# Mustard Gas? Copper? Dragon scale? how?



## AkaiBetta (Mar 14, 2014)

Tomorrow I will be going to the betta shop near my house and they have tons of beautiful and wonderful bettas. But I'm more into the mustard gas, copper, and dragon scale bettas.

I was wondering what do I need to breed to get those following three?

What do I have to breed together to get mg?
What to breed to get copper?
What to breed to get dragonscale?

I did a bunch of research on the following three but it's too complicated for my brain to wrap around it.


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## amphirion (Jan 15, 2014)

why not find those types of bettas to work with instead of beginning from scratch?

-mg is a blue betta with the non-red1 gene (nr1), this gene is responsible for replacing the red wash with a yellow one. and if you were wondering, there is an nr2 gene also; it is responsible for the color orange.

-copper is a steel blue with the metallic iridescent gene. 

the blue gene is represent by the gene we will call B. and there are 2 variations of B, which are B, and b. every betta inherits 2 B's, one from the father, and one from the mother, and the combination of Bs will determine the color of the betta:
B(from parent1) + B(from parent2) = Turquoise betta (BB)
B(from parent1) + b(from parent2) = Royal Blue betta (Bb)
b(from parent1) + b(from parent2) = Steel Blue Betta (bb)

metallic iridescence is characterized by "*" and attaches to the B gene. it is also dominant, so even if a betta receives 1 copy of the * gene, it will have metallic phenotype. having 2 copies of the "*" will amplify the metallic phenotype, which is used to create the dragon scale.

example using royal blues: 
B*(from parent1) + b(from parent2) = metallic royal blue (B*b)
B(from parent1) + b+(from parent2) = metallic royal blue (Bb*)
B*(from parent1) + b*(from parent2) = dragon scale royal blue (B*b*) <--not complete dragon without mask gene though

note the first two, both are metallic royal blues, but genetically, they are different. their _genotypes_ are different but their _phenotypes_ are identical

so with coppers, their genotype could be any of the following: (b*b) or (bb*)
dragonscale coppers would be (b*b*)

to intensify dragonscaling even further, cross with a platinum white or opaque betta.


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## AkaiBetta (Mar 14, 2014)

Thank you so much! 

I choose to start from scratch because it's interesting to see them grow and all sorts of combinations you could get from breeding.


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## indjo (Jun 6, 2010)

What drgn are you thinking of?

I haven't worked much with MG thus can't comment on it other than pairing it with the same color pattern.

Copper x regular irid (assuming both have true genes) = majority irid and some copper. Some of the irids may have metallic - a shiny/sparkling irid color, often lighter shade compared to the non metallic irid. 
eg turquoise would become light/bright metallic green, Steel blue would show brighter sparkling colors. . . I have never seen a metallic version of royal blue.

Copper is very sensitive towards red since it carries red to give it that copper color. Without red it will look grey or steel. So crossing copper with anything containing the slightest red would give you some red finned coppers.

Drgn depends on what color drgn you use.

I'm guessing MG x copper would give you similar colors to the above but you might have copper with red or yellow fins. Yellow fins appears easier in drgn lines/crosses.

PS. Don't even think of creating MG, copper, or drgn from scratch. It's too much work, involving numerous selective breeding and cross breeding to wild species (copper and drgn scale)


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