I have not bred balloon rams before but would guess that they breed true and have balloon fry. There are just too many of these fish for any other explanation IMO.
They are just deformed line bred rams of various colors. I have one that was from my own breeding and hatching.
1 out of over thousands of rams .... He is breeding with a standard GBR but I have not recognized any balloon fry yet. He is in my eyes F1 from very strong stock so not like the common balloon ram and possibly still has strong enough healthy ram genes to not produce similar fry ? I am trying to get fry like him ..He is a tank.