The albino gene pool offers over a dozen colors and several tail patterns to discover. Reds, pinks, corals, oranges, yellows and pearl gray can be found. Tail patterns include clear, grass, and if you are very observant, snakeskin. Pink pastel pectoral fins and white bodied blue fin individuals will appear as if by magic. (Since AZ mentions the term "mutation" in the "Explanation of Terms" chapter I suggest that the white albino phenotype just might be AZ's demonstration of a mutation. Just a suggestion, not proven fact.)
We want to isolate and stabilize a Christmas red albino strain in order to create an albino version of the Tux Tiger Christmas Red strain we now have on file. This phenotype often appears in the F1 generation when any pair of guppies is mated from the Albino20 file. I have chosen to mate the oldest male and female in the file to make plain that age is not a major concern when using TransWarp. The pair selected are M12 (age 270) and F09 (age 276). Here is M12 in all his mature coral glory.
The first two batches of young produced by this pair did not produce a single Christmas Red male.TransWarp enables us to run a pair through the process as many times as it takes for AZ to present us with the phenotype we want. AZ reshuffles the gene pool each time a pair is mated (I call this process "searching the gene pool". Sorta like dealing cards.). The third batch produced these two males for us to play with.
All right, there is the phenotype we are on the lookout for. And, if you look at him head on or butt on, you will observe that he has pink pectoral fins. Pink pectoral Christmas red males often show up in F1 and F2 generations when you are swimming in the albino gene pool. Experience has taught me that using this male to father the next couple of generations can quickly stabilize this phenotype. Let's see how this technique (back-crossing) works.
These are the males produced by mating the selected F1 male with his highest rated sister.
Not one male of the phenotype we are trying to produce. Not to worry. We reach back to the F1 male again and mate him with one of his daughters.
The F1 male and the selected F2 female produced these males.
See, now we have Christmas Red pink pectoral males. Still too early to try sibling/sibling matings. Again,we haul the F1 male out of his file and mate his with one of his granddaughters.
Here are the males produced by the F1 male and the F3 female.
We are almost there. All the males are the Christmas Red pink pectoral phenotype. Let's switch to a sibling/sibling pair (inbreeding) for the next generation and see how close we are.
Here are the males produced by the selected pair from the F4 generation.
Well, would you look at these guys? All are just what we want. We'll select a pair from this brood to produce the F6 generation.
Here are the males of the F6 generation.
I believe we have this strain stabilized. We are at the F6 and experience has taught me that this is often far enough when working with many of the albino clear color phenotypes. Let's select the best pair from the F6 to produce our "Albino Christmas Red w/pink pec stock" strain.
Here are the F7 males (now considered "stock").
Here are the crosses made to create and stabilize this strain as shown in my "items" folder.
We now have the strains necessary to create our strain of "Albino Tux Tiger Christmas Red". One strain of "Albino Tux Tiger Christmas Red" coming up.
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