Home Forums Betta Breeding Genetics I have questions Reply To: I have questions

Stacy Fenhaus
Participant
Post count: 716

It sounds like this spawn was the result of genetic soup. I don’t say that to mean a negative thing, it’s just sometimes what happens. 🙂 You say you raised the parents, what were their parents like?

Normally when we see odd shaped fish, they aren’t necessarily throwbacks to wild forms, but rather throwbacks to the traditional plakat varieties. The one with the rounded head sounds more like a malformation due to injury or congenital defect (especially since you say it is rather runty too).

To answer your question about whether wilds are being crossed with domestics, yes, this is happening– but not on a large scale by any means.

Getting this many types of fins is not what one would consider normal (or even desirable for show breeding purposes). When breeding a pair, its always best work with fish that have known backgrounds so that you can predict what may come from them. Not to say that breeding new strains and tail types isn’t encouraged, but it can be very surprising when you find yourself in the middle ground of that process when you’re not expecting it. I’ve been in those shoes, it was very frustrating.