Yellow Fire Eel? ID help

[aclockworkorange]

I picked up this eel yesterday someone brought in as a trade in at a LFS. He is about 14" long, and looks similar to a fire eel, but his pattern is a little different, and most of all he has absolutely no red on him. His nose is injured from pressing up against the glass at the LFS. Please note that while he may look like he has a bit or an orange tint in the photos, he is absolutely yellow.

Sorry about the picture quality, it's a phone camera. So my theories on him, in order of likeliness, are as follows:
1) he wasn't been fed a high quality diet and his red coloring just hasn't developed
2) he's just an oddball fire eel with yellow coloring
3) he's some sort of separate species or sub species or some sort of hybrid (doubtful)

What do you guys think?

 

[knobhill]

Usually, when they come from LFS, they are really stressed. I once bought a completely white L200 pleco thinking it was a morph. After quarantine and a proper diet, it is green.

 

[aclockworkorange]

I've worked in a wholesale fish dealer and we got in dozens of different sized fire eels every few weeks from Singapore, and I've never seen a fire eel completely yellow from stress. This is not stress related.

 

[aclockworkorange]

 

[abarilot]

I would go with #2. Probably genetic and a allele is being expressed normally isnt. Btw good looking eel!

 

[jclyde13]

It's just a regular fire eel, nothing odd about it, really. Fire eels (similarly to tire track eels, but to a larger extent) have a lot of variety in patterning. Want proof? Type in "fire eel" on google images and count how many different patterns you see.

Some specimens do get more red coloring as they age, others don't, and some fade to black or grey as they age.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

Always wanted one of these buggers.

 

[DMasker]

I would go with #2. Probably genetic and a allele is being expressed normally isnt. Btw good looking eel!

+1

Agree 100% with this. Probably a missing gene or a battle between two genes.

 

[jclyde13]

+1

Agree 100% with this. Probably a missing gene or a battle between two genes.

No, like I said before, this is a completely normal coloration. It definitely has to do with genetics (what doesn't?), but it is not anything abnormal or uncommon.

 

[Saterus]

^^ +1
Beautiful fish though! *jealous!*