# Hawke the Dragon Halfmoon



## Lenimph (May 4, 2012)

*My Hawke and Isabetta*

This is my Hawke that I luckily got at a LFS near my friends house for only 7$ Today was the first time I got to move him into his own 5 gal that I was using as a guppy nursery. He is absolutely in love with his pirate ship. 























And this is my female Isabetta that I got on petsmart since she was on sale for a dollar and I felt sorry for her... she's kinda camera shy


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## FrostSinth (Apr 26, 2012)

at Petsmart you can get females for 99 cents with a card, at least near me

LOVE Hawke's ship, he's very handsome! Pretty girl too :-D


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## Lenimph (May 4, 2012)

Yeah I got her for 99 cents with my card but I don't always see females at my petsmart though. I'm thinking of starting a sorority since she's in the 10 gal with just some cories but I'm worried she might be too aggressive. She get's along fine with other community fish, even guppies... but whenever I've added a male to try to get her to spawn with things just don't end well. She tore a lot of Hawke's fins off in fact... I'm worried about how she'll act around another female.


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## Bombalurina (Oct 10, 2011)

I wouldn't suggest spawning petshop fish anyway. You don't know their genetics and they could be carrying a variety of problems.


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## Jessicatm137 (Mar 22, 2012)

Pretty fish!


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## KadenJames (Mar 23, 2012)

Bombalurina said:


> I wouldn't suggest spawning petshop fish anyway. You don't know their genetics and they could be carrying a variety of problems.


 
+1

It takes extensive research, space and money to correctly breed betta fish. Don't ever just throw a male and a female in the same tank on a whim; there are immense preparations you must make. The offspring will only be as good of quality as the parents, so I do not advice breeding pet store bettas, ever.


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## betta lover1507 (Aug 6, 2011)

beautiful fish


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## betta lover1507 (Aug 6, 2011)

Lenimph said:


> Yeah I got her for 99 cents with my card but I don't always see females at my petsmart though. I'm thinking of starting a sorority since she's in the 10 gal with just some cories but I'm worried she might be too aggressive. She get's along fine with other community fish, even guppies... but whenever I've added a male to try to get her to spawn with things just don't end well. She tore a lot of Hawke's fins off in fact... I'm worried about how she'll act around another female.


you can't just put them together to breed :I there's lot's of stuff to do, but if you want to breed them, am okay with that. there is LOT'S of responsibility in it, and you need to condition betta's before breeding. just ask breeder's around here (am just a rookie, beginning to breed once again)


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## Lenimph (May 4, 2012)

I have bred fish before (Angels, Guppies, and Goldfish, relatively easy probably to betta's but still) so I know just how big of an issue fry space and can be. I wasn't going in blind per-se but I have no intention of being a professional breeder I just wanted to see if I could do it. They were both properly conditioned, the female however has always had an attitude problem but is very healthy and so is Hawke.

Seems kinda mean that a betta can't be worth reproducing just because it came from a store. Especially since there will always be reject fry... I gave them a chance and it didn't work out and that's the end of it.


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## KadenJames (Mar 23, 2012)

Keep in mind, too, that bettas can have hundreds of offspring in one spawn. It's a million times better to invest in quality stock and have quality offspring to show for your efforts, rather than lower quality pet store bettas. No breeder in their right mind would purchase a pet store bred betta. 

I know what you are saying, but keep in mind the thousands of pet store bettas already sitting on shelves everywhere. If you breed, you should try and contribute to the Betta splenden species instead of breeding stock with scrambled genetics and issues.

There are several breeders, even on this website, that can offer you high quality fish for relatively cheap.


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## Lenimph (May 4, 2012)

I guess I could shop around for a female dragon...


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## KadenJames (Mar 23, 2012)

Shop around, as in at the pet stores? xD


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## Lenimph (May 4, 2012)

Actually I do most of my shopping on the internet. 

