From what I talked about with store owners who import their bettas from Thailand theres only a few differences between the Melano and Superblack strains. I been told to stay away from breeding black orchid bettas with Melanos since they are the type of black bettas that you dont what to introduce into your breeding gene pool. Black orchid bettas are the least favoured blacks because they have the most iridescence and there fins are very transparent.
Common Melanos will be deep black with blue iridescence on the body and have black fins with no colour at all, the transparency of a melano's fins will vary depending on batches.
A Superblack differs in terms of it depends on colour which give it its black base, some say a Superblack's colour was actually created from bettas with the copper gene but I dont know how accurate this is as Iam just getting into the betta scene and researching my self on the species. Hopefully I'll be able to validate this later on in the hobby, but so far UBF has been great for info since its a betta specific forum. Superblacks will be almost pitch black in body and fin with some blue iridescnece in the fins, I'am mainly basing this one my own experience since I've only seen Super blacks and own Superblacks with blue in there fins.
On a side note I do know that Melano black bettas are very hard to breed with expected results, the process involves the whole gene theory. When breeding Melanos, you need to breed two generations to get the disired black fry results but this too is complicated as not all the fry in the second generation will be black. This is ruled out though if you already have two pheno type black bettas.Usually Melano males are bred with steel blue females as they tend to produce very dark fry and have more of a matte base look and less iridescence. True black betta breeders are all like great magicians, they never reveal their secrets but when they do its usually not the truth its just what the general public knows already from research.
So far this is all the info I do know from researching and asking around on forums and petstore owners ( mainly Asian ones, preferably Thai or Vietnamese ones) not to racial or offesive though its just they have the most experience.
As a last tip I got from a Thai breeder, he told me if I want a suscessful black betta batch from breeding keep the disired pair in black water made from leaving Indian almond leaves in the water so the tannins leaches in to the water like tea. He also mentioned to use low lights as bright ones will leach colour and feeding live or frozen helps since some flakes or pellets contain colour inhancers which leach the colour out of your black bettas.
LOL, whoa that was alot to type in one response. Well thats all for now but if you need more info on black bettas I feel more than comfortable to contribute just PM me when ever you decide to start breeding blacks or get your hands on some.
