Shades of yellow

My axies laid eggs in the spring and I kept three of the offspring, which are now getting close to the size of the parents. One is melanoid albino and two are golden albino, and I am curious about their color genetics.

One parent is golden albino and the other is white albino. Out of all the offspring, about 1/4 lacked a shiny eye ring, which I take to mean that both parents are carriers of the recessive melanoid trait. The rest all appeared to be yellowish, which I assume means that the golden albino mother is homozygous for the yellow pigment gene. However, the two golden albinos that I have kept are not the same color at all -- one is quite pale, and the other is very bright yellow, a much more intense shade than the mother. It's nice, because I can tell them apart easily and I had been concerned that it might be difficult. But I am curious whether anybody knows anything about the genetics behind these difference? I haven't been able to find any relevant information in searching the forum.

--Beth

The yellow comes not from a 'yellow' gene, but from the leucistic gene, which dictates the migration of color cells off the neural crest. So your white albino parent is (d/d), meaning it is homozygous for non-migrating color (it's white). But since all the babies were yellow, your yellow parent is (D/D), homozygous for dominant color migration.

As for why they're two different shades of yellow, that's just variation within the genes inherited. There's no specific gene or allele that dictates intensity of color.

Thanks for your help! I was a little confused at first when I read your reply because I had thought my white male was axanthic (he has no yellow on him at all, and I had thought leucistic albinos would have yellow speckles), but looking back at the color genetics page on Axolotl.org, I can see that since he has iridophores, it must be the leucistic gene as you say.