Marble-based Black that Breeds True?

Since I have laid low on betta breeding over the past year, I lost most of my breeders and grow outs. However, I was left with three fish - one female and her two sons (one long-finned and a plakat/PK). The female is black. I only have a vague idea of what color the father is - a green marble HMPK. I'm not certain about that though. Because the female was able to breed successfully, then I assume she is not a Melano-based black. Eggs of Melano females do not successfully hatch - so they are effectively "infertile" in a sense (see the article The Different Types of Black for more information).

One shot of the female after spawning. Her color here suggests that it's a "Black Lace".

What's common to all three fish is that they are black. Of course, there is a fault of iridescence on the body and fins. The long-finned male started of as a black/red bicolor then changed to a butterfly pattern on the fins and marbling (white area) on the head, with no sign of red. The PK male, on the other hand, started as cellophane when it was juvenile but grew up to be solid black with no red as well. The color changes that these two fish underwent affirms that the black color is Marble-based (check this article to see how the Marble gene can change the fish's appearance). Since these fish don't show any red, they might also be carrying the Red Loss gene.

The long-finned son when he was a juvy. This fish looks like it will turn out to be a Bicolor.

The long-finned son now that he is older and has been bred.

When I crossed the Black PK male back to his mother, I wanted to get some doubletails (DT) back - whether as a DTPK or long-finned carrying PK. Given the broad dorsals of the male and his mother, there was a good chance. I did get one DT from the cross. It is black as well and still with iridescence like his father. Some siblings showed the same black color. Surprisingly, one sibling remained a Green/Red Bicolor. The number of blacks from this cross (backcross) gives a hint that the heredity of the color may be predicted accurately.

 

The Black DT.

Black siblings of the Black DT in the grow-out pond.

The Green/Red Bicolor sibling of the Black DT.

The black female was also crossed to a Copper HMPK and two Royal Blue SDs (there was a time I assumed that she is a PK). Due to the small spawn sizes, I decided to put the spawns together for efficiency. An unrelated spawn was also added to the grow out. From the mixed grow-out, I can see there are a few black fish. This hints that the black, like marble, can act in a semi-dominant manner. Most are iridescent colors and a few Marbles. (See here for more information on breeding marbles).

Black half-sibling. I think from the cross with the Royal Blue SD.

Non-Black half-sibling. Presumably from the cross with the Copper HMPK.

The next steps to check if the color does breed true is to do F2 crosses and also half-sibling crosses. The resulting offspring will provide more insight on this color. Will it breed true for another generation? Will it behave like marble - always changing color? Hopefully, I can get my hands on a Melano HMPK male and cross it to these Black fish. It will be interesting to see how this color interacts with the Melano gene. I wish that all goes well and I can write a sequel to this article.

UPDATE (Feb. 19, 2017): Pictures of other Blacks from the Black Marble SD x Black Marble SD (son x mother backcross) and Royal Blue SD x Black Marble SD (outcross).

Working on Symmetrical Bettas

Well, I'm thinking of working on the three unpaired fins of bettas: dorsal, caudal and anal fin. In my plans, I have two of the three fins down. The sailfin trait for the dorsal and the rosetail for the caudal. Now, I'm thinking of working of the anal fin. Thus, breeding for the symmetrical trait will deal with the anal fin.

Here are some links about symmetrical betta.

The Plakat Trilogy

Proposal for Adjustment of the IBC Plakat Standards

I see some work in progress in the anal fins in a handful of my bettas. They show a more rectangular anal fin than a trapezoidal of a typical asymmetrical betta. 

Here are some pictures:

Here is the most prime example of the anal fin I'm looking for. This has the rectangular shape. The outline is smooth from the front part of the anal fin to the back. Aside from the anal, this has the dorsal and D-caudal to boot.

These two have rectangular anal fins. However, as you can see, the anal fin is not as smooth from the front to the back. This hints that the rear part of the anal fin will extend in the future...leading to an asymmetrical form. The extreme branching of the Copper Red Rosetail HMPK causes the anal fin to wrinkle and further make the outline more bumpy.

With more work, I will try to bring the form close to the first fish.

UPDATE (10/26/2013)
I got several new breeders from a friend. These fish are gonna be symmetrical!!! I'm excited to breed them!!! Then, breed them with my fish!!!!

