A giant betta?

[BettaMomma]

I've seen lots of comments on giant bettas.
I don't really know what classifies one as a "giant" because I can't find much about them on the web. My friend has one that I think is huge, so I don't know if he's really a "giant" or not. Could he be?

Here's Blueberry...

His fins are regular length in comparison to my fish and his body seems to dwarf his fins.

 

[red-devil0602]

he's massive . don't know about giants either sorry

 

[Elise]

I've read about there being giant bettas, but I've only heard of them in plakat, not veiltail....

 

[nashnut]

Some of my older guys are really getting quite large and it might possibly have something to do with age besides genes.

 

[GuppyDude]

body size varys from fish to fish, ur male is exceptionally large, im not sure whta qualifys as a giant but i assume they are just large bettas. most of the time giants are over sized plakats but since it varys i dont suppose tail type doesn't matter. iv heard of breeders adding grown hormones to spawns so that the fish grow irregularly large, i would be wary of buying giants online as they may not be natural.

 

[cation]

Fish continue to grow as they age, so yes nashnut, the older the betta, the bigger it'll be, for the most part.

That said, there is a Giant gene. The gene appears to be incompletely dominant. That means that if you breed a Giant to a Giant, you'll get 100% giants, but if you breed a Giant to a non-Giant, you'll get half-Giants (in-between in size). If you breed two of these half giants, you'll get 25% non-Giants, 50% half-Giants, and 25% Giants.

A Giant is usually about 7", a half-Giant is usually about 3.5"+, and a non-giant is usually about 2"+.

Hope that helps.

By the way, Jim Sonnier is currently working with the Giant gene. There is more info on his website, and I believe there might be an article on Betty Splendis too.

 

[GuppyDude]

wow, i know iv bought a fairly old betta and he is a big one but not quite a giant. whats Jim Sonnier's home page, i hear lots about him but i never took it upon myself to look at his work.

 

[cation]

Guppy dude - Look here.

 

[Kara101584]

Some of my older guys are really getting quite large and it might possibly have something to do with age besides genes.

My oldest guy is MUCH larger than any of my older Bettas.

 

[BettaMomma]

Thanks for the info everyone!
I'd have to say he's probably just an overgrown old man.
His body is probably in the range of 3+ inches and he's from top to bottom about an inch. I just come home from my friend's house and think what weenies my boys must be cuz they're so tinnnnnnnnnnnny in comparison to him. Guess he's the "Walter" of my world of bettas

 

[eudielynn]

Awww. Blueberry looks just like my Batista except Batista's fins are much longer. He is a HULKING MONSTER. He was normal sized when I got him, but over the last few months with all my good food he has bulked up like he's on steroids. He is about twice the size of Hunter (who is a normal sized betta) and about three times the size of little Booker. I think they are just like people, some are going to be bigger than others.

 

[BettaMomma]

Maybe they're part of the betta beefcake breed?

 

[eudielynn]

Could be! They sure are handsome enough

 

[aloaring]

I used to have 3 giant females- looked like normal females but about triple the size,they were bigger than my males, they were awfully gentle though and were not in the least aggresive unfuneately they died when a bacterial infection got introduced to my tank!

 

[Kiarra]

I have two (used to be three!) very large females, more than twice the size of any of my other females. They're the snottiest, meanest, most aggressive pair of females I have ever known. Antagonistic and downright mean. Fortunately, they settled all their dominance issues when there were still three of them, so they don't fight between the two of them. But I tried introducing them to a different community, and they were so downright violent that they had to go back to live just the two of them.