Boy did I make this one difficult!

[Armiyana]

Hello everyone!
I haven't posted in a while but I wanted to share this crazy first clutch.
Pastel Quartz X Killer Queen Bee.

And boy did I make clutch ID difficult on myself. 4 eggs. 4 white noodles.
I'm waiting for them to shed before I really try and peek at them under a blacklight. But man is it going to be hard trying to figure out a keeper. One of them is less 'purple' and has black pupils and slightly more blue eyes. I'm assuming that's the Pastel Lesser Mojave and may be enchi going on because there is some patterning showing up when I did a quick little blacklight after hatching. The purple colors on the others, red pupils and lack of yellow has me wondering if I hit 3 super pastel crystals for the others.

I was really expecting more browns to pop up.... but apparently my wish for BEL was heard 4 times over for these 4 eggs.

Mostly sharing here cause I'm headscratching. Not really expecting anything past 'maybe they have enchi or spider'. BUT! If anyone wants to share blacklight experiences, that may be an awesome help! I've been poking around but there isn't a whole lot on it sadly.

[nikkubus]

First shed should make a pretty big difference in seeing what's going on. After first shed if you want to attempt to get some regular and blacklight pics I can try to help more. Try to make sure you get a good side shot of the heads to help identify Enchi.

Mostly what you are looking for with the black light is pattern because sometimes you can see the extremely subtle difference between shades a little easier with that. You can also horse around with photo editing to try and get a clearer idea of what is going on, same as black light, certain settings can help make subtle differences more obvious, especially saturation and contrast.

From very, very subtle things, I feel like I am seeing:

Top- Enchi Spider Super Pastel BEL (not sure if Mystic or Special)
Middle- Pastel Spider BEL (not sure if Mystic or Special)
Bottom- Enchi Lesser Special Super Pastel
Right- can't see this one nearly as well because of shadow and the head being hidden but should be one copy of Pastel rather than Super Pastel

[Armiyana]

Oh, still some good insight so far! I'm hoping for them to shed in a day or two so I'll come back with those detailed photos once I get them sorted into individual boxes.

Regarding the genes if it helps any: From what the breeders had given me, the female is from lesser lines and my male is from special lines. I know that lesser/butter and mystic/special are pretty much the same genes but can sometimes show differently because of line bred genetics.

If anything, the ones I do re-home are just going to head off as BEL complex with possible Enchi/spider/super pastel (and dad is het for hypo...so 50%hypo) cause I don't want to mislabel for anyone. This is mostly for me to decide who I want to hold back for those possible crosses.

[nikkubus]

I've heard about butter/lesser being considered the same gene but linebred, but I hadn't heard that about mystic/special before. The super forms look nothing alike. If anything, mystic looks closer to phantom to me. Could be though! Linebreeding can do incredible things.

[Armiyana]

Oh! Sorry, yeah. Phantom was the one I was thinking of.
Not Mystic.

There are far too many BP genes. Hahah

[nikkubus]

Yes, there is! LOL. At least some breeders cared enough to test breed some of them so that we are able to know a bunch of ones that are allelic.

[Armiyana]

The babies have shed! Let the guessing game begin~
Especially since trying to snag photos of these little noodles is so difficult! So much wriggling.

And the more I look at them, the harder it is to decide on which one I may keep. #3 is beautiful but I believe is the only male and I was looking to hold back a female. Originally I was thinking #4 because she has the eyes that are more blue and with a black pupil. The others are darker with a pupil that will show red in the right light. Help me decide!

As a reminder, parents are:
Enchi, pastel, Mojave, special X Super Pastel, Spider, Lesser
So on the plus side, every baby is at least a Pastel BEL which is pretty awesome odds in this clutch regardless!

The IMGUR gallery:
https://imgur.com/a/NRRx6le

[nikkubus]

You did a really great job on taking pics! These are educated guesses but I think:

1- enchi, super pastel, lesser+mystic BEL
2- enchi, pastel, lesser+mystic BEL
3- enchi, super pastel, lesser+mystic BEL
4- pastel, spider, lesser+special BEL

Being so tough to see, I still would not sell any of them as anything other than "pastel (poss super), mystic or special + lesser BEL, poss enchi, poss spider" because it's just impossible to be sure without test breeding and I wouldn't want to mislead someone into believing its known for sure.

The reasons for my guesses are

-on 1-3, the dark eye stripe is SUPER thin so should be enchi
-on 4 the eye stripe is sort of squashed out at the pupil like on spiders with pastel, and the dorsal stripe has a bit more of a distinct edge
-1 and 3 have much more translucent pink heads so I'm guessing super pastel on those
-4 has side pattern that looks like it goes down a lot more on the body vs a kind of mashed up to the middle, so I think special which has less strong effect pulling the alien heads up away from the bottom than mystic does

If it were me I'd holdback #1, but depends what kind of breeding plans you have!

[Armiyana]

#1 has been growing on me so much, and was the first one to take a meal for me. So I'm glad you agree that she looks like the winner.

I need to decide on what male to pickup next, but the higher possibility of Enchi and super pastel on a BEL? That's a really strong female to have. Especially if she proves out in the future.

I pretty much am going to look into selling them as pastel BEL and give the heads up of possible x/y/z because I agree. I don't like seeing how many people will jack up prices on things that are possible hets or possible codom unless it is one heck of a stunner. And that way, just in case a gene pop up, the new owner will know what's going on.

Thanks so much for the insights! I have a feeling I used all of my luck with this pairing this year, but I'm gonna keep this stashed away as notes for what to look for in the future, just in case. =D

[nikkubus]

I need to decide on what male to pickup next

If it's for #1, my top 3 choices would be
-Ghost
-GHI
-Mahogany

Any of those looks absolutely jaw dropping with BEL complex morphs

Whatever you decide, best of luck!