With my holiday coming up soon I'm thinking of possibly breeding my fighter. I've read the breeding sticky, and it's very helpful but I have 1 or 2 questions as well. didn't think I'd ever breed fighters, but he's just such a pretty fish that it'd feel like a shame to not breed from him. Here he is:

I got him from HFF Roskill as an "opaque white" but I found that HFF Albany had fish that looked the same sold as "white dragons". Now I'm just wondering, is the opaqueness basically a cellophane coloured betta with white dragon scales covering the whole body? If I was aiming to produce some similar looking offspring, what should I look for in a female? Since I'm still on the lookout for any that might be good.

I have actually got a female that is fairly pale. But I'm not sure if she'll go well with the male in terms of colour since she isn't pure white (I'd imagine it would be hard to find females that white in NZ). Not a very good photo, but she's basically a female dragon, with a cellophane coloured body, redish fins, and white dragon scales (her body's not 100% covered in dragon scales). Would this be an okay match? Also how do you tell what tail type a female is?

Opaque white is a solid white as opposed to cellophane which is see through. Opaque just means thats its not transparent. Dragon can be described as metallic scales on the body and head. (meaning not all dragons are white like the ones being sold at the moment)

Your female colouring is cambodian (red fins and pink body) unfortunately this gene is pretty dominant so most of the offspring will be this colour.

Your best bet would be to find an opaque white female to start a 'pure strain'

Hope this helps

what if he was bred with one of those beautiful pearlescent shaded ones I have seen? Would that work? I don't know anything about breeding and genes but just a thought

Opaque white is a solid white as opposed to cellophane which is see through. Opaque just means thats its not transparent. Dragon can be described as metallic scales on the body and head. (meaning not all dragons are white like the ones being sold at the moment)

Your female colouring is cambodian (red fins and pink body) unfortunately this gene is pretty dominant so most of the offspring will be this colour.

Your best bet would be to find an opaque white female to start a 'pure strain'

Hope this helps

Hmm I thought as much. I remembered reading that red is one of the dominate colours that's hard to breed out. I knew opaque just means non-transparent, and that dragons are the metallic sheen, but I was just wondering if it is the dragon genetics that make them opaque or if it's something different all together. If I could find one I'd love to get an opaque white female, I've just never seen one before.

And sophia, for pearlescent, do you mean the ones that are a non-opaque white (ie the ones that look kinda pinkish in the body but have white fins)?

Nice male!

The genetic make up of opaque White is C Bl Si Nr Op.

C - Cambodian gene for lack of dark body pigment

Bl - Steel blue pigment which appears silvery-white when on a light background

Si - The spread of the iridocyte pigment, in this case steel blue over the fish

Nr - Non-red, i.e. the inability of the fish t o produce red pigment

Op - Opaque, the special gene that cause the opaqueness or powdery appearence of the fish

'Si' is treated as dominant, 'c' and 'nr' are treated as recessive, and 'Op' as partial dominant. opaque is partially dominant - a single allele for the trait will be visible, but 2 alleles will be very visible.

You wont get opaques in F1 unless you find a matching female

If I was you I would try and find a steel blue female with no redwash and breed a daughter back to the father.

Personally I wouldnt use that female as red is very hard to erase from a line and is a huge colour fault in opaques...although your male has red loss so the result may be interesting...

The picture of your female makes it difficult to tell her tail type as her fins are clamped.

Try and avoid any VT females though, they will muck up your line finnage wise for a few generations.

eventhough youll get pk back in F2 their spread, branching and overall finnage will be a mess.

Finnagewise try and find a HM or HMPK female with the straightest outer tail edges you can find

:smln:

Good luck!

Thanks Trilobite, I tried googling betta colour genetics before, but found nothing in this kind of detail or regarding opaques since i tended to end up with quite general breeding guides. Now you've given me some more specific terms to search for in looking for info, so that's pretty helpful too. Looks like I will have to find a better female. While I don't mind if they're not perfect in F1, I would rather try and find a better female to start with, esp since I've never breed bettas before.

I don't think I can get a better pic of the girl's tail atm, she was somewhat beaten up when I got her, so her tail's still torn and hard to see the shape of.

:nfs: you could always sell him to be and ill breed him! :gigl:

yea as above i would be looking for a HM female with great finnage and try go for the pale colour. if you cant i would worry too much as you can then start your own breeding programme to recreate the line.

Well seems that breeding him with the girl I posted is out for awhile anyway, as she became a jumper today. Just got home about 45mins ago and could not find her in the tank. Searched in the tank for ages, felt around behind the tank, and had to move a whole lot of stuff before I found her behind the boy's tank. I'm a bit surprised, since I've never had any fish jump and I had the water in my tanks a bit lower than usual to discourage jumping since i got the bettas (about 5cm below the rim) and didn't think they could jump that high. She's back in the tank at the moment, and looking rather dusty and miserable but alive for now.

I'm thinking her chances are slim, since I haven't looked in the tanks since 12 or so last night, so god knows how long she's been out for. Aside from WCs, and adding Prime what else can I do for her to try and make her feel better? At the moment I've put an extra airpump on the tank, and a lid (although it's not a perfect fit), should i lower the water level and make it easier for her to get to the surface for air?

i've had females who have been on the brink of death, like basically floating, i did 1/5 waterchanges each day, seperated her in a breeding trap, and left her alone, 3 days later she was perfect, her eye even healed back to full use.

I work at animates botany and today we got a nice white female with light blue fins. Dunno if that would work for you but thought I'd let ya know

sounds like a great one critter, is it a normal veil tail or did it look like it might be a HM?

I work at animates botany and today we got a nice white female with light blue fins. Dunno if that would work for you but thought I'd let ya know

I'll come check her out in the weekend . I'll call in to check before I head out in case if she sells before then.

She sounds like she has pretty colours.

Check her tail ray branching when you see her, if its only got 2 ray branching and a round tail then most likey shes a VT :sage:

I don't know how to tell the difference and its my day off so I can't check. She's in with either the danios or the platties - I can't remember which :lol:

When you come in ask to see Georgia and I'll find her for you :thup:

I have an white body red fin crowntail that you could borrow for breeding stock or until they breed if you want?

I've given up on breeding fish. Still having troubles with one of my tanks in terms of sick fish, and I've got my hands full with my new puppy .

PUPPIES!!! what type i have two bichons :slfg:

Mini longhaied dachshund, he's 1/4 papillion, but you really can't tell. I still like my fishies, but they've taken the back seat .

PHOTOS!?!?!? :love:

PHOTOS!?!?!? :love:

They're in the offtopic section :lol:

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=55688&start=30

SHERLOCK IS SO CUTE!!! :love: :love:

try the fish shop up on pupuke road on the north shore some great fighters in stock and he has some whites there too...

nice fish

This is a thread from 2011.