You didn't mention the lyre tail before did you? Are you then crossing albino to black, regular body to balloon and regular tail to lyre tail? Is it fair to guess that these are recent fry? Maybe it is my faulty memory, but I'm surprised that lyretails would show right away.

If this is the first generation of your cross, the F1, and you got albinos, the black balloon mother must have carried a Ba combination. One of her genes would probably have been dominant B for black and there was an recessive albino gene hidden there.

If the two albinos both turn out to be males then you may want to breed them to at least a couple and maybe more of their sisters. They should have "a" for one of the color genes. If space interferes with having that many fry, you might just breed one. But having the fish and always wondering about the uncertainty of bring just one female to term, I'd cover my bets by trying with a couple of females.

On the other hand, if one of the males is clearly more robust than the other, but I'd probably use him as sire. This of course is complicated by your interest in developing albino balloon bellies. And if you want to work the lyre tail in there, then you will select males and females showing those tendencies.

It can be difficult, counting small fry when they have a lot of hiding places. Sometime please try to give us a count, maybe as they put on size and confidence. A census of who shows what color, body shape and tail characteristics obviously is important too.

I've never raised or kept balloon bellies. Do the fry show their eventual shape when very young or does that come with maturity? The tail business will develop as the fish mature. But because the skeletal structure is different with the balloon bellies wonder if it would show when they are very young and would appreciate someone sharing their experience with those strains.

That's more for others reading along. Josh will certainly know soon, if he doesn't already. :)

If one of those albinos grows up to be a female albino balloon-belly, then you could back cross her with the male if he continues to thrive and isn't too much larger than her. (If she catches up with him.) He might live 2-3 years more. Mollies can be longer lived than guppies.

Skimming Internet images of balloon belly mollies, I notice that there are some golden balloon bellies and some with warm colors and a dark tail. (Probably that is what we would call a "wagtail" on a platy.)

It will also be interesting to see who has what kind of tail. You have quite a project with three different genetic factors (body color, body shape, tail) to consider.

Theoretically there should be 50% albino fry if one parent was aa and the other Ba for coloration. However albinos are not always as hearty as other fry. I wonder if the balloon belly fry will also have a higher mortality (death) rate because of their build. That build of fish (molly, goldfish, even a strain of American flag fish) is popular with some Asian fish breeders, but adults of those fish are not found in the wild (unless they are the offspring of escapees.)

Sampling a creek in the shadow of O'Hare field, we pulled up a very solidly built greenish fish about three inches in most directions. One of the NANFA resource people in the group looked at the rest of us and asked what it was. He got mostly blank looks and gleefully pointed out that is was a goldfish. Evidently the golden fry (they should have showed non-wild colors by then) were all victims of predators. We guessed that the longer offspring would be more likely successors to that fish if it survived and mated.

IO stopped by some friends in Chicago Hts ;ate last summer. The two young men (both of whom could wrestle me to the ground 3 0f 3 times so they certainly aren't kids) has caught three healthy looking green-gray fish in a little creek nearby. The creek is entirely in a residential neighborhood, except for some drainage from a country club.

I was troubled by their shape because I felt that I should know what they were. Equivocating, I hazarded the guess that they were some sort of carp. They were sleeker than these and more of the wild coloration. http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Home/Animals/Fish/Bony-Fish/Reproduction-and-Development/Goldfish/G oldfish-01.html

Upon returning home I grabbed one of the several fine book on collecting and keeping North American fishes by John R. Quinn. One page showed young European carp. Their mouths were too pointy. A turn of the page showed a drawing of a wild-colored, inch-long goldfish which could have been traced from one of those netted out of that nearby creek. It was interesting how predation was causing them to regress to the wild form.

Josh, I think that you will keep us posted on who develops anyway, but feel that you are owed the courtesy of being asked to please to keep us up to date on what grows up. I appreciate what you are trying to do in this experiment and in sharing your observations, but would never want to take even a faithful Guppylogger like you or anyone's participation in Guppylog for granted.