Is anyone currently researching Lemon Tetras?

I ask because I keep them, and I've had a very strange development that would definitively answer a question that's been asked about the species.

See this little guy on the right here?


The red-orange lemon tetra? Yea... He was born in my tank, with all the others being normal coloured lemons.

Given that there's much debate about whether they are a subspecies or a colour variation, I thought this info might be interesting to the right person.

It gets weirder though: he didn't start out red.

A few months ago, I added some ember tetras to the tank, since my lemons are starting to get older and my intention was to slowly replace the school. The day after I added the embers, a little baby lemon swims out from behind a plant! He was the size of the embers, but quite clearly a lemon with bright yellow and black on his fins, like any other regular lemon. My guess is he was emboldened by the addition of the fish his size, since he was the smallest guy in there until that point.

But here's where it gets strange. He schooled with the embers more so at first, but he was still clearly distinguishable. About 2 weeks after his first appearance, he started to change to orange!!! Now he is almost the size of the other lemons, and he schools with them, but he has retained his red-orange colouring.

Anyone know what's going on? Anyone know someone who would be interested?

 

There is a peach variety of lemon tetra that exist, they are more reddish
There's a chance that he came in with the ember tetras accidentally from the store.

 

Are you suggesting it is a mutation or an environmental effect (like schooling with embers during growth)?
They say lemon cichlids gain full yellow coloration when raised on light substrate, don't know how it works but that's what came to mind.

 

I'm saying it might have been accidentally scooped up at the store and added to your tank with the embers a month ago.
It would explain the schooling with them.
That or yes a mutation might be possible from the parents genetics but you would have noticed eggs or other babies in the tank in that case.

 

There is a peach variety of lemon tetra that exist, they are more reddish
There's a chance that he came in with the ember tetras accidentally from the store.

No he definitely didn't! I had the embers in a quarantine for a week prior to adding them to the tank, on top of carefully looking them over in the bag before putting in quarantine. Also, I obsessively count my fish all the time (to keep track and make sure everyone's alive) so I know how many I had. Here, check out this article for a bit of info on the fish and the debate going on about the morphology: Hyphessobrycon pulchripinnis – Lemon Tetra — Seriously Fish

"The latter fish is referred to as H. pulchripinnis ‘orange red’... The two forms [of lemon tetras] may not be conspecific, however, since they exhibit a number of differences in colour pattern and morphology."

Are you suggesting it is a mutation or an environmental effect (like schooling with embers during growth)?
They say lemon cichlids gain full yellow coloration when raised on light substrate, don't know how it works but that's what came to mind.

I am honestly not sure what I am suggesting, it appears to be both or either. I will have a look and see if I have a picture of before it morphed to confirm I'm remembering right. It's crazy weird if it did morph as an environmental adaptation, but still really weird if it's an orange red born to conventional parents.
Hmm, that's interesting, I will look into it to see if there's any similarities.

I'm saying it might have been accidentally scooped up at the store and added to your tank with the embers a month ago.
It would explain the schooling with them.
That or yes a mutation might be possible from the parents genetics but you would have noticed eggs or other babies in the tank in that case.

My lemons breed around once or twice every two weeks, I have taken eggs and hatched fry before (but never successfully raised).
About a month or two before the juvenile appeared, I decided to go more natural and started putting a nylon over the intake of my tube for water changes/stopped disturbing everything so aggressively. I also have always had my filter intakes covered with sponge.
On top of that, my scape is designed to maximize the amount of different areas in the tank at the expense of not always being able to see all my fish. They have a ton of hiding places, thickets of plants, tunnels under branches, etc. Most of my 10(11) lemons are male so they all want their own little slice of territory, lol. A fry would easily have places to hide from all the big fish, how long they could is the question but obviously this one managed to pull it off!
So yea, I'm 100% confident this guy was born to the lemons in the tank. I understand it's not the conventional way of thinking, but extraordinary things do happen from time to time.