If I see one at a LFS which I never have except for Hawke then maybe. I do know that the man I got Hawke from breeds all his own fish and that my LFS(not petsmart) has super healthy fish. Plus my panda moor I got from them has actually kept its panda coloring so far so I trust them.


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## KadenJames (Mar 23, 2012)

Nice. 

You should checkout NiceBettas.com, she usually has some gorgeous dragon girls for sale. She's a real sweetheart, too.


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## Keroro (May 9, 2012)

The red against his silver is stunning!


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## lilyth88 (Mar 15, 2012)

I think it's ridiculous to say petstore bettas are not good enough to breed. If I want to breed my beautiful fish, how is it any business of anyone else's? I understand that purchasing from breeders may result in "higher quality" fish with better form, blah blah blah.... but isn't that like saying only super models or only people with the best genetic traits should be allowed to have children? If that was the case, most of us wouldn't be born.

Lenimph. Breed if you want to breed. Just make sure you're prepared.

Sorry if I come off defensive... I just *really* don't agree with that.


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## Lenimph (May 4, 2012)

Yeah the super model thing is pretty much how I feel about it too... 



Keroro said:


> The red against his silver is stunning!


Thanks... the Iridescence of his scales ranges a lot more then I initially thought. Sometimes under the right light he looks light blue while other times they look as white as snow...


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## FrostSinth (Apr 26, 2012)

ditto with the supermodel thing

I can't wait to see what you find!! :-D


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## KadenJames (Mar 23, 2012)

Bettas can have hundreds of offspring per spawn. Breeding pet store bettas yields hundreds more pet store bettas. If the big pet stores get hundreds of customers a day, and you see the same fish sitting there for weeks and weeks, how long do you think it would take to sell your hundreds of offspring, without the number of customers? Few pet stores will buy the fish from you, or even allow you to donate them for that matter. They have enough fish on their shelves to sell. (Granted some smaller scale pet stores might take donation, but that's pretty rare.) You can give a few away to family and friends, but that potentially still leaves you with hundreds of unwanted fish in your care. You would need to find a way to properly house them, pay for food, medication, do adequate water changes. In the end it would actually be cheaper to buy breeding quality stock to begin with. Your main source of getting rid of the bettas will be selling stock to other breeders, which brings me back to the point of no serious breeder would ever buy a petstore bred Betta, the same as a dog breeder would never buy a mutt.

I'm only speaking from experience here, you certainly don't have to agree with me. It simply makes more sense. The supermodel thing is fairly irrelevant, too, because we don't have hundreds of kids at one time and sell them for profit. xD


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## lissienen (Mar 27, 2012)

Hawke is a beautiful fish, and it's cute how he seems to love his pirate ship.


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## MoonShadow (Feb 29, 2012)

KadenJames said:


> Bettas can have hundreds of offspring per spawn. Breeding pet store bettas yields hundreds more pet store bettas. If the big pet stores get hundreds of customers a day, and you see the same fish sitting there for weeks and weeks, how long do you think it would take to sell your hundreds of offspring, without the number of customers? Few pet stores will buy the fish from you, or even allow you to donate them for that matter. They have enough fish on their shelves to sell. (Granted some smaller scale pet stores might take donation, but that's pretty rare.) You can give a few away to family and friends, but that potentially still leaves you with hundreds of unwanted fish in your care. You would need to find a way to properly house them, pay for food, medication, do adequate water changes. In the end it would actually be cheaper to buy breeding quality stock to begin with. Your main source of getting rid of the bettas will be selling stock to other breeders, which brings me back to the point of no serious breeder would ever buy a petstore bred Betta, the same as a dog breeder would never buy a mutt.
> 
> I'm only speaking from experience here, you certainly don't have to agree with me. It simply makes more sense. The supermodel thing is fairly irrelevant, too, because we don't have hundreds of kids at one time and sell them for profit. xD


I couldn't agree more with this! If you can't afford quality stock, then you can afford to breed, plain and simple. There is nothing wrong with petstore bettas, they are beautiful fish, but they have unknown gene pools and in most cases are pet quality.


