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This strain has been mislabeled as albino Red OB zebra for some years now.It is not a Albino but Hypo ( Hypomelanistic ). The eyes are dark wine red and look normal most of the time. In the Pic's the look bright red but in person they are a dark wine red. I always felt this strain was hypo and not albino but I had no proof until this year when I found the farm where this mutation was first discovered. The blue blotches and dark wine red eyes was a key marker for this gene. In a true albino the blotches would have been pink to a super light blue sheen. The proof was when the farm sent me some light brown fish with red eyes from this strain. I crossed a OB male from this strain to some Cherry red zebra females and bred the young back to another male from this strain and got a few light brown fish with the wine red eyes. There was all the proof I needed. A albino would have been white or cream colored. I been working with this line for a few years now crossing them into Cherry Red females increasing the orange background color. This male is a result of those breeding's.

Hard work pays off!Thats one hot looking fish!

I'm not finished yet. wait till you see the next gen. Thanx for the complement

My albino red zebras have the same eyes. Everyone who sees them, in my low light tanks, comments that their eyes are black. Once I tell them to look closer and hand them a flashlight, they see that they are red...or more accurately, "Dark red wine".

Well now you know it is a hypo red zebra not albino. I'm looking for a few hypo reds . Mike I dont know if you remember us talking about them and me telling you I think they are hypo . Now I got the proff I needed to back up my gut feelings about this strain

Here is one of the first males I acquired. This was Marketed as Albino Red OB zebra. (#1Pic ). I know it was not the true Red OB because I had the True Red OB In the early 80'S and then wild ones in the mid 90's. I enclosed a pic of some pure tank raised form my wild stock ( #2 Pic ) . The first thing I did was breed the breed them to the Cheery Red Zebra which is another Hybrid. The main goal was to make this fish look like a souped up version of the pure Red OB but with the Hypo ( AKA albino ) gene. When I crossed the Hypo Red OB to the The Cheery Red. I was expecting to get some Cheery Reds And OB's with a more intense color. What I got was all O morphs with wash out color. I knew right there There was little if any red Zebra in this OB stock. The male in the pic was a result of this cross, crossed back to a male Hypo OB stock I got from Another Wholesaler. I did the Hypo Red OB ( AKA Albino ) X Cheery red . with more than just these 2 animals I had got some of the so called Albino Red OB from a wholesaler these fish were the same gene but a little richer color. I got most of my Cheery stock from the same wholesaler. I found the Farm the this fish came from It came out of a OB fish that had a few Red zebra females crossed into them a few years back to give a little color to the stock.

Up to date with this project
I now have this male in the pic in the first post which is a 3/4 Hypo Red OB X 1/4 cheery red and Crossed to a Hypo red OB X Cheery Red first gen cross. I got 4 different OB, Hypo OB, Red and Hypo red . To my surprise I got some O fry with a more rich color they are small around 1/4 of a inch so too young to tell what they will look like as adults. Now I also crossed this male in the first post to a pure Red OB and got both Big blotch and small blotch fish that look like the True Red OB. I will keep you up dated when these fish hit 2.5 inches so you can see the pattern, they are only 1/2 inch right now . I so happy because I'm on the way to get what I want A hypo Red OB with the pure Red OB pattern but with better color and the hypo gene

pic#1 one of the original Hypo Red OB so called Albino Red OB


pic#2 Pure Red OB


One of the female Cheery red used in the cross


This is the cross between the between the Hypo Red OB crossed to the Cheery Red F1 cross

I am glad that you are making progress on this project. When I was working with this group I crossed a albino red ob zebra to a cherry red zebra. I got two albino red ob zebras from this spawn.

Thanx mike,I remember we were working on the project together. Wow you lucked out on the first try. Well Now we know it is not a albino and the mutation is the hypo gene.