# What is good form?



## spaceyJC

When picking breeding stock for a breeding project, you'll want to find fish with good finnages, colors, and *form. *What what exactly is "good form"? What things do you look for in a fish? How do I pick the best fish for a breeding project?
Could you give examples of good form and bad form, good fins and not-so-good fins? Thanks!!


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## BettaMummy87

Form, from my understanding, is the Betta as a whole, so the thickness and length of the body, in relation to the finnage. Also the minimum length of the fish in shows, and the widths at certain parts of the body. Its pretty hard to explain, but it is where the baseline of a lot of judging is taken from. It depends on thye type of betta (long-finnned, or PK) and the gender to what is expected. 

Finnage varies greatly by tail type. Is there a certain type you are most interested in? Showing all would be harder XD


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## hrutan

+1 BettaMummy

_As far as I understand_ (and I have been known to be wrong), form is the overall appearance and quality of the fish. So, body shape, body size, fin size and proportion, fin shape, ray count, ray branching, scale formation and evenness, ect.

Not to be confused with color.

So you always want to breed for both form and color. It's ideal to go for both at once, but if you have to pick one...pick form. Build your house before you paint it.


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## spaceyJC

Thanks for the replies! :-D I understand, I guess, the _definition _of good form. I want to know what factors makes a fish _have _good form? I want to work with the halfmoon fin type. So, what do I look for in the fish? How do I know if the fish has good form or not?


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## BettaMummy87

Right, as we are not after plakat, the body form is (pretty) simple. Ish. Maybe XD

*BODY:
*
Topline must be smooth without bumps. This is the bit from mouth to the front of the caudal, and then from the end of the caudal to the peduncle. 

Actually, I have a good example of this in my own stock: 
http://i1124.photobucket.com/albums/l561/Angharad_Smith/Betta%20Fish/a9382b70-20db-4eff-972a-8f71906e5e78.jpg[img]
She is not [COLOR=Green]a smooth, modified elipse in shape on that topline[/COLOR]. She is a little too pointy up near her caudal. 

The start of the anal (and overall length) are very important in judging 'form' (at least by bettas4all standard; I haven't got my membership to IBC for their current standards yet, so only know a little of the 5year old ones D:). The front of the anal fin marks (or should) the crossover of the 'horizontal and vertical midlines', the thickest part of the body. It should also be used to judge the balance in proportions; [COLOR=Green]in front of this point, should be 40% of the length of the body of the fish, and behind should be 60% from α to peduncle. [I][COLOR=Black]I cannot find a photo showing a betta not meeting this for some reason! Sorry D: [/COLOR][/I]

[COLOR=Black]The total length of the body of a male (not giant) should be at least 3.5cm at adulthood, though larger fish will be preferred if two are equal otherwise.

[U][B]FINNAGE:
[/B][/U][IMG]http://www.hollandbettashow.com/bettas4all_photos/Bettas4allStandard/Chapter3HFig3H-1.jpg

If you were to draw a straight line, following the central ray of the caudal fin, right through the body, this should form a line that divides an elipse, encompassing the fins. If you were to do it to the 3D model above, all but the tiops of the ventral would fit into the elipse[/COLOR][/COLOR] (The Caudal fin should fit one end of the elipse and the mouth would touch the side at the other end, the anal and dorsal would touch the line of the elipse at the top and bottom). There should not be any one 'unpaired' fin, or any part thereof outside of the line of the elipse. 

So where the diagram above is 'perfect', this guy's anal is too long:








His tail is also seems to me not to be a smooth curve, the reductions seem a little uneven there, but I could be wrong.

The caudal should not be more (or much less) than 40% of the overall length of the fish (tip of the mouth/face to the end of the central ray) as measured from the peduncle (where the straight line of the 'D' of the halfmoons tail goes through the peduncle, not from the last scale. Though this is less of an issue than one fin being massively out of whack with another in length from what I understand. 









The above boys anal is maybe a smidge longer, but the balance with the other two unpaired fins is very close to perfect IMO. 









Beautiful as he is, none of this boys fins seem to be on a par lengthwise, or (I haven got a ruler out to measure) his caudal may be short and the other two of equal length. 









Okay, I did get the ruler out for this one, as I couldnt find the image I wanted to use (A fish on aquabid I saw the other day). It is very, very slight in reality, but his fins are a few mm longer than the 40% ideal. It just looks worse 'cos that white looks more expansive than other colours. 

This is pretty basic, and there is a load of stuff about the length of fins in relation to the anal fins bredth and the thickness of the body, but I have to go get hubby from work. Hope this helps, and if it does I shall spam my understanding of the other points I just mentioned when I get home.

Also, forgive errors, I am in a massive rush XD
This one I am putting out here to see what you all think! His Dorsal does flow smoothly into the size of the tail, but if it was rigid, it must surely be longer! Its HUGE! I am guessing this would be marked down, but maybe someone more experienced could help? 










