Out of curiosity what is the genetic makeup of the parents of these guys?
The parents were 1.0 Lava het Opal Stripe X 0.1 Okeetee het Amel Lava, Joe Pierce stock.
I'm just erring on the side of caution, holding the most intense red coloured "amels" (?) back, and selling the rest as amels. I'll do some test breedings in the years to come to see if my theory is correct or not.
I'm hoping you are wrong here because I'm doing the opposite, selling the red amels and holding back the others. LOL
Lava is definitely masked by amel...and that's what makes the differentiation visually so hard. I'm just wondering why lava would soften the reds, not intensify them. Any theories on this? It's all so very confusing to me...a puzzler for sure.
Too bad Joe P. isn't around anymore to help clear up this confusion.
Maybe he is....
From Joe's thread, The History of the Lava gene
Amel Lavas or Lavamels look very different from their
Amel Okeetee siblings, but can look a great deal like Sunglows. When they are born, they have the bluish markings on their heads like most Lavas do and seem to have a bluish cast to them. My first impression of them was that they looked like hatchlings Albino Burmese Pythons or Candy Corn.
When compared to their
Amel Okeetee siblings, the red blotches are changed to orange and the white areas on the
Amel Okeetee are filled in with an orange/yellow coloration. The addition of the bluish color of the Lavas is present in the hatchlings, but soon fades. Other people who have hatched out
Amel Lavas, have been able to pick them out of their clutches fairly easily like I have.
It seems to me, that the
Lava Gene may be adding orange coloration to the equation. They are very orange hypos and with the added orange coloration to the Amels, it seems that way to me, but there may be other explanations.
Here's a pic of the dad, definitely orange-y.
