Pandora

After a rash of my young males spawning for the first time devouring all the eggs left in their care, finally got a good first-time dad! Fry hatched 3 days ago and were free swimming yesterday! Currently they're chowing down on baby brine shrimp.

Dad


Mom


Granddad (mom and dad are sibs... so only 1 of each grandparent )


Grandmother (sorry for the lousy pic.. never got one of her before she spawned, and she was pretty beat up... that was 2 months after and her fins were still re-growing)


Fry should mostly turn out to be multis like the parents, around 1/4 expected to have granddad's colouring (usually called mustard gas), though grandmother has non-red, orange, melano and cambodian in her background, so could be a few surprises. In finnage, most should be single tails (with half carrying double tail), around 1/4 double tails like dad, and approx 3/4 should be long finned and around 1/4 short finned.
We shall see how well my predictions pan out! I'll post pics as they grow, but they're rather excessively tiny right now still.

rifter098

congrats! cant wait to see some pics! good luck with raising them!

Lucy

Congratulations, I can't wait to see the pictures.

Lonely Angel

The mother has the exact coloring my girl Kita has! Congrats on the babies!

MinxMermaid

GREAT Picture of Dad!!
can you take pics of the babies?

Martinismommy

How exciting! Congrats!

Butterfly

I can only imagine keep us updated and pics as soon as they get camera size please
carol

Pandora

Thanks everybody!
I actually managed to get a couple pics (I love my camera!)

So here is a betta fry at 1 week old:




They're about 3x as big now as when they hatched... and growing fast!

Martinismommy

This is so cool to see! I'm hoping you can share pictures of them maturing....How old are they when you can determine sex?

Pandora

I'll try to get pics every week or 2 to share with everyone who's interested!
They usually start sexing out between 2-3 months. It's a nice small spawn so they'll be growing quite fast.
Oh, and in the first post my memory of mendilian genetics failed... there should be around 1/2 dt, but that doesn't always pan out since double tail fry are more prone to spinal and other deformities. It's a small spawn cause dad ate a lot of the fry shortly after hatching, so may have been culling out a lot of weaklings, many of which could have been the dt's...

Martinismommy

What colors will you get out of this breeding? Also, do you know if you breed platinum to platinum what that would produce?

Dino

Nice pictures!!!

What camera are you using?

Pandora

Out of this pair I should get mostly multis like the parents and around 1/4 mustard gas, though the grandmother has kind of a mixed background (cambodian, orange, melano and non-red) so there could be some surprises, never know!

I haven't every really worked with opaques or platinums...but I"m pretty sure platinum x platinum should give mostly, if not all, more platinums.

Thanks Dino! It's an olympus E-500.

platy ben

Wow, your bettas are great! Keep us posted with pics

Cody

now i dont know much about breeding bettas, but if those are the grandparents how did there colors make the colors of there kids colors, how did the goldish ones make the redish ones

Pandora

In bettas, as far as is known, one gene is responsible for determining if the fish is red, orange or yellow. The red allele is dominant to all others, so any betta having a single copy of it will be red. To get yellow, a fish needs to have 2 copies of the yellow allele.
A second gene can modify the red gene and cause the red to be absent, giving a non-red, very pale fish. The non-red allele in this second gene is also recessive. (As well, any yellow or orange fish that is non-red would be free of orange or yellow... so a non-red fish could be genetically red, orange, or yellow at the red gene, there's no way to tell!)
With my fish, the male is yellow, having 2 yellow alleles, but for the non-red gene, he has 2 normal alleles for the yellow colour to be visible. The female, on the other hand, is red, having 2 copies of the red allele for the red gene, but since she is also non-red (confused yet? lol) the red isn't visible.
Pairing them, each of the offpring gets one allele from mom and one from dad. Since dad only has yellow/normal red to give, all of them got that from him. Mom, on the other hand, only had red/non-red, so gave them each those alleles. So all the young ended up being red/yellow and normal red/non-red genetically. Since red and normal red are dominant, that's what shows up! So all red fish.

Cody

thanks for explaining it, but i think i ll just keep telling myself, "it happens" lol

Pandora

lol yeah it gets rather confusing. I've taken a fair number of genetics courses over the years and still have many a 'how did that happen?' moment.

rifter098

slightly complicated...
ill stick to "the fish do their thing, and babies grow up and the parents choose what color they want that baby to be

Pandora

lol well I DID get into bettas in the first place because I actually LIKE genetics *cough*nerd*cough*
I think that helps!

rifter098

haha yes it does help lol...i will never completely understand all of that...theres just no way lol

Martinismommy

I like genetics too......Being a breeder/exhibitor of purbred dogs for 25 years taught me a lot...Now I'd like to take what I know and produce some beautiful Bettas one day.....(if I ever get the nerve) lol

rifter098

i call dibs on crush's kids! lol

Dino

It's ok, dear, you are not the only nerd here.

Butterfly

Not by half
carol

Devon

The fry pics are ADORABLE! They look so cutely alien.

Lucy

Dino, did you just call us nerds?

Pandora, it took me a while to catch back up with this thread, the babies are so cute!

I'm with Cody, I'll stick with "it just happens" lol

Post more pics soon, it'll be interesting to watch their progress.

Pandora

Tomorrow they'll be 2 weeks old, so I'll do picture day again! They've grown a lot... the biggest are pushing 1 cm now!

Hehe, glad to know I am in good and nerdly company though
With a few exceptions of course, since we don't want to offend the non-nerds by grouping em in with the rest of us! lol

Devon

<-------- nerd here, too!!

Chief_waterchanger

Dino has converted me into being a nerd... so I am a new inductee.