DISCLAIMER: I am getting these images off of google, I do not have express permission to use them, but will remove them if asked by the copyright owner. I will leave copyright info on any photos that have them. Should cover me, right?


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## lilnaugrim

Here are some more form guidelines.

View attachment 444081



There are also different types of PK you see here. The leftmost is a Traditional PK: rounded dorsal, 180 degree caudal but only 2-4 rays, sloping anal coming to a point, ventrals should reach the end of the anal. The middle is an Asymmetrical HMPK; forward pointing broad dorsal, pointed and slanted anal fin, ventrals still reach end of point of anal. Last on the right is a Symmetrical HMPK (short finned HM). This follows the HM form only short finned; dorsal is broad, anal and dorsal meet at same length of HM, ventrals also meet end of anal which means they'll be shorter as well.
View attachment 444089


And here are other form guides for your viewing pleasure. 


























Females follow the same guidelines only with short fins of course.


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## BettaMummy87

^ there is the one like this for HM I wanted to use, but couldnt find it ^-^

And females should not be as thick at the Alpha point (Forgotten the hotkey, sorry ETA: Or at the cross over between line sB and X below). That first diagram is useful, Lilnau  Gunna make a note of that one too. ^-^

ETA: Found it!


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## lilnaugrim

Yes not as thick but they still need to have a decently smooth curve to their topline, no bumps and not too straight either. 

Oh found more, this one is Trad PK. You can have rounded caudal/dorsal or pointed (pointed is closer to wild form)









Asymmetrical PK


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## BettaMummy87

This one i pretty handy for the halfmoons, OP. 










This ciurcular finnage is the target if you are looking at entering the IBC shows, I believe. ^_^


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## spaceyJC

Wow!!! Thanks! This has really helped a lot!!! :-D:lol:


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## BettaMummy87

Glad we were of some help ^-^


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## jr591

In regard to form, how exactly does one evaluate the finnage of a female? What separates the good from the bad? To my understanding long anal fins are to be avoided and with crowntails uneven web reduction is something to watch out for. Are there any other faults to look for in females?


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## BettaMummy87

Females generally follow the same shape stanards finnage wise as the males, so with halfmoons, they should be the same shape (fitting that neatly squashed oval shape) but much, much shorter in proportion to their bodies. So the fins should be of equal length with each other, but must not be "excessively male". Crowntails, yes the same faults would apply with regards to web reduction, uneven it to be avoidied, and again avoided in fin length. as the IBC puts it "Female bettas should have broad voluminous fins, but not possess male finnage length. "


Body size of Females must be at least one and a quarter inches (1.25”) for the IBC, and I think a little shorter is allowable (not favourable) with teh Bettas4Alll standard. 

They should be thicker and shorter in the body than males. 
Deportment; they must show an interest in their surroundings, not be too docile, but are, I believe, expected to be less "aggressive" than their male counterparts. 

Females *must *show an egg spot for showing. Lack of one is, I believe, a disqualifying fault. 

Eggbound females are immediately disqualified. 

Excessive male finnage is automatic disqualification also. 

All general faults in regards to health apply.


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## BettaStarter24

My Rose tail Half Moon Oliver's anal is too long, much longer than it should be, my Halfmoon Dean's anal is slightly too long.


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## spaceyJC

Wow! That is one longggg anal fin! :-D


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## BettaMummy87

Seeing a lot of long anal fins these days... I wonder why breeders aren't doing more about it...  Abosolutely love the colours on your fish though, and pretty solid toplines on them both. 

I may try outcrossing my new boy to my HMPK female, or maybe to my DeT Female... see if it is as hard as it seems to be to reduce that fin...


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## Basement Bettas

There needs to by symmetry and balance.. all the tail types have it. Even the sharpness of the traditional pk's have a symmetry. Some of those standards are not the IBC standards.. so you have to decide what your end goal is. I like my HM and CT's to be a circle. The pk's are all about angular points. I need to get the power point I did at a fish club online. It explains a lot..


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## hrutan

If you did post that power point, that would be pretty awesome. There's a bit of a learning curve to this; all the information that can be provided is so welcome and useful to those of us who would like to breed and show.


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## BettaMummy87

Anything you have relating to plakats would be great. I am thinking of breeding an asymm HMPK line and a seperate HM line for show. There is a decent one gaining steam in Central Europe. As such I am aiming for B4A Standards at present. XD


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## Basement Bettas

BettaStarter24 said:


> My Rose tail Half Moon Oliver's anal is too long, much longer than it should be, my Halfmoon Dean's anal is slightly too long.


Both these fish have tail rays that are too short. When you head into over branching you tend to see shorter tail rays with it. Anals are a tad long.. but the sorter tail rays make it visually seem worse. Need to look at the length of rays on all fins. They should all be about same length.

This male has color faults and don't like the shorter rays on the dorsal.. but he is getting close to the ideal of all rays the same length.


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