A question about Black Rams commercial names

[Lucas Stamford]

What would you call that Ram (commercially)?


it seems to have some black genes, but nowhere near the pitch-blackness that some show. Together with him, in the same shipment, there were others much darker, but smaller, maybe stunted fish which I presumed that can be correlated (more black - a weaker, more delicate fish?)

This is a complete novelty in the market for my country, being the first importation of rams with such genetics. German Blue Rams are not a thing too, what we have plenty available is a common Ram lacking in good german blue genetics (very much dull in comparison to a good german blue ram), electric blues, electric blue "koi", gold rams and all of that in the deformed ballon varieties, veil-tails, etc. That being said, it seems to me that the lighter of the black ones are being called just a "german" around here.

So, how should I call this guy, as I may get lucky and sell some of his offspring back to the market and I don't want to perpetuate a wrong comercial name for this.
For me, he is not a "classic" german blue ram, but not a strong dark one. Would he still be called a "black"?

 

[FishEZ]

You have a very intriguing question. I see them as "Dark Rams", "Dark Knight Rams", Black Rams, Midnight Rams, Blue-Black Rams and there's probably quite a few out there. I believe that the Rams that we are seeing are resultant of many people crossing their rams from the fixed Black ram strain with German Blue strain only to get a lot of crossed up rams that are not of a fixed strain. One should understand recessive genes before diving into such an adventure. But as for what to call them, I don't really know if it's been fixed.

 

[MacZ]

With domestic strains there is no right or wrong for the tradenames. Every breeder can call their strain what they want and sell them under that name.

If this one was in a shipment with darker ones I would assume the strain they are from is not entirely stable yet. I would probably wait a generation or two to find out and then think about a name again.

 

[FishEZ]

I agree with MacZ. You can call it whatever you would like. Even more, MacZ's recommendation is a good one. You don't know what you have until you've been breeding from it and see the offspring. Only then do you know what you have. But to answer your last question. I wouldn't call it a Black Ram since it is not black.

 

[Josh]

"dark phased ram"?