What?! That's not right!

[DeCypher]

My near-hatch-time Axolotl egg embryos have an unexpected color.
The father is leucistic and the mother is albino. But, the babies still in the eggs have a dark gray-black coloration?! Could one of the parents be carrying the melanoid gene? This is very strange.
As a side question, how advanced do these eggs look? When do you think they'll be hatching?
I don't know how well these pics turned out, the embryos are so small. I think the blackish coloration along their backs is noticeable, though.

 

[Kaysie]

Unless your albino is carrying the leucistic gene and your leucistic is carrying the albino, you can get dark babies. Leucistics also start out looking like pale wildtypes.

Also, the melanoid gene doesn't delineate what color the animal will be, it only modifies that color. So a dark (aka wildtype) animal is wildtype whether or not it expresses the melanoid gene. If it DOES express that, we call it a melanoid wildtype (or for short, melanoid). If the animal is normally albino, and expresses the melanoid gene, we would call it a melanoid albino.

And if only one of the parents are carrying the melanoid gene, it will not be expressed. It's a recessive gene and needs to receive a copy from both parents in order to be expressed.

 

[JessKB]

Your eggs look normal. I think you've still got a couple days left until they hatch.

They look like they're at about the day 9 stage, but it's hard to see the development of the gills in your picture:

Axolotls - Embryo Photo Log

Regardless, you should be excited, they'll hatch soon. Hope you've got the BBS stockpiled!

 

[DeCypher]

Oh yeah, trust me I'm getting as much BBS as I can get my hands. I'm really stressing myself out over this though! I'm trying to develop an appropriate feeding schedule.

 

[binkiesbuns]

My near-hatch-time Axolotl egg embryos have an unexpected color.
The father is leucistic and the mother is albino. But, the babies still in the eggs have a dark gray-black coloration?! Could one of the parents be carrying the melanoid gene? This is very strange.
As a side question, how advanced do these eggs look? When do you think they'll be hatching?
I don't know how well these pics turned out, the embryos are so small. I think the blackish coloration along their backs is noticeable, though.

They're perfectly normal I was really confused when I got my leucistic eggs as the larvae were all black also but as they hatch and get older they'll gradually lighten. Mine now have "the norm" leu look with just a few dark speckles round their heads.
BBBs are a major pain in the *** lol, 2 hatcheries on the go set to hatch daily are a good way to go and if you have trouble seperating the shrimp from the eggs (as I did) shell-less artemia from waterlife are a fantastic way to go. Good luck!