Any real beeders left here?

[Mobydock]

With all the threads on fin-rot, ick, tank requirements and tank mates; I was wondering if we have any real breeders left here? I mean working with/ towards an IBC show quality line, wild-types, or even fighters, just for sake of a more advanced discussion than "Why is my betta floating on it's side" .
What lines are you working with?
What improvements is your breeding program trying to make to your line(color, symmetry, branching)?
Please post photos of how the line is progressing, if available.

I moved out of town for 5-6 months last summer and got rid of all my bettas before I left. I decided not to get back into breeding bettas when I moved back, because of the space and maintenance it takes. But, for the short period of time that I was breeding, I was working with a SuperD MG pair from Marianne at bcbetta.com. I think her line started from the original MG line from Jude Al, but she out-crossed to melano to make a line of black MG(still mostly iridescent MG though). I was aiming to bring the line back to the original MG color, but only got as far as F1 from the siblings, before I moved. If I kept the program going, what color strains should I have out-crossed to? I imagine royal blue, or turquoise would have been necessary, but from what I understand the yellow is actually a mutation of the red gene. Would out-crossing to such dominant color genes destroy the line?

I almost wish I had kept the program going, just because I am so disgusted at what people are calling Mustard gas on aquabid these days.

[Damon]

Ahh, bringing back the Uncle Junkin line of MG. There's a topic of great interest. It would be nice to see a true MG pair of bettas. (I am a member of the IBC).

Yellow is a recessive trait of red. Thats the first problem as red is the most dominant color in betta genetics. Green is not far off as it takes a homozygous B1 gene to get green and even then you may not get the grass green you really want but more of a turquoise. You still have to worry about the iridescence.

Assuming you have bred the green you want (which could take 5 years) and have a betta that carries nothing but the nr gene (yellow) with possibly the red loss gene could work but I doubt it. The last person I knew of who had a grass green betta line was Rich Christman (RC on the site) but I do not know if he is still breeding or just on the judging panel. He is no longer on the site here either
I would try crossing a royal blue betta with the yellow gene and red loss and opaque with a yellow betta, opaque and carries the B1 (green) gene. I haven't really done the punett squares on this one but its worth a look.

[Christine]

I am working towards showing. I only started breeding bettas towards the end of last year tho. As with many people, I started with little direction and I'm working on trimming down now to a couple of favorites to work with rather than the whole bag of skittles.

I had a bit of a rocky start as my first "quality" betta spawn really wasnt great quality and the spawn was huge. I'm currently working with coppers, platinums and experimenting with a blue/black (black ice like). I'm a sucker for marble tho...not 100% sure I can just let my marbles go without spawning lol.

The blue/black I'm waiting for my first babies from to grow to see what I need in the order of goals. However, my understanding is they will have to go form/finnage to be shown because of their coloration. Oh well, it'll have to be that way because I love the color combination.

The copper/plats I'm working with right now Im trying widen the dorsal and shorten the anal. I attempted an F2 spawn this week but it didn't pan out so will try again in a few weeks.

Heres my dad - photo & bred by Victoria Parnell. I spawned him to an unrelated female that carries DT to attempt to improve the dorsal. The female is a platinum marble that popped up in one of **** Houston's green spawns with stock he obtained from Rich Christman.

Heres my best boy from that spawn


Heres the blue/black pair I have to start from:



The whole mustard gas thing... is crazy and something I just stay away from LOL.

[Mobydock]

I never would have had that MG line back to the original color. Lol. I wouldn't have had the space or resources to maintain that many lines at once. I guess if it were easy, it wouldn't have taken a decade to develop and there wouldn't be so many poor imitations.

Very nice fish Christine. That boy is nice, especially coming from a pair of marbles. I've never been a fan of marbles, except for a "dalmation" line a former member(dogsnfish if anyone remembers) had. Marbles just make me think of psoriasis for some reason.

[Christine]

Thanks Moby. It was a small spawn as dad was an egg eater. I got 3 boys and 2 girls out of it. 2 of the boys have some clear edges like they were thinking about going BF but just didn't quite make it and 1 of the girls is a very low contrast marble. I was a bit surprised that I got so little marble out of the spawn. I've always heard for a good contrast marble spawn you spawn marble to solid. I guess this supports that idea But with only having 5 fish from the spawn, what I have may not really be an accurate picture. I really love the high contrast marbles... but it seems as they get older most of them (in my house anyway) are turning solid. Heres my other 2 high contrast marble boys. Since I know you love marble so much HAH!

This boy's body is now solid. He still has the BF pattern tho but its not 50/50 anymore. The color has spread closer to the fin edges. The green is a brilliant grass type green. Unfortunately I don't have a spawn sib for him. He'll end up paired with either a turq, copper or plat girl. He's copper based so I was leaning towards the copper girl but someone told me I should go with the turq since she looks more green to the eye. Any thoughts?

This boy is now almost solid black. Oh and his vents grew *laugh*

The dalmations you are talking about, is it like Sarawut has? Orange with dark orange dots?

[Damon]

I remember DogsNfish. Anyone heard from Aaron lately?

[Mobydock]

Oh yea, Aaron was his name. Aaron's dalmation was just a black and white marble plakat, but the black was spots, rather than big blotches of color.

I would think breeding that boy back to mom(the plat right?) would help the green. You said she just popped up in a green spawn, so she should have the genes for it.

[Damon]

Green is a funny color as there are 2 genes (we'll call them B1 and B2) that make up the "blues" which is the second layer of color right under red.

B1 and B2 will get you royal blue
B1 and B1 will get you green
B2 and B2 will get you steel blue

If you can find to bettas with the B1/B1 genetic code, breeding them will help with the green, provided the red is not there (NR/R1)

[Christine]

Nah that green marble is not from one of my spawns. Hes from Sarawut. I guess I should have also said - the plakat is from Rainnybetta. But yes, the plat marble girlie did come from a green line. So funny, when I got that girl, I really didn't think I would end up using her at all. But she is turning out to be very important to my goals in many ways.

Hey white and black spots sounds very cool!

[Christine]

Thanks simpte. I'm finding green to be a really difficult color even to just describe to people. I had a friend with an "extended green".. she had some problems getting him to spawn and wanted me to try. I swear that fish looked almost royal at my house. I had a green boy here that went to her house... and he looked more blue over there. It seems to look different depending on light and perhaps the fishes mood/water conditions. Its a very weird color I love it tho.

[Damon]

I love it too but only seen one green betta. I'm sure there are more out there now but when I saw the green one, it belonged to Rich Christman. His was a true grass green betta. Very nice.

[Damon]

http://www.cnybc.org/showcase.htm
Interesting read about RC..........

[Christine]

Hey thanks for that link.. good reading! Well that explains the platinum girl from his green lines then if he was mixing with copper also. The green boy that I have that is very green is also actually a copper. But he is plainly green. I have a non-fishy friend that commented on how green he is and I said well technically hes actually copper and he laughed at me and made some comment about me being on drugs because that was definitely a green fish haha. I may have to try the 2 of them together and see what happens! Not the same type of green as the turq green tho... he is very metallic looking.

Here is what my "green" marbled boy above looks like now. This pic is using flash but he looks that color without the flash. Not the best photo (being lazy) but it does show his color well.