# Betta Fish Color Genetics!?



## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Hi! As some of you may now, I'm Blu, I'm known on this site for breeding blue butterfly halfmoons. Their my interest  including keeping pet fish and buying off of AB. But now something incredible sparked me. It happend in a dream I had last night (corny right?) I dreamt of going to the pet store, I smelt a musky yet clean feeling, I entered a fish room and they owned two of my favorite species of fish. Fancy goldfish, and betta's! They had a variety of my favorite fish and I just adored them! Being a kid in a candy shop that I was in my dream, with my brother at the time. We both picked out fish. And then. There it was. The Betta I dreamt about. The fish I would like to acheive not only in my dream but in reality. It was a bi color red bodied veiltail male Betta with gold flowing fins. Not yellow, it was gold. The red was was so fine, it resembled blood like personalities, and the gold, shimmering like a treasure chest. I was baffled at how gorgeous it was. I obviously snatched it with a blue butterfly halfmoon male Betta I picked up. Anyways, the fish was so lush and vibrant, full of color and compassion, just one look at it and I would've blinded you. Haha, I'm kinda getting off task. So, I would like to know, does red and gold have any similarity in color genetics, let me rephrase that, does the colors red and gold have anything connected? When a red Betta fish bred with a gold Betta fish breed.... Why colors will the fry turn out to be? Yellow? Orange? Gold? Red? I've heard many various things about red betta's but I've never understood the color genetics of them besides that they will create red wash, or bring a dominant color into your spawns. What I want to create is the red bi colored body Betta with gold glowing fins. Is this possible? It'll take generations breeding, but I'm ready for this challenge. This is literally my DREAM Betta. I did dream about it and now reality has come and it's time for me to prepare. I really hope I will be able to acheive this veiltail Betta I've dreamt of! Just one more question. When gold and gold breed. Do they breed true? Or will a variety of yellow and oranges be created? Sorry for such a long post and sorry if there are any spelling or grammar incorrect, Siri think she's the know it all  Anyways, help me acheive my goal if possible by helping me gain more knowledge about this "mysterious," fish I've dreamt of!

Thank you for making all of my spawns possible, we can now work together to create something new!

Your friend,

Blu


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## Bikeridinguckgirl14 (Oct 22, 2013)

By gold I'm assuming you mean a true metallic gold. In this case you can have both colors present, since the gold is in the irid layer and the red is in the base layer. When you search for gold bettas you see that they're usually yellow or white with gold iridescence all over, even bleeding into their tails, so gold is probably related to the copper gene. 
So you can have a gold and red bicolor fish BUT the opposite of what you described. Sorry, it would have a mostly gold body with mostly red fins like this. http://www.bettaterritory.nl/Colorgenetics-Redgold.jpg and http://s49.photobucket.com/user/VirtualBettaShow/media/adonis_jenniferlapello.jpg.html

Gold and gold breed I think 60-75% true or more depending on line purity! you'll also get some other metallic not-quite-gold colors, plus whatever color is underneath the gold will matter, so if you have a white fish with gold, he might eventually turn into a pink fish with gold, whereas if you have a yellow fish with gold you'll get some reds and browns with gold too


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## indjo (Jun 6, 2010)

I don't know what actually creates gold. But theoretically speaking, I agree with bickeringuckgirl - it should be possible though red would form on fins, not body.


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Dang. My dream has become a night mare! XD, i really wanted to create something never seen before! Thank you both for the information


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## sharkettelaw1 (Mar 6, 2013)

to achieve gold, breed a melano (with as little irid as possible) to a pure red Cambodian. There must be absolutely no spots, patches or markings on its body. In the normal course of things, you'd expect the black to dominate because Cambodian is doubly recessive. Yes, and no. Depending on the background of the parents, you will have some fry that have gold on their fins. Like gold ventrals for example. I do not know if cross breeding the siblings will increase the amount of gold in the finnage, but I reckon its worth a try. You could even just get a full gold betta from aquabid and cross it to a red and keep breeding for F2, F3 and so on. I did say a couple of months back that my friend was breeding for gold through black, but I was never able to contact her. All I know, is you'd need a Cambodian. Red.


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Interesting. Just curious. But how does Cambodian red crossed with a melano create gold?


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## sharkettelaw1 (Mar 6, 2013)

I really don't know. Whether its the genetic background, or just a clash of two very different colors. But then again, black bred with most colours produces multicolors. Black bred with copper produces metallic green, so the gold most probably comes from the black background. Just my theory anyway. You'll be surprised just how many good lines come from black bettas.


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

That's very compelling! I find it funny that a lot of different colors come from black betta's!


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## sharkettelaw1 (Mar 6, 2013)

I love black bettas, and obviously its the one colour I work the most with. So I do as much research into them as possible and thus find this stuff. But my "friend" is where I get some of the important stuff from. Like the gold part.


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Yea. We all have that one color or pattern of a fish we really are cheerful of.  For me. It's any color besides orange!


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## sharkettelaw1 (Mar 6, 2013)

lol. What's wrong with orange? My lfs had only orange crowntails at one stage. They still have one living with all the females. I saw some fantastic blue ones the other day, sooo tempting. I almost never go for blue, but a baby blue / purple pk I had to have, but that royal blue was just too beautiful. Even red. My goodness, all the possibilities :-D


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## BlueInkFish (Jan 13, 2013)

Haha. Your the opposite of me! I'm in love with the color blue! *looks at username* The color orange just doesn't appeal to me


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