That's the entire point of breeding her, bronzecat; to find out her genetic makeup. I'm not breeding splendens on a regular basis anymore and have no intention of keeping the line going or selling any "normal" fry off to anyone who intends to breed them. Any fry, normal or otherwise, will be adopted out as pets. I'm not out to make a profit on this fish, I'm just incredibly curious (I LOVE genetics, so this kind of thing is right up my alley.) I'm going to be culling the vast majority of the fry as soon as they are freeswimming anyway, I only intend to keep about 50 so I have a sample size that is large enough to be statistically significant. In other words, one way or another, I won't end up with hundreds of deformy adults to deal with.
More to the point, if around 50% of the fry from the first spawning are normal, that'd tell me it's a dominant trait (which is my theory) and then those 50% would be COMPLETELY normal, and they COULD infact be used as breeders without any worry they'd pass the trait on, interestingly enough.
modaz: No worries. She is ALREADY eggy. Look at the pic again. The missing vertebrae are all further down along her spine, so all her internal organs should be normal, since that portion of her body is unaffected (most of the organs are anterior to the anal fin). My only worry is that her spine is so shortened it may effect her swimbladder, which is the only organ positioned that far back along the body. She may have difficulty wrapping with the male too, we'll see, but judging by her external anatomy I don't think breeding is going to be a risk to her health in any way.
My midas has actually laid eggs before, unfertilized since she was all by herself at the time, and parented them as normal. No problems with egg production or laying.