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Originally Posted by Pandora  |
That's because we're both geniuses of course! hehe
Ok... tail types...
Halfmoons were developped by slowly, over generations, expanding the spread, ray branching (how many times each ray in the fin splits), and symmetry of the veil tail. There are a LOT of separate genes involved, most of which aren't either/or, but have a range of possible expressions... to get a halfmoon you need enough webbing between the rays to allow the tail to spread and enough ray branching and strong enough rays to support the tail, as well as long straight rays on the outside edge of the tail. Complicating things is the fact that environment plays a HUGE role in fin development in bettas. A fish that's genetically halfmoon if it is raised in poor conditions is never going to develop to its full potential, so might end up just a delta.
So when you have 2 halfmoons (or over halfmoons) to breed together, most of the genetics for tail development are similar... so for offspring you tend to get halfmoon, deltas and super deltas. The reason you don't get all halmoons is just because there are so many different genes involved.
Halfmoon to delta or super delta gives pretty similar, usually with fewer halfmoons and more deltas, and so on down to delta x delta which should at least give deltas and super deltas, with less likelihood of a halfmoon in the spawn.
Halfmoon to veil gets a bit more complicated... now you're taking an symmetrical fish and breeding to an asymmetrical fish. Usually you end up with traits from both parents, to varying degrees, in the offspring. Depending on the strength of the halfmoon (which pretty much means how many of their genes have 2 copies of the same allele) you can get everything from veil to near halfmoon, with most falling somewhere in between... a lot seem to end up with fairly wide tails with more ray branching than veils, but a more droopy, less symmetrical shape to them, as well delta-type tails with staggered rather than straight edges (yes... I have tried this, lol) I wish I had my pictures from my computer back home, it's hard to describe and would be a lot easier to show visually!
Ahh.. had one on photobucket with the wide, but rounder tail
and here's the big tail, but droopier (believe it or not, this guy is dad to my green marbles):
Rose tail (and feather tail) are extreme examples of what happens when you breed for more and more ray branching. They're halfmoons with over-the-top ray branching going on!
Really extreme rosetails actually end up being weak, stunted and faded fish that also tend to have scale defects. No one's quite sure how this is tied in with ray branching, but they go hand in hand... the more extreme the rosetail the more likely they are to have problems.
Totally separate from the whole tail spread thing, you have short/long fins.
This is much simpler! Long fins are dominant, and short are recessive.
A traditional plakat is just a short-finned veil tail. Halfmoon plakats are short-finned deltas to halfmoons. You can even get short-finned crowntails, which a few breeders are working on, and they're kind of adorable!
So short fins x long fins = all long fins (but all carrying short fins)
short fins x short fins = all short fins
short fins x long fins carrying short fins = 1/2 long fins (carrying short fins) and 1/2 short fins
cross 2 long fins carrying short fins = 1/4 short fins, 3/4 long fins (2/3 of which carry short fins)
Double tail is also separate, both from tail spread, and from tail length, and also nice and simple.
Double tail is recessive to single tail. You can have double tail veils, double tail halfmoons, double tail plakats double tail crowns... any other tail type can be doubled.
Interestingly, bettas who carry double tail (have one copy of the allele for double, and one for single) do not have fully doubled fins, but they do have wider dorsal fins. This is why they're so often used in breeding, to help give wider, fuller dorsals to single tailed fish.
Since it's a simple recessive as well, proportions are the same as with long vs short fins, except you can sort of guess at which are carriers and which are not (at least if you take pictures and sit there and count the rays... carriers tend to have 12-14 dorsal rays and non-carriers around 10... yes I have sat and counted lol).
Crown tail, I have never really worked with, so most of this is from what I've heard from others!
It seems that with this as well, there are a few genes involved, some of which are dominant and some recessive to the non-crown type.
What most people get crossing crown to another tail type is first generation offspring with combtails (rays extending only slightly past the tail webbing) If you inbreed these guys you start getting full crowns back, though it apparently takes a few generations to really get nice ones again.
Since spread, fin lenght, fin doubling, and crowning are all totally separae, they can also be combined in any one fish... so in theory (though I have never seen one, lol) you could get a halfmoon double tail crowntail plakat...
Anyway, I hope my very very long attempt at explaining things was at least a bit helpful!
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Never hurts to learn and daydream what I would breed though! 
