I'm back! With another halfmoon betta pair.

[Flaringshutter]

Ooh, Kyohti, if I breed them I'd love to do a swap with you! Black orchid could really turn out some interesting crossbreeding.

You know, I've seen the giant bettas, and while I'm excited at their size, I don't think it will really be worth looking seriously at them for another 5 years or so. Right now it seems that giants are at the 'veiltail stage', you know? The line hasn't really been developed enough yet to produce quality fish.
My concern is that they will end up being like the larger dog breeds, with a shorter lifespan, more frequent and severe health problems... I'm waiting until the giants are well established and nice specimens start showing up on aquabid. Right now I'm seeing 'giants' at three inches, tops. I'll wager those are half, maybe quarter-giants, and won't breed true.
I really hope some reputable breeders pick up the giant line and develop it, because I think giants have a lot of potential. Seems to me that the public takes larger fish more seriously, anyway, and perhaps that will discourage mistreatment?
We'll see. Very interesting, though.


Thanks everyone for your comments! I'm so excited. I can't wait for them to get here.

 

[Grins]

Most unusual betta I've ever seen.

 

[marine_geek]

Absolutely stunning fish! If you end up breeding them i might have to look into buying 1

 

[Kyohti]

Ooh, Kyohti, if I breed them I'd love to do a swap with you! Black orchid could really turn out some interesting crossbreeding.

You know, I've seen the giant bettas, and while I'm excited at their size, I don't think it will really be worth looking seriously at them for another 5 years or so. Right now it seems that giants are at the 'veiltail stage', you know? The line hasn't really been developed enough yet to produce quality fish.
My concern is that they will end up being like the larger dog breeds, with a shorter lifespan, more frequent and severe health problems... I'm waiting until the giants are well established and nice specimens start showing up on aquabid. Right now I'm seeing 'giants' at three inches, tops. I'll wager those are half, maybe quarter-giants, and won't breed true.
I really hope some reputable breeders pick up the giant line and develop it, because I think giants have a lot of potential. Seems to me that the public takes larger fish more seriously, anyway, and perhaps that will discourage mistreatment?
We'll see. Very interesting, though.


Thanks everyone for your comments! I'm so excited. I can't wait for them to get here.

Yeah, since giants are so new, I doubt they'll be parting with any 'quality' specimens any time soon. Also I'd like to see if they get any bigger, even though a 3 inch betta IS pretty fantastic.

Hmmm... copper and black orchid crosses? Maybe if they were true orchids with no red coloring like my dante has. I'm not sure how that'd turn out. He definitely has some nice metallic hues to him and the black would be interesting, but I think the introduction of any red wash into a copper line wouldn't produce anything worthwhile.

I think if you introduced some platinum armadillo into the line that'd really help buff up the irridescence of the copper coloring. Hmmm... I wonder what adding orange or chocolate to the line would do. Most coppers nowadays look way too silvery to be called 'copper' in my opinion.

 

[Kyohti]

Yeah, I did some research on it and copper is best not introduced with blue or red as it picks up red washes easily (along their genetics they started out with a lot of red wash before subsequent generations of selective breeding removed the unwanted color). Also breeding with metallic blue would just result in royal, turquoise, and green with heavy metallic shading and thick 'armadillo' or 'masked' shading on the head and face. You might get the black lacing in the finnage. That would be lovely... but it looks like the best crosses for coppers are other dense metallics like golds, platinums, and armadillo/masked greens.

So if you're wanting copper with black lace or black butterfly-type markings, a crossing with a black/green lace would be better than crossing with actual black orchid which carries royal or turquoise irridescents rather than green usually.

I was pretty sure that's how it worked, but I wanted to be certain before I spouted off my mouth.

 

[Rbishop]

Very nice!

 

[Flaringshutter]

definitely, a black orchid cross could create some interesting patterns, but i'd have to breed into the f4s to clean up the color enough. if i do breed them, and end up outcrossing again, i'd most likely try to find a black/silver dragon, see if I could get some dragon patterning on the body. i thought about trying that with a red dragon, but like you said, they pick up washes so easily, from what i've read, and i don't want to have to breed another four generations to pull out a red wash.
i like watching aquabid over many months, if you keep an eye on certain breeders, they sell fish as they breed them, so you can really see a line develop from one fish to the next. i've been watching aquastar71's red line, and it's really just fantastic.

 

[Kyohti]

They have a smart-looking green armadillo male that has the black tipping on the finnage like what I was talking about.

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwbettashm&1185886895

He would be an asset to a "burnished orchid" breeding program.

Keep your eye out for armadill/masked greens with that black trimming to the caudal, the greener the better.

 

[daniel364]

ive never seen anything like that betta. Incredible.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

wow.... wonderful bettas