So have all the pastel het pieds looked as wicked as the one that Graziani posted in the last page of his 2005 gallery? I suppose it would be too much to hope for that pastel would expose a 100% reliable het pied indicator.

It will be hard to justify not breeding your het pied female to your het pied male at your first opportunity. If you have a little extra money maybe pick up a pastel female and start by breeding your het pied male to the pastel female and also breed him to your pied het female. That way for the cost of a female pastel you don't delay your shot at producing pieds by a year in order start out the pastel pied project. Hopefully you get a wicked looking pastel male that looks highly likely to have hit his 50% chance of being het pied to justify using him on the het pied female the next year. At least then you'll have the shot at pastel pied to justify using her on a not 100% het pied male.

I’m actually much more excited about the spider pied. If spider female prices get low enough pick up a female spider to breed to your het pied male. Again, hard to say how consistent it will be but on that same page Graziani’s spider het pied looks a little different to me. Maybe you could reliably pick out a male spider het pied from the clutch (if the odds gods let you produce one) and breed it to the het pied female the next year and so add a shot at spider pied for the price of a spider female. Given the 1 in 8 odds of producing a male double het even if you could identify him on sight you might want to try both the pastel female and the spider female with the het pied male to increase your chances of getting at least one pastel or spider het pied male the first year.

I might have to try producing a spider het pied with a 50% chance het pied male and then eventually back to a 25% chance het pied female just to see if it can be done on the cheap using indicators to beat the odds. Of course the rub is having to buy and raise up a spider female.