Another "what colour" thread

Yep, its another what colour will my axolotls be thread......

I aquired these beautiful little axies last week. They are currently 17 days old and doing well. According to the breeder the father is a black melanoid and the mother a golden albino. All 7 of them have black eyes.
Ive attached some pics. There seems to be three different colours. What do you they think they will be?

Well the transparent/ grey ones are definitely melanoid, they look just like mine did when it was a baby! and I'd assume the others are goldens, but I'm not too sure, mabye some other members can enlighten you! Very sweet

Very cute I think the others might be wildtype, and the black/transparants are melanoids
I don't know if golden albinos should have red eyes from birth on or if they start black

Too early to tell by looking at them, though if you go on what the parents are, they would be golden albino and melanoids.

You have no albino babies, golden or otherwise, in the photos you have shown. They are very obvious even when very young and usually appear to have no eyes at all.


Good luck with your babies.


Regards Neil

Melanoids are also easy to spot when they're young: just use a light and shine it toward their eyes (not too bright though!), and look for the shiny eye-ring. If they don't have a ring, they're melanoid.

It's pretty hard to tell the phenotype of the offspring based on the phenotype of the parents. They could be carrying all sorts of recessive genes!

Thankyou for the replies!

My orignal thoughts were the green/brown two were wild types. I assumed none of them were albinos, due to the eye colour. I thought, as Neil said, that the lack of eye colour was present from birth. I hope Ive got atleast one wild type and one melanoid amongst the lot of them.

Ive had a look and cant see a ring around their eyes. But in saying that, they are still tiny and its hard to see much on them at all.

Any chance of any of them being leucistics? Im not sure how this genetics stuff works.

The olive coloured ones should be wildtype. From the looks we got NO albino's from all 500 eggs!!! The ones that look transparent with black spots will be melanoid and the yellow looking ones should be goldens! You may end up with a golden melanoid axie XD hopefully... Good luck Decambla!!
Also we have most likely albino ones just hatched here, the ones with eyes will probably be leucistic at my house.
Nick

I'll also do it by photo for you!! From the looks of the first photo, the first one on the left will be golden, the one right next to that will be wildtype, the one far right bottom will be wildtype and top right melanoid.
In the second photo the left one will probably be melanoid, the above one will also probably be golden. and in the last photo s/he looks wildtype.

Is it possible to have a golden thats not albino?

yes. I was going to say it looked like a copper, or yellow with dark eyes. my wild type babies were a lot darker. If neither of the parents were copper though, it would be unlikley any of the babies were.

Well I guess you could, theyd be Golden Leucistic I guess. I've seen golden ones with black eyes in the pet shops. normally Wildtype dominates in the gene pool though.

You can't have a golden leucistic. It's not possible.

Gold ones with dark eyes are either pale wildtypes, or some variant of copper.

There are some bizarre guesses at colours here!!?

As already mentioned there are no albinos in the pictures.

The olive looking ones are definitely wild.

The ones with button eyes (if they have no shiney rings) are melanoid. There is a possibility you can have melanoid leucistics (i think). The black spots will fade and the axolotl will become paler if this is the case. However I'm not sure if these darken up in later life as I have never held onto one, only had the babies.

Mel

Yep we have a melanoid leucistic......
@Kaysie
They were definately golden.... maybe they were pale wildtypes but if pale wildtype means the gold colour then thats what colour they were lol!! I have a golden albino, and have only seen one golden whatever we shall call it. LOL
But thanks for correcting me!!

Updating my photo to allow for more colour guesses.

Unfortunantly due to a grand final day accident I ended up loosing 4 of them. Another one passed about a week ago very unexpectedly. He was fine in the morning and I returned home to find him upside down at the bottom. He had no signs of stress (turned gills or tail). It was very strange, athough I had suspected something was not quite right with him. He had a lot smaller head compared to the others and just didnt seem in proportion, if that makes sense?

So these are the two I have left. Any guesses? They are not melanoids, they have the shiny eye ring. Just to recap, their parents were golden albino and melanoid.

decambla said:

So these are the two I have left. Any guesses?

Click to expand...

Had I noticed this thread earlier I could have told you that something was wrong by the first set of photos you posted. I'm not surprised that a number of them mysteriously died. At 17 days the larvae should be much more advanced than the ones in post #1. Now it is over a month later and you are posting pics of larvae that don't look much older than the ones you posted before. At this age (roughly 6 weeks) they should have all 4 limbs and be 3cm in length, at least. Don't worry about what color they are, worry about giving them the proper care first, and the color will be obvious when they grow a bit more.

What are you feeding them? How often are you offering it? I would suggest you raise them surrounded by food in order to get them to a normal size. Good luck.

Jake thankyou for your reply, but it does come across as quite aggressive. I find it a little insulting that you are implying that I am not giving them proper care. A number of them didn't die mysteriously. 1 death was unexplainable. I know full well why the other 4 died.

The first photo was taken a day after I first got them. I acquired them from another forum member.

To answer your questions they are being fed BBS which I constantly have hatching. They are fed twice daily. I leave the food in their tub for 2 hours before I change the water. They are kept in a room that is dark and cool. They are aprox 2.8cms in length. No they don't have their back legs yet.
If you can tell me what it is I am doing wrong I'm happy to listen. I only want to do what's right for these guys. But to my knowlege I am doing what I should be as I am following the advice of other members from here.

If they have the shiny ring then probably Wilds but the 2nd updated pic does look more like a melanoid for colouring.

Unfortunately these guys are a 'wait till I'm older to see what I really am' sort of deal Extremely frustrating but it is fun trying to guess and to see them change.

Just to clarify for everyone before this turns nasty which seems to be happening quite a bit of lately ...

When you said they were 17 days was that 17 days since they were laid or since they hatched? In the life of larvae 17 days makes a huge difference. If they were only a few days post hatching when you first posted then their size and development would make a lot more sense.

I think what Jake meant was for bubs that are 6 and a bit weeks old they do look a little small. He could, however, have done so without attacking the manner in which you are caring for them given that we knew nothing about their feeding and cleaning routines.
All axies grow at different rates and even if they are the full 6 weeks they could just be on the slower end of the spectrum. They certainly look like healthy little critters.

If the 17 days included egg time and they are actually just over a month old now then I'd have to say they look perfect.

They have nice big full bellies in the first pics and it sounds like you're doing everything right with them.... accidents aside I suspect that we all at some point will have or have had an axie related accident.

Can't wait to see what they really are as they get bigger :happy:

Mere.

I agree with Jay that they seem small, but if they are kept at lower temperatures their development will be slower.