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## lilyth88 (Mar 15, 2012)

Just thought I'd throw up this quote from MrVampire in his "Bowl of Bettas" thread...



> hey're fine if you know what you're doing. The male had excellent, almost symmetrical fins and the fry have inherited that and are showing traits I look for.


He was referring to petsmart/walmart bettas.


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## KadenJames (Mar 23, 2012)

lilyth88 said:


> Just thought I'd throw up this quote from MrVampire in his "Bowl of Bettas" thread...
> 
> 
> 
> He was referring to petsmart/walmart bettas.


It is extremely rare to find a pet store Betta with decent finnage. Even then, it is a tremendous risk because you simply do not know the genetic history of the fish. Developing good finnage in the offspring also greatly depends on the genes of the mother, as well as water condition and nutrition while raising them. It takes an expert to be able to recognize when to cull a fry and when to keep a fry for the sole purpose of form and body structure. Majority of the time, its much more difficult than spawning normal breeding quality bettas. So this again takes me back to "you're better off breeding quality stock to begin with."

In addition, here is a video made by MrV titled "Why NOT to breed pet store fish."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w90k8U6mNAI&nomobile=1


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## MrVampire181 (May 12, 2009)

IF you can find a decent fish in pet stores you're lucky. I spend as much time as I can looking at fin and form. 

The fry from that male look good, however show no relevance to him. He was gold, the fry are green, blue, and red copper. Their mom is a green marble HMPK. She has fancy marble import blood, as well as marble blood from Chard56 YET all his hidden genetic traits proved dominant. I simply liked the male and when the opportunity came for me to adopt him I did. And promised a ton of people his offspring. 

Out of hundreds of pet store fish I've seen, I've purchased only a few who had the traits I'd even consider.

That male is the only pet store betta I've spawned all year. 

It takes the same amount of time, space, and money to breed a ton of pet quality bettas as it does to raise nice, show quality, bettas.

From Betta Talk:


" Avoid pet store bettas like the plague. I have covered the topic in length in my very first Bettatalk Radio show, so here is a little synopsis for those of you who missed it: Pet store bettas are not suitable breeders for many reasons, but here are just a few:	they are too old. Old bettas have no sex drive (not unlike old people LOL) and since they have not yet come up with a Viagra for bettas, you will be S.O.O.L. Most bettas live only 2 years, most of them stop spawning when they are about 14 months and most pet store bettas are already 1 year old or older (because ignorant people want the BIG bettas with BIG fins, not understanding that those bettas lives are already pretty much behind them) 
they are often unhealthy. Kept in poor conditions at the pet store and shipped from the far East in even poorer conditions, most of them carry diseases and are either already sick or are contaminated and soon will become sick. You take them home and they die on you. Only bettas in tip top condition make suitable breeders so that means the pet store bettas in most cases are out. 
they have the wrong tail type. 99% of pet store bettas are veil tails and veils tails are a thing of the past. Meaning that no reputable breeder breeds veil tails and that the current betta finnage standards have long bypassed the veil tail mutation. We are on to bigger and better things, such as halfmoon tails, delta tails , Double Tails and crowntails. A veil tail is not even allowed to show on the circuit and has no retail value. It will be hard to sell the fry. 
last but not least they have no set genes. Meaning they are "mutts", a blend of tons of different genes, the result of none selective breeding, meaning were breed at random without any breeding goal (other than producing tones of cheap bettas to make quick money). You will never be able to accurately predict the outcome of any spawns from pet store bettas. Further more they all carry major faults which would take years and years of hard work to rectify, such as red washes on blue bettas, or blue iridescence on red bettas, bad DT splits and other hidden flaws and deformities. 


So do yourself and the betta hobby a BIG favor and don't propagate bad pet store betta genes."


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