# Black (Melano) Male



## myprince

I am looking for a Black (Melano) Male that I can breed and is very good quality. I would like to get one young. Anyone?


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## Basement Bettas

check AB. Melanos are tough to breed.. and females often not fertile. Not for the faint of heart. And the melanos you see are really bad bicolors. Blue bodied fish with black fins. Bad because very little contrast between the colors.


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## sharkettelaw1

ive just ordered three melanos from my LFS. Where i am, they usually come in double tail, (even lobes) and as they mature they start to lose their iridescence. Ive got some pics of mine that i'll show you, his body(head included) were pure black and his fins were white. But those fins will darken up as he gets older and the black will intensify. When i get mine i will breed them. I have a female whose "colouring" is recessive to black and she is a halfmoon. If you want, i can give you one or two of the males from that spawn. I'll be breeding them as soon as i get them. Some might be coming in this week though


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## myprince

I now the females are sterile. I'm looking for a good quality black male. How would I go about finding this?


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## Basement Bettas

these are blacks I am working with and they are not melano ..


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## Basement Bettas

myprince said:


> I now the females are sterile. I'm looking for a good quality black male. How would I go about finding this?


Ask Aquastar .. he has nice ones. I paid $120 for that first HM male then paid to import him. They are not cheap if they are good.


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## myprince

Basement Bettas said:


> these are blacks I am working with and they are not melano ..


Okay maybe you can explain to me what the difference is in blacks and melano?


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## myprince

The black males you have are exactly what I am looking for. Wow. Beautiful!


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## Basement Bettas

Melanos have a lot of iridescence on them.. most are blue bodied fish with black fins like this male.


Females from this type of black are sterile

here is another but not as much of the irid on him..


Problem is this is both a bad black because of too much irid and bad bi-colors because no contrast.

Mine are the supposed super blacks. I don't get into all te crazy names. I breed black fish. Mine do not have the irid issues.. but they have marble in them so I have problems with lighter fin edges.


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## Basement Bettas

The term Melano was SUPPOSED to be a pitch black fish.. but because the irid was a problem.. that blue body because part of the name. So now I guess you just say back instead of melano if you want the pitch black fish.


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## indjo

To my knowledge each black has different genetic backgrounds. I can't pin point the SB's background yet (I get different unlikely infos), since I've only started to work with them and they are . . . very weak, or the ones I bred were (fry won't eat). All I know is that they have a marble background.

Melanos are supposed to be "true" blacks. But IMO their color isn't as intense as other blacks. And since the females are mostly, if not all, sterile, melano males must be crossed to other colors (usually blue) thus they are often bi-color.


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## trilobite

Personally I love the bi colour look of most melanos. 
But theres still a few out there that arent bi coloured

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwbettashm&1404902281


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## ZentheBetta71614

Basement Bettas said:


> these are blacks I am working with and they are not melano ..


WOW! Love those handsome fellas! So pretty!


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