Let's get right down to business. We want to see if we can create a black albino. I have tried very hard in previous pools to use guppies that qualify as eye-candy and show up well against the black background. This page will be all in black and gray, sorry. After much thought as to how to proceed I came to the conclusion that we are not looking to produce a black albino guppy strain but an albino strain that has as much melanin in the tail as Mother AZ will allow. After much searching through my files I decided that a grass pewter male from the Bluegrass file would supply as much melanin without being black as I could hope to find. This male is not from a stabilized strain. He is a F2 or F3 male produced when I was "searching the Bluegrass" gene pool just to see what was to be found.  I selected a stabilized albino clear silver strain as the albino foundation for this experiment. This albino clear silver strain was stabilized from the Albino20 file. This investigation has two separate parts. First I want to stabilize an albino strain that both Mother AZ and I consider being dark pewter. Then, using that proven albino dark pewter strain, we can see how much melanin we might be able to add to the albino phenotype. Part One Here are the phenotypes being out-crossed in the first part of our experiment. The grass pewter male is loaded with melanin. What else is in his genes is unknown. Heaven only knows what phenotypes (or how many) will appear in the F1, but as long as the phenotypes are loaded with melanin we can proceed with our basic experiment. Enough of my drivel, let's get started. Here are the males produced in the F1 generation produced by Mr. Grass Pewter and a female from the albino strain. Yep, I'd say we've got plenty of melanin to work with. I selected one of the pewter males to produce the F2 generation. (My plan is to use a regular male and an albino female to produce each generation until the phenotype is a fixed strain (see pool 16). You will see where this is headed shortly.) Here are the males produced in the F2 generation. No loss of melanin in the non-albino males. The albino males look identical. I selected the pewter male and mated him with one of his sisters to produce the F3 generation. Here are the F3 males. Mother AZ did not grace us with an albino male in this batch but did do her part by producing an albino female. As before, I selected one of the pewter males and mated him with his one and only albino sister to generate the F4 generation. Here are the males in the F4 generation. Ah ha! I suspected that the pewter was hiding another color (and ugly too!).  Sticking with the plan, I selected a pewter male from this batch and mated him with one of his albino sisters to produce the F5 generation. Here are the males in the F5 generation. Only one shade of gray in the regular males shows up. Since we have only reached the F5 I have no illusions that this strain is stabilized. (To me the albino males have not changed one iota.) We move on to the F6 generation using the same process as before, a pewter male is mated with an albino sister. Here are the males in the F6 generation. Yep, just as I figured. We need a few more generations to purify this strain. Here are the males in the F7 generation. Better, one more time for insurance. Here are the males in the F8 generation. Yep, I think we have this strain stabilized. Since I have no interest in the non-albino half of this strain, I select an albino pair from this strain to produce what Mother AZ considers the color "dark pewter" in its albino form. Here are the males of the newly created and stabilized strain of "albino clear pewter". (I still say it looks like the original albino strain.) I hope you stayed with me in the creation of this strain. I used a regular dark pewter male and an albino sister to produce every generation. We know that this strain is what AZ considers to be the albino version of clear dark pewter.  Regardless of what color we think it is Mother AZ considers this phenotype to be "albino clear pewter". Now that we have a proven albino strain of clear pewter to work with we can set out to see if Mother AZ will let us add additional melanin to the albino phenotype. Part Two I used the same grass pewter male as before and a female from this proven albino pewter strain to produce this F1 generation. (The breeding plan remains the same. I will be using the darkest non-albino male and an albino sister to generate each generation, hoping to see an increase in the amount of melanin present in the albino males.)

