Breeding A Pure Black Betta And White Betta?

[keithp]

If someone were to breed a pure black male betta with a pure white female betta (not albino), what color would the offspring likely be since both of those colors are extreme mutations (extremely dark and extremely light) Is there any record of a white betta with only black markings, or vice versa? (black with white markings)

 

[matchstickman47]

http/ebetta.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/...white_betta.jpg
i dont know how this particular one came to be but it looks cool ( yet artificial )

if you bred them you would probably see that the white gene is reccesive and the fry produce would mainly be black... or the other way around.
you wouldn't get grey or mixed ones, genes are not like paint

 

[matchstickman47]

[URL="http/ebetta.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/...white_betta.jpg"]http/ebetta.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/...white_betta.jpg[/URL]
i dont know how this particular one came to be but it looks cool ( yet artificial )

if you bred them you would probably see that the white gene is reccesive and the fry produce would mainly be black... or the other way around.
you wouldn't get grey or mixed ones, genes are not like paint

ps, someone did
http/www.petfish.net/articles/pix/betta_spawn_gemini.jpg

 

[LauraFrog]

The photo from Ebetta (the first one) is not artificial at all, it's a copper butterfly. The butterfly marking causes a ring of white or clear (cellophane) fin around the edge of the 'normal' colour. Unless it's actually present in the line you won't get it, so I doubt you'd get any butterflies.

matchstickman47 is right, the most likely outcome is that one of the genes would turn out to be slightly more dominant than the other, resulting in a brood comprised of basically one of those two colours. It's also possible that you'd get a fairly even mixture of blacks and whites. I don't really know what would happen if the genes turned out to be codominant. Generally codominance results in a mixture of both traits on one fish but I don't know how this would work. The only 'grey' bettas I have ever seen are variations on the steel blue or green genes.

 

[keithp]

That's really interesting! That first betta was amazing looking!

So here's my other question, since pure white and pure black are hard to come by, why dont more people breed black+white if you said that would almost guarantee mostly black or white bettas?

 

[loraxchick]

it wouldnt necessarily give you all white or all black...genetics is much more complicated than that. too much so to try to explain right now...but basically you have to know all the different genetics of their lineage to figure it out.

 

[cowboy507]

That's really interesting! That first betta was amazing looking!

So here's my other question, since pure white and pure black are hard to come by, why dont more people breed black+white if you said that would almost guarantee mostly black or white bettas?

because if you did this then the offspring would have mixed genes. When you are breeding you are trying to get specific traits, when you mix a black and white, and then mix that offspring with a black or white you will not know what you could get. Its all very confusing, but at the same time very interesting.
Guppies are great to learn about genetics if you are interested, since they breed so much.