Moreover, I am planning to breed the Platinum male to the DTPK daughter of the solid Copper male. If I'm lucky, he'll produce more symmetrical fish for me.

Grandfather VS Grandchild

Grandfather

Grandchild

I don't really know what motivated me to compare them. I just want to.

I will point out the differences that are most significant to me.
[Feel free to comment if you want to add more]

Dorsal
For me, both are sailfin because the dorsal fin width is at least half of body length. Dorsal bases (where the dorsal is attached to the body) are still wide.
Grandfather has a nicer shape because its more rectangular. More broad
Grandchild has a broad dorsal too (check out the base). However, the shape doesn't give it that impression though.
First rays play an important role. Grandfather has an abrupt increase in dorsal ray length while grandchild has a more gradual increase in dorsal ray length. Hence, grandchild's dorsal shape is more smooth and rounded.

Body
Grandfather has a typical betta body
Grandchild has a thicker, stockier body...this evidences a strong dt background (even though both of his parents are singletails carrying DT)
Toplines are both smooth.

Ventral, Anal, Caudal
All are pretty much the same to me. The shape of the anal fin is uniform for the line. I'm seeing a trend to a more symmetrical look.
Caudal is still rounded. I will have to work on that.

Color
Honestly, I have no idea how Grandfather carried marble. Grandchild's father is a copper marble. When Grandchild was younger, he was a solid copper then marbled out into his current color. It pretty much stabilized now.
Grandfather showed the typical black base my coppers have.


The Winner
For me, Grandfather still wins. I am planning to cross Grandchild to Grandfather's two DT daugthers. They are Grandchild's aunties. I hope to get more of Grandfather's blood into the next batches of fry. I am yet to see a reincarnation of Grandfather but I am hoping.

More about dorsals here: http://babyfishbreeder.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-dorsal.html

UPDATE (10/23/2013)
I see fry from Grandchild x DT aunts.
They are almost all DT! Grandchild really has strong DT blood in him.I crossed the aunties to other related fish. They threw in some singletails. I'm planning to bump the DT produced by him to these STs. I hope for more Sailfin HMPK to come my way!

Multiple Ray Branching in Bettas

I have been thinking of the factors in determining the expression of heavy branching in betta caudals (tails).

I have recently been experimenting with the 8-rays trait in HMPK bettas. Here's my male:

He is the son of a cross between a Red Dragon HMPK male from a friend and a Copper HMPK female from my line. It was a complete surprise that such a fish popped out. Well, he was worth experimenting on and try to produce more of him. From this outcross, I am guessing several factors that should be at play.

Here are my ideas:

1. [Phenotype] ray branching is not a good sign for determining 8-rays

2. A better dose of DT genes can help you out in producing 8-rays

Hypothesis 1: [Phenotype] ray branching is not a good sign for determining 8-rays

This male's mother is also spawned with a Green Red Bicolor HMPK from another friend. This male has 8-rays branching. One could easily assume that the gene is hard-wired already in the offspring. They might not show it but i thought the trait can be induced. Well, I crossed this male to a female. No 8-ray offspring was produced. In fact, there are even 2-ray offspring. I am quite disappointed.
Recently, I crossed 4-ray females back to him. I hope for better results.

Family line of cross in hypothesis 1:

"Less Strains" Going On

I started to put my plans into action. Doing the transition is quite tricky but I know I'll get there. I can not really follow the list I have written down but I will get there when I am able to out/sell/give away my excess fish.

Here are the steps I have taken so far.
1. Combined spawns of different strains and different fish. Here's how I do it.
2. I separated the females of my choice to my 20gal tanks and those that I will no longer use are kept in my 100gal tanks.
3. As much as possible, I empty tanks that are adjacent. These
4. I started labeling tanks. I have labeled the tanks that I will use to raise my bettas and guppies because these are just the tanks that are segregated.
5. For some gut feeling, I segregated two pairs of Scalare breeders and placed a pair each with my female community tanks.

Next on the agenda: Fixing the leaks of the dividers.
I use tanks that have dividers and some of them have leaks. Both sides level out but the problem is, they are not flexible this way. So, I drained them. I dried them up and wiped clean. I will be sealing with silicon in 2-3 days.

