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Current Projects
As our 2002 work involves
five different tail types (half moon, super delta, double tail, veil tail, and
crown tail), not to mention the occasional wild Plakat, it is important to us that we maintain the proper tail shape
while experimenting with colours and combinations of colours.
Many of this year's breeder males' images are available on our gallery page.
Half Moons
This is our absolute favourite tail type (followed only by Crown Tails) and one that we truly love to work with. Our main areas of concentration are with both solid colours and the ever-lovely butterflies. When we purchased all of our base stock from Thailand, Indonesia, and China, we were uncompromising in our standards. The Bettas we imported posessed no less than a 180 degree caudal spread before we would even consider bringing them here. If they had Crown Tail traits, we accepted those with no less than 4 rays. The average adult male we breed and own both carries and presents 16 rays.
While conformation continues to be of the highest priority, we are highly flexible on our stock's colours and patterns. If it fit within the standards of the IBC, we have probably handled it at some point or another. Today, our HM breeders consist of mainly of steels, melanos, mustard gas, turquoises, marbles, reds, and royal blues, either with or without a specific pattern.
Melanos
As to all of the colours available in today's Bettas, we have found black to be one of the most interesting and rewarding ones to work with. It has always been a deep passion of ours, as you can tell from our gallery page. This is particularly true when it involves those who present BF patterns.
Once we saw our first, it took no time at all to find some to import from both Indonesia and Thailand; we started building our own melano lines shortly afterward. We breed both half moon and crown tail tail types, occasionally crossing the two. There have been no specific "goals", as such, other than to build our numbers.
Chocolates
Our goal here is to ultimately see a large bodied Betta who bears both deeper shade of chocolate and a fully flowing crown tail. The plans to develop this involves working with two pairs of Bettas bred by Jack Lewin in Hawaii. Both males and a DT female are from the same spawn. The DT male is being paired with the DT female. The ST male, however, is being coupled with a high quality, darker coloured female CT. She is completely unrelated to the other three.
Once each produce
their spawn, we intend to mate the best from each set together so as to
intensify the desired effect in the generations that follow. We
ultimately would like to see a deeper shade of chocolate that is in a
crown tail. To that end, we have our DT male mated with a darker
chocolate female from the same spawn while the ST was been introduced to a
4 ray brownish red CT from the King Red CT lines.
Volcanoes
These are eye-catchers bred by BettaStarz and we enjoyed their vibrant colours so much that
we wanted to increase our numbers. After this short term goal is realized, we will
decide just what (if anything since they are nice by themselves) to do with these. Some of the ones we purchased had lovely butterfly patterns with wide bands & those are the ones we are currently working with for the number increase. After this project is completed, using
them to eventually get tri-banded butterflies in different colours is something that
we have considered working with.
Oranges
As with the volcanoes, we simply enjoy the unique qualities of this colour and plan to increase our numbers before incorporating these into our works in progress. All of our orange-based Bettas came from stock we purchased from either Gilbert Limhengco, or from the Boise Betta Co. The HM, ST & DT solid oranges and the HM ST orange/black stock came from the Gilbert while the orange marble geno came from Robin. The interesting thing about Robin's line is that what you see is not necessarily what you get...we mean this as a compliment! While the young males appear to be red, this quickly changes to the orange color hoped for. You could almost call them orange Cambodians. A real treat to raise.
One thought is to create our own
line of orange Betta with white splashes and/or a white Betta with orange
spots. We have many light-coloured marble females in our
tanks so we are sure that at least a few will be instrumental in
obtaining this goal.
Blueberry Pies
We are entering new territory with this project and it is expected that the first spawn will produce the highly sought mustard gas crown tails. Henry Yin recently sold us two pair of his Blueberry Pies which were said to be the only ones in existence. They are virtually mustard gas on their own...so close!
Once they recover from their
long trips, they will be introduced for what we hope will be successful
unions.
Yellows
Our enjoyment of yellows (& chocolates, too, for that matter) began with a breeder's culled chocolate that we purchased from a local Wal Mart. It was highly unique and we purchased him because his type simply was not - & still isn't - seen at pet shops in our area of the country. Way back then, until we learned about this colour, we thought he was yellow. When we realized that he was not a yellow, we searched for just the right pairs to start our version of this line. We started with Sean Mahabir's ST yellows.
We purchased a ST pair with
fins that just do not end, and large DT pair for
use. Once again, the short term goal is to increase our numbers
before experimenting with the genetic end. Once that is achieved,
we would ultimately like to cross the yellow males with some of our
pretty, light-coloured marble females in an attempt to reach our long term
goal of creating a line of yellow marble Betta.
Copper Crowns
This line of CTs came as a surprise to us as the copper quality came after smaller amounts were hidden for a few generations. Once it re-emerged, we worked to bring it to the fore and what has developed is a line that we call our Copper Crowns. Even though photographs are clear, they still do not show the actual colour of the Betta. These boys are a deep rust, not a red or an orange. This current generation is also locked into a butterfly pattern, something that we are working to change.
While still in the earlier stages of development, we were pleased to see the depth and spread of the rust-coloured "marbling" that has shown itself (it is now so much more than that) and it is our natural hope to see a bit more in each successive generation. It has already increased by a good amount and we venture a guess that 60-75% of a CC male's body is now a rust colour. While the truer coppers have not yet been available to the public, we do occasionally sell CC genos. This shall hopefully change when the current generation matures enough to successfully enter the spawning tanks.
Last updated: 3 May
2002
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