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Breeding Bettas - Selecting Your Stock I am a firm believer that in order to produce show bettas, you must obtain excellent fish. It takes generations to breed LFS (Local Fish Shop) bettas to produce the quality of finnage and colours that we witness today in show-quality specimens. Hence, first of all, the selection of stock would involve purchasing your stock. There are many very reputable breeders out there (too many to be named individually) that have helped to create and maintain beautiful betta lines. Obtaining bettas from their lines would be highly recommended. It would be a good idea to obtain at least 2 pairs from the same line if possible, two reasons: for one, it's terrible if you ever lose a male or female and realise you have no matching mate for your widowed fish! Secondly, it's quite understood that some breeders have inbred repeatedly for many generations, so getting 2 pairs from the same breeder would be a good start for you to try linebreeding and preventing any hidden problems from popping up. In stock selection, you will have to be sure of what you are out to produce. Keep in mind that many traits are genetic, and will be passed down to offspring. Hence, if you are breeding for tail spread, it would be advisable to obtain parents that have tails that are as large as possible. In breeding for halfmoons (HMs), it is possible to obtain super-deltas and even halfmoons from the relatively more common half-moon geno bettas. However, higher rates of success might be experienced if you chose a true halfmoon male and his sister. It takes only a single unwise outcross to a fish of a small tail spread to spoil the entire line. I've had a horrible experience of crossing a gorgeous yellow DT from Jeff Hiller's lines to a cambodian female from the LFS - all my babies ended up with terrible veiltails! This holds true for choosing colours as well - just know exactly what you want to produce and your stock selection should be based on those lines. For example, to get blue fish, it's better to select parents with as little red wash as possible. However, you've got to be careful when selecting blue fish - there are some seemingly "clean" blues around, but they in fact carry a bit of red wash. To check, shine a torch through their fins and any red wash should show up. One exception would be breeding opaque whites - many opaque whites that are going around today have a bit of red wash, and if you purchase young opaque fish you may be startled to see red wash coming up as they age. However, breeding 2 fish with red wash will still produce some pure white babies, so this may be a good and cheaper way to start on breeding pure whites. In the same sense, there is no guarantee that breeding 2 clean opaques will yield 100% clean fish, since in some cases small amounts of red wash may still be hidden by the opaque covering. Also, if you're thinking of producing double-tail guys, many breeders don't encourage breeding 2 DTs together - such crosses tend to produce a larger percentage of fry with bent spines. Hence, you might want to try breeding a DT to an ST that carries DT, or 2 such heterozygous STs. Last of all, make sure that the parents are in tip-top health conditions. A sick betta will not breed satisfactorily. They should be active, and should accept food eagerly. Males should flare almost immediately when put in view of unfamiliar males or females. It is advisable to breed bettas between 5 to 12 months of age, as it is their prime period. Although bettas are viable at as young as 3 months old, the yield of fry might not be as good as it could have been. Old bettas are not recommended, either because they are not as fertile, or the males have such poor eyesight that they are unable to court the female effectively and many fail to take care of their eggs. At least, this was what happened to me once - I used a really old male, and he kept missing the poor gal when it came to embracing! When they finally managed to get things right, the silly boy kept trying to pick up young fry from the nest to resettle them, but in many cases he simply missed and got a mouthful of bubbles instead! |