We see clear pewter and two shades of grass pewter in this batch. I opted to use the dark grass pewter male to father the F2 generation. (I had three choices and chose the one I thought had the most melanin.) Here are the males in the F2 generation. Mother AZ did not produce any albino females so I had no alternative but to use the albino male in this batch and a non-albino female to produce the F3 generation. Here are the males in the F3 generation. Hmm, a leopard male shows up. Since we started with a grass male from the Bluegrass file this is not unexpected. (Basically, we are working with a Bluegrass strain.) This might prove interesting. I selected a grass pewter male from this batch and mated him with an albino sister to produce the F4 generation. (I hope you are keeping up with this technique.) Here are the males produced in the F4 generation. Not enough males were produced in this batch to really see just what is going on. Not to worry, we are only at the F4 generation. Pairing the only non-albino male in the batch with an albino sister we move on the F5 generation. Here are the males in the F5 generation. Better, things are starting to settle down. (I wonder what happened to the leopard tail pattern? I bet it pops up again.) Again I select a grass male and mate him with an albino sister to produce the F6 generation. Here are the males in the F6 generation. Well, well, well, again we see leopard. This looks to be a typical "bluegrass" occurrence in that the grass tail pattern is heterozygous for leopard. (Maybe I will be able to show you something else with this experiment.) I stick with the plan for the present and again select a grass pewter male to father the F7 generation. Here are the males in the F7 generation. This albino leopard male has lots more melanin in his tail. He actually "looks" gray! Okay, what is happening here is that the grass pewter males are heterozygous for two other traits, clear and leopard. (This is standard Bluegrass gene pool behavior.) If we were to continue selecting a grass pewter male to father each generation we would keep on seeing two or three phenotypes show up forever and ever and ever (and ever and ever….). We might loose one of the tail patterns, but the grass pewter quotient of this gene pool is heterozygous for more than one tail pattern. Now pay attention! Whenever you are working with a heterozygous trait it will always be "heterozygous for something". The "for something" portions of the strain can then be isolated and stabilized as a homozygous strain. As I have said before in these articles it can be very difficult to stabilize the leopard tail pattern as a homozygous strain. It most often occurs as part of a package deal. However, this grass strain is proving to be heterozygous "for" leopard. Enough talk. Watch what happens in the next generations. I select the albino leopard male and mate him with one of his non-albino sisters to produce the F8 generation. Here are the males in the F8 generation. Mother AZ declined to produce any albino males in this batch however she did allow several albino females to be produced. This fits in with our original plan so I select one of the leopard pewter males to pair with an albino sister to produce the F9 generation. Here are the males in the F9 generation. Selecting a leopard pewter male to mate with an albino sister we move on to the F10 generation. Here are the males in the F10 generation. See, all leopards! In only two generations! And the leopard tail pattern is gonna be homozygous! I hope you can see what I am saying. Again, as in all previous generations, I select a non-albino male and mate him with an albino sister to produce the F11 generation. Here are the males produced in the F11 generation. We now have two strains stabilized. (Well, it will take a couple of generations to remove the albino from the leopard pewter half, but it will take only one generation to produce the albino half. Details, details.) Here are two brothers from this batch matured to nine months old. Mother AZ considers these guys to be the same, only one is normal bodied and one is albino. (I know; the leopard markings on the albino males are not yet enhanced. A guppy breeder's work is never done. There is always something to improve.) The technique for isolating and then stabilizing the "heterozygous for leopard" phenotype also applies to color. Let's say that you have been trying to produce a homozygous strain of violet colored guppies in the red tails. You keep finding violet but violet always seems to be heterozygous for another color. Close but no cigar. Now, let's pretend that one day you are mucking about in the red tail gene pool and you trip over a coral red strain that seems to be heterozygous for violet. Bingo, you've got your violet strain. Switch to using the violet males that show up and in a few generations you will have a stabilized strain of violet guppies. Now, in our search for the black albino we still have one more out-cross to check out. We need to out-cross one of our albino pewter strains with a gray bodied clear black strain and see what happens. However, since I believe that Mother AZ's clear black tail guppies are all covering up another color I have some reservations. Well, I guess this experiment might answer two questions. Can we produce an albino strain with even more melanin and will we find out if Mother AZ's clear black guppies are hiding something from us under a black overcoat? HEY, WHAT YOU GUYS WEARING UNDER THOSE BLACK COATS ?