What really is a brown base on crested geckos?

Geckos Crested Geckos
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Hi everyone,

I’ve been reading up on the Foundation Genetics guide by LM Reptiles, and it got me wondering about one of my own geckos. Long story short, I’m wondering whether it could be worth pairing this (admittedly) brown base gecko with blush to a red. The conundrum is that she’s…brown. My primary question is…can brown be a black base + hypo? If so, it could be worth trying.

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My line of thinking is this:

I produced this little baby out of a black base x brownish dark base. The grandparents on both ends are a mix of darks and blacks, but one great grandmother is a red. Apparently, blush can indicate het for red, and this little kid has it (not visible in the photo).

Commonly held standards in the hobby is to pair red to dark (like, close to black), or red to lav. With lavs, it’s my understanding that hypo reduces melanin, thereby brightening reds. But red to a brownish dark? Not so sure on that one, unless it possesses some level of hypo layered on a black base.

Would love to hear thoughts on this! Still learning about all this. I’d do lav to red in a heartbeat if…well…I had a lav! Thanks in advance!

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I don’t believe brown is black + hypo, but typically just a variant of black base. But i don’t see why you couldn’t pair it to a red to try and prove it out. As long as the red is at least the same “quality” as this one in terms of pattern, structure etc, you’re likely gonna get some nice babies, and if your red is bright already, then it likely has hypo from my understanding, and so the babies might get the hypo from the father. I really wouldn’t care about the “standards” in the hobby when it comes to what you /should/ pair, and pair what you want depending on what you want to try to create, especially since a lot of the standards are based on the info people had before all the genetics stuff came out. I’ve seen people pair darks to reds that weren’t super bright and still get great results (:

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@lmr_lmreptiles @t_h_wyman

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Correct brown is just the color of the melanin in that animal. Inherited in this example from parents. Hypo is a seperate trait interaction, usually producing lavenders. If the animal is red, you’ll just have to try to prove it out to know for sure, regardless it’ll have nice offspring.

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