Letters of a Betta Addict

Well I have a bit of depressing news. After a long week I got home to my apartment to find that I lost two of my Bettas. Mama, one of my pet VT girls, and my remaining HM female, Darlin’. When I left I suspected that something was a bit off with her but I decided that it would be easier on her to leave her at home rather then submitting her to the stress of a car ride and a change in water to take her home to the farm with me. However with her loss I’m left with 1 of my original 8 HM’s. Not really a positive place to be.

And now I’m not sure what to do. Importing new stock would be the thing to do however until things settle down here again (and I’m gainfully employed) I don’t have the time, or cash to do so. So as it stands I have Bran, who is turning out to be my champion. Now the way I see it there are a couple of options available to me. First obviously there is going to be a delay in any spawn. Mid June now at the earliest I suspect. I’ll put some feelers out to see if there are any BBC members with stock available. If not I think I’ll take a “holiday” and check around the local stores here and see what they have for females. I might be able to find a suitable VT female and while it will hurt a bit I should be able to get the HM’s back again hopefully without having done too much damage to the HM form.

I’m not out yet but the innings are counting down…

Sincrely,

A Betta Addict

Well on the breeding front we’re making some small progress lol.

Bran and Darlin’ are in the conditioning tanks and when I manage to find my camera I’ll get a photo of that set-up on here. Bran is my royal blue, marble male and Darlin’ is the green serenade female. They’re not the most matched pair I have but Darlin’ is the only breeder female I have left (RIP girls) and Draco (the green bi color male) still isn’t 100% from his run in with whatever it was that took out my Red HM pair and my Cambodian female.

So what am I hoping for from this spawn?

Well Fry to begin with lol.

Genetically I’m not sure, color wise Bran (as a royal blue) carries both the Steel Blue and Green alleles. As a green Darlin’ has only the Green alleles. The results then “should” be roughly 50/50 royal blue and green according to the Punent square. However since nothing in real life genetics ever follows the plan exactly this will be a fun spawn.

The “Unknowns” that I’m working with genetically are:

Marble - Which not only is a dominant form of inheritance but by it’s very nature is absolutely chaotic.

The “Serenade” - A coloring I still haven’t really managed to nail down. It’s a green and white bi-colour pattern with a third colour (dark green) edging all fins. However I’ve been referring to it as a “dragon type” since the scales have a thicker than normal appearance and her masking (full by the by) reminds me of the typical dragon masks (unmasked line down the middle).

Also since I don’t know for sure what the parents of either of these fish are and that they’re both from different breeders means that any recessive traits in their lines are probably going to come out in this out crossing. Well for now they’re both happily hanging out in their respective tanks and eating well. In the mean time it’s time I started making up my mind about how I’m going to do this spawn so I can make sure that I’ve got everything ready to go.

Until next time,

A Betta Addict