Black lace angelfish

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  Silver

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  Zebra

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  Marble

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  Koi

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  Gold

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  Platinum

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  Black laceThis page

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  Blushing

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  Veil

Care at a glance

Overview

A black lace is a silver with more black in it: wider, darker bars and fine dark veining through the fins that gives the form its name. In a crowded tank it is easy to mistake for a plain silver, so check the fins first. Shops also use lace loosely in compound names such as zebra lace, so read the whole tag rather than the last word.

In the wild

Black lace is a single dose of the dark gene laid over the wild pattern, and it is not a wild fish. The mutation is old: Joanne Norton records the first black angelfish being obtained from black lace parents in the 1950s. Which breeder first fixed the lace form is not recorded, so its exact origin is uncertain.

Good to know

Dark is incompletely dominant, so one dose (D/+) gives black lace and two doses (D/D) give a solid black fish. Two lace parents produce roughly a quarter black, half black lace and a quarter silver. Norton describes the double dose fish as low in vigor, slow growing and prone to high fry mortality, a penalty the single dose lace fish does not carry.

Common questions

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