Grey H.orientalis with red dorsal stripe..

Hey,
I have been raising a bunch of orientalis of different sizes, and I have followed a couple of males with greyish color.... They have this red dorsal stripe with black dots along the stripe. Ive handled quite of lot of orientalis over the last 2 decades and I never saw grey ones(except photos ofc} until I came over to the UK from Sweden, Ive seen some pics of greyish orientalis with what seems like a red dorsal stripe but it is hard to tell. I would like to know how common these are(grey colour with and without stripe} and if both genders have these stripes.
Nate got me interested in this back in the day...

Hi!

I don't think they are too common, but 2 of my old females were also grey with those stripes on the back. They could change their color to "normal" blackish and those stripes then disappeared. I can't tell if offsprings inherit this color or not because my grey females seemed to be infertile. I changed the male in their tank to my surely fertile male but nothing happened, those females still layed only infertile eggs later on.

A picture would be great, Jesper. I´ve seen orientalis with reddish dorsal stripes in particular my WC male but the stripe appears and disappears as he changes coloration throughout the year. I´d say it´s not that unusual in breeding males. The other times i´ve personally seen it have been on unsexed juveniles. These juveniles were brownish and sort of spotty rather than solid black. I think one of the ones i sent you might have been one of these brown individuals. My adult pair have only produced a handful of them over the years but they all ultimately did badly and died. Perhaps the mutation reduces their fitness. I wonder if yours, corientalis, might be infertile for the same reason. The colour of that female certainly reminds of the juveniles, but being an adult there are differences.
There were a number of imports in relatively recent times that seem to fit the H.orientalis label but also sort of match Jesper´s description. It could be that the phenotype is common in some collection sites and rare or inexistent in others so this strange aberrants only surface when specific locations are harvested. Or they may even be a different, undescribed species, i have no idea.
They are rare, that´s for certain.