snow white standard fin males. This line never produced longfins. When a standard snow white was crossed to a lemon longfin, they produced 50% longfins, once again demonstrating that longfin is a dominant gene, similar to veil in angelfish. We've known this for years, but frequently see people claiming that their standard fin bristlenose "carry longfin". They do not, so don't be fooled when obtaining new stock. If the fish carries longfin, it will be a longfin.