breeding question

[BigFrog07]

hi, i was thinking about breeding my bettas and was wondering if the fry will all look like there parents. by this i mean if i breed a yellow betta and a red one, will the fry be yellow or red, or will there be other colors too. also, i have 3 bettas. 2 male and 1 female. i have them all curently lined up next to each other with the girl in the middle. is this ok, or will it stress them out.
Thanks , Mark

 

[Kiarra]

What the fry will look like depends on their genetic background, which goes way beyond the appearance of the parents. You'd have to know about grandparents and beyond to predict what you'd get, and you still might be wrong.

They should be fine all lined up, but it depends on the fish. Some Bettas get really stressed out by it and start eating their tails off. Others don't. All of mine are able to see at least one other Betta, and they do fine, but other people in the past have had enormous problems and have had to isolate their Bettas.

 

[ManyFISH4Me]

If your red does not have any yellow in it's genes, you will get all red.

Even if you breed 2 yellow's, you may get some red.

 

[BrookeLea]

Hi Mark,

I don't mean to be discouraging, but you should really think hard about breeding your bettas, because aren't they veiltails? It really isn't a good idea to breed them, because although we love them and they're very beautiful, there are just too many of them out there. If you are successful at spawning them, you'll likely end up with hundreds of them and it will mosy likely be pretty difficult to find good homes for all of them. Again, I don't mean to be discouraging, and I know that I have no right to tell you what you should and shouldn't do. I just wanted to give you a heads before you get yourself into what could be a mess.

Brooke

 

[xxSarahxx]

I have to agree with ALL of these posts so far. BrookeLea has a very good point! I have to agree with her and support her on this one. It can be difficult as breeding is amazing but......it's best to think of the fish in the long run and their futures.
Please consider long and hard. Although as far as colouration goes....you could get some real surprises although red/blue/pruple are most common but the colourations are effected by generations and generations.
Let us know Mark what you decide to do!

 

[Synirr]

About the colour thing... I bred a copper male to a red cambodian female and got a bunch of fish with red fins and green, dark red, pale red, and blue bodies. I also got a few "freaks", which have genetic mutations. I think they're all red-loss, since they have the same iridescent colours as their siblings but lack the red undertone, but one may be marble. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that betta colour genetics are extremely complicated and it takes a lot of study to predict with any degree of accuracy what you're going to get.

Although, I have to say, I'm pretty sure that breeding yellow to yellow isn't going to get you a lot of reds, since the gene for red is dominant over yellow (meaning that yellow fish do not carry the red gene)