Hi James
Just catching up on this forum....I have had good crosses using 5 gal tanks. With the 20, there may be enough room for them to mind their own business, though most male swords/platies try to mate with any fish that resembles a female after a bit.

One tip I would suggest, use a male with a dominant trait the female doesn't have, or males she has been with had. Any fry with the dominant phenotype must be hybrids. Using markers greatly helps identify hybrids. Unfortunately, some times the traits we want to wrk with are recessive and this is no help.

Jim

Thank you for posting this Melody, it was a good read

Its nice to see some emperical evidence, even if it is old, than anecdotes!

Jim

Albino is a single gene trait...as mentioned it is recessive, so your albinos are homozygous recessive.

It seems like you are looking to generate some variability to experiment with and develop new strains. The best way for you to do this is cross one of your albino fish to a wild type (normal color--read "non albino") individual....any strain will do...and as mentioned, maybe a fish of unknown genotype will give you some interesting results.
your F1 will all be normal colored...but heterozygous for the albino trait....so....then you can either:

Back cross your F1 to the albino line you used in the first place...this would generate a BC1 population--you will get around 50% albino offspring in the BC1.

Generate an F2, simply breed brother to sister from the F1, you will get 25% homozygous wild type, 50% heterozygous albino, and 25% albino. Choose albino offspring and go from there in strain development.

Or, you could cross the F1 from a cross with one of your albino strains to the other albino strain you have. This situation will generate the most variability, giving you many more combinations of albino with other traits. You would get the same results as the BC...50% wild type (but heterozygous for the albino allele) and 50% albino.

Percentages may not be exact in each and every drop, but would represent the results of an infinite number or progeny from each situation.

Trying to cross with the other species you mentioned...which would be a wide cross...would probably generate some very interesting results since those species no doubt carry genes and alleles not present in the domestic "helleri" populations. If you go that route....DO NOT mix them up with your true species, and do not distribute them as such. It is important to keep the species populations safe from contamination with genetic info from domesticated lines....

Above all else...keep records, and hopefully pictures of your parents as well as representative offspring in each generation...that is the only way you will be able to learn about inheritance of traits you are studying in your breeding program.

Sounds like a fun project...
Jim