The Pearlscale Betta

When we say Pearlscale, the round golf ball-like Goldfish with protruding scales comes into mind. You ask people to think some more, people then think of Angelfish, or Scalare. But, I now want bettas to come into mind when we say Pearlscale.

What is pearlscale? It is the characteristic protruding of the scales. the scales are not necessarily round as the Goldfish version. The betta pearlscale is more similar to the Scalare version. The scales appear to be more like diamonds (so maybe it should be Diamondscale). However, the Scalare pearlscale has a rather random pattern. The betta pearlscale is diamond-shaped and is arranged in parallel rows of scales. But, one problem of the line is the appearance of "wrinkles". Wrinkles are defects that makes the scales look like they were twisted. This has been almost eliminated by choosing my breeders without the wrinkling. The pearlscale pattern is not yet as prominent as I would like them to be and I will be breeding for more pearlscale expression.

I have been working on the line for a year now. I got my initial broodstock from a fellow breeder who had these fish popping out of his grow-outs. He didn't really care about them much but I talked to him about developing the line together. He agreed and stopped ignoring those fish. However, his pearlscale line has crashed and is still to be revived. Here are some pictures of the pearlscales I have bred.

Less Strains, Less Strain

It's been a while since I last posted. I've been busy with the fishroom then not busy [got sick]. During my sick days, I started to think how complicated it is to maintain a lot of lines. My dreams of getting a really large farm for my fish has faded because it can only come later. I now just want to maximize the tanks I have so far.

Here's a breakdown of my tanks:
3pcs 100gal tanks
3pcs 20gal tanks
4pcs 35gal tanks
8pcs 18"x18"x12"
30pcs 12"x18"x12"
1pc 36"x18"x12"
1pc concrete pond (around 55-70gal)
16pcs 4"x6"x8"


Here's what I'll use them for:
16pcs 4"x6"x8" = Male Individual Tanks: These tanks will be used as they are.

4pcs 35gal = Female Betta Community Tanks: I will have one tank for the form betta lines I will maintain. Formwise, most of the fishes will be halfmoon plakats (HMPK) carrying doubletail (dt). The offspring will be a mix of singletail (st) and dt fish. I will have one specific form line, CTPK. At first, I really segregated and diversified my lines numbering to more than fifteen. I decided that I should integrate some lines together.
1. Copper-based Line = Copper + Platinum + Pastel + Grizzle + Marble
Since my Marbles have red, I might inject some red loss genes or maybe even yellow. I have a copper-based spawn that produced no red in the offspring. The lineage is:
Copper DTPK x Copper DTPK             Copper DTPK x Red HM
               Copper Marble DTPK      x     Multicolor SD                    (half-sibling cross, same father)
                         Green marbled, no red expressed
2. Bicolor/Butterfly Line = Copper Red + Copper Orange + Copper Yellow + Platinum Red + Platinum Orange + Platinum Yellow + Cambodian + Butterfly + Blue Black Lace
I will be producing red/black butterfly bettas. To further integrate my lines, instead of using the red gene to produce the red color in my lines, I will use a combination of nr1 (yellow) and nr2 (orange) genes. A fish with nr1 and nr2 does not produce yellow nor orange but it produces red. Crossing two of these nr1nr2 fish will produce 25% yellow, 25% orange and 50% red in the offspring. I have all three colors in one combination.

For Lines 3 and 4, I do not really care about the color but am focusing on form. I will be solidifying the Pearlscale body and CTPK form.
3. Pearlscale Line = I just combined the different pearlscale lines I have = Copper + Marble + Platinum Red
Actually, these lines are very related. I have actually one male that started as a Copper but Marble-d out and now he is a Platinum Red. It's like magic.
4. Crowntail Plakat (CTPK) Line = CTPK line, any color/pattern
For this line, I specified "any color/pattern" because I want to fix the form. Currently, the colors of my CTPK are iridescent and metallic. However, if I see a CTPK with a really good form in the future, I will try to get it and if I do, I will not hesitate to breed it no matter what color it may be.

However, I do not intend to rigidly and strictly implement these divisions. I would like to keep my options open. I recently noticed a broad-dorsal female from my F2 CTPK line and that would perfectly match the broad-dorsal (almost sailfin) HMPK I have. I will not hesitate to cross them. Development could be hastened this way.