The darkness of that fish is partially due to the lighting of the photograph. It is the same shade as the Blood Red Swords, but shot under relatively low existing lights. I'm attaching a couple of photos of my own fish to demonstrate this. Even the angle at which the fish is shot can influence the shade of red.

The second reason for that shade is that the fish is Albino. I've been curious why most Red Albino Swords seem to have a greater degree of red pigment than non-Albinos. It is so much more intense that you can even see the pigment cells on the eyes; it is almost cancerous in its growth.

Diet and the light under which the fish grow can also play a part in how dark the red pigments are. Some people feed red shrimp to increase the color, or special color enhancing foods. My fish received a lot of live baby brine shrimp during their early growth, but I think they needed more greens after the first month or two, so the red is not quite as intense as others.

I'm attaching three shots: first two are the same fish, taken only a few minutes apart. In one shot they caught more of the flash, so they look a bit more orange. The third shot is one of those same fish - a two inch unsexed individual - taken with the existing light, no flash. You can see how much darker that one looks compared to those shot with flash. You can also see how the pigment cells have started to grow over the eye; they can eventually blind the fish.

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I don't buy it...........the photographs you posted are all very easily recognized as obvious reds no matter the use of flash or amt of original light in the photos. These photos don't come anywhere close to the brown coloration of the original photo I posted. I am still convinced that this is a "chocolate" albino, that the color is true to life, and am prone to believe that this brown coloration might be considered "red" from the notion that it was derived from red parentage. I still look forward to reading something here from anyone who can clear this up for me!

It does look really brown to me as well. For what reason I don't know. Maybe it's like on that list I posted - Phaemelanino - brown fish/red eyes???

(ChromeDome- Yes I know it's not technically accurate )

The fish in the original shot is on a darker background, in a cloudy tank, and is sick with a film over its body. It is a red. It might look even darker if you don't have a bright enough monitor, I've had that problem comparing photos online using the worn out monitor at work. On my laptop, it is a very dark red with a very hazy look overall from the poor water conditions.

Chocolate is brown, and is the result of combined Gold and Melanic pigments. This fish is not brown.

Looks like one of your average albino blood red swordtails.

Varig8,I have a strain of red albino swords that are a very dark red.I bought this strain from a breeder on aquabid.I thought they had an unusual color for an red albino.But I still think Chromedome is right ,they are just red albinos,maybe a little darker red .

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Well, I dont think it is my monitor as its a brand new plasma. The original photo does not show a tank with "cloudy' water, the sword in the photo might have some fungus on its TAIL, but I see no evidence of any fungus covering its body, and I really do not believe that this is RED----copy and paste the photo into your photo or art program and compare the colors in it to the fish-it IS brown. As I stated before;it MIGHT be considered a "RED" as it might have come from a red line of swords, and if this fish is RED, then what is BROWN? BTW- this photo came from a site under a sub category from the yearly tropical fish show of this US state>>>whats the chance that someone would enter a fungus covered aged common red lyre sword in an annual show? All the above posted photos of swords are common red velvet albino swords (some with light backgrounds and some with dark-and they are OBVIOUS reds)-still not even close in coloration to the photo I posted.

The red sword in the picture is in very bad condition.All fish ,when they get in this codition, their body colors change a little.Some get paler some get darker,I think it's nothing more then a red swordtail in distress in pain and about to die.You can see the fungus on it's tail but that's nothing compared to what's happening inside that's swordtails body.A lot of people don't think fish experence PAIN like we do,but they are wrong!
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