Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Foreword
Introduction
Taxonomy
Anatomy
Geography
History
Care
Breeds
Colouration
Breeding
Genetics
Disease
Parting words
The Betta Bible
The art and science of keeping
bettas
Marble HMPK bred by the author
by Dr Martin Brammah
About the author
Dr Martin Brammah received both his
MA in Natural Sciences and his PhD in
Zoology from the University of
Cambridge, UK. He is co-author of the
paper Genetic divergence between and
within two subspecies of Laudakia
stellio on islands in the Greek
Cyclades, based on his PhD research,
which was published in The
Herpetological Journal in 2010. Dr
Brammah is an Associate Member of the
Society of Biology and a full member of
the Chartered Institute of Ecology and
Environmental Management (CIEEM).
He currently works as an ecological
consultant and lives in Cambridgeshire
with his beautiful wife, two dogs and a
room full of bettas.
© 2015 by Martin Brammah
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form or by any electronic or
mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the author.
The only exception is by a reviewer,
who may quote short excerpts in a
review.
www.thebettabible.com
Foreword
You might be thinking, who is this guy
writing the foreword to The Betta
Bible? For the people who do not know
me, let me introduce myself. My name is
Joep van Esch and I am from the
Netherlands. Besides being a biologist
and researcher (PhD), I have been
breeding show bettas since 2003 and
some of you might be familiar with my
personal website www.bettaterritory.nl.
In addition I am co-founder of the
international Bettas4all forum
(www.bettas4all.nl) and the Bettas4all
Standard as well as manager of the
Holland Betta Show
(www.hollandbettashow.nl). I am
extremely honoured to be invited to
write the foreword to this book written
by my friend Dr Martin Brammah.
Martin and I first met in person at the
Holland Betta Show 2013, where he
won several prizes for his marble
halfmoon plakats (although no first prize
that time!). I remember one evening after
the show I was showing him some
photos and videos of the very first
halfmoon bettas that were stored on my
laptop. It was then that he announced that
he was in the process of writing a book
about bettas. Who knew that I would
now be sitting here writing the foreword
to that book?
I got to know Martin in 2007 when he
became a member of the Bettas4all
forum under the username 'Bluejax'. He
asked a lot of questions, many of which I
was thankfully able to answer! Over the
years we have had numerous interesting
conversations about bettas.
In 2014, Martin became a Bettas4all
Advisor (moderator) at the forum and I
am proud to have him on board as part
the training program to become a
certified Bettas4all Judge.
Dr Martin Brammah is a dedicated and
knowledgeable betta hobbyist who has
made a great effort to bundle the
knowledge he gathered during his study
and during his years as a hobbyist (by
reading books and articles, participating
in discussions, exhibiting at shows and
of course learning from the experiences
he made in his own fishroom) into The
Betta Bible.
I really enjoyed reading this book and it
is nice to see a relatively ‘young’
hobbyist sharing his knowledge and
views. The Betta Bible provides a
broad overview of all aspects of our
beautiful hobby by discussing such
important subjects as anatomy, history,
breeding, care, genetics and disease,
making it a must-read for both the novice
and more experienced betta hobbyist
alike.
In the chapter on breeding, Martin says:
“Anyone can buy themselves a huge
betta collection, the same way that a
collector buys works of art. And there’s
nothing wrong with being a collector.
In fact, all of us are collectors to start
with. But just think how much more
meaningful that collection would be if
you had painted every piece.
Here’s what I think: If you have the
chance to be an artist, then be an
artist… and paint beautiful bettas!”
I couldn’t agree more.
Go breed those beauties!
Dr Joep H. M. van Esch
Introduction
It’s a funny thing, falling in love. It just
happens. You meet someone, a
connection is made and suddenly you
wake up one day and can’t imagine life
without them. They’re a part of you. And
even if it doesn’t last, the memory of that
love will always remain.
I fell in love with bettas when I was
eleven years old. My parents had bought
me a large glass aquarium for my
birthday and amongst the first fish to
inhabit it was a male veiltail betta. He
was a rich royal blue, with long flowing
fins and a pugnacious attitude and I was
very proud indeed to be his owner.
Sadly, he didn’t last long under my
novice care. The scant information
contained in my many tropical fish books
hadn’t equipped me to properly care for
him.
I was completely devastated, as only a
child can be, to lose such a beautiful fish
and vowed that I would read everything
about bettas that I could get my hands on,
so that the next time I brought one home I
would have more success.
Shortly afterwards I purchased a copy of
Walt Maurus’s A Complete Guide to
Bettas and it change my life. Here was a
book that not only answered all of my
questions about bettas, but was also
written in such a way that you couldn’t
help but affected by the author’s
enthusiasm for his subject.
Twenty-two years later, after a dalliance
with Central American cichlids, I find
myself keeping bettas once again. I
returned to betta keeping in 2007, just at
the point when one or two people in the
UK had started to import show quality
bettas from Asia. Having seen photos of
modern show bettas online I was
captivated by their colour and finnage. I
had to get my hands on some! Through
the importers I started to build a
collection of high quality bettas, turning
most of my fishroom over to their care. I
then embarked on what has turned out to
be one of the most enjoyable journeys of
my life: The quest to understand and put
into practice the art and science of
keeping and breeding bettas. I turned to
the world wide web for help.
It is no easy task to learn everything you
need to know about the modern betta
hobby by using the internet alone. Most
of the information is spread far and wide
across a plethora of websites that vary
in both the quality and accuracy of the
information they provide. Of course, if
you know where to look, there are some
brilliant websites out there that provide
excellent information, but for most
people starting out in the hobby finding
the information they need can be a
daunting prospect. In the end many either
give up or find themselves in an endless
cycle of posting questions on social
media pages in order to get answers
(some better than others).
It is for this reason that when I first sat
down at my computer three years ago, to
begin the process of writing The Betta
Bible, I had just one aim: To put as much
information as possible about keeping
and breeding bettas in one place, so that
others could save themselves from the
countless hours of scouring the internet
that I had to go through in order to teach
myself how to do so.
Not for me a basic beginner’s guide to
bettas, or a coffee table book full of
photos and no useful content. I wanted to
write a proper reference book that
anyone could pick up, knowing
absolutely nothing about bettas, and use
to educate themselves about every
aspect of this wonderful hobby.
This is the book you now hold in your
hands. In it I have tried to cover every
aspect of betta keeping, from taxonomy,
anatomy, geography and history right
through to how to keep and breed bettas,
descriptions of the various types of
betta, their colour patterns, and no less
than a whole chapter on genetics. I have
also included a section on common
diseases found in bettas and how to treat
them. Put simply, if there’s an aspect of
betta keeping that isn’t covered in this
book, then it’s probably not worth
knowing; and if it is worth knowing, then
please tell me and it will appear in the
next edition. After all, this is only the
beginning.
Bicolour halfmoon plakat male © Eugenio Fornasiero
Marble halfmoon plakat (short-finned) male © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Marble halfmoon male © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is defined as the process of
defining groups of biological organisms
on the basis of shared characteristics,
and giving names to those groups. Each
group is given a rank and groups of a
given rank can be aggregated to form a
super group of higher rank in order to
create a hierarchical classification.
This may all sound wonderfully
complicated, but in fact most of you will
have at least heard of these ranks before
if you have ever watched a wildlife
documentary, or paid any attention at all
in Biology class.
The most commonly used ranks, from
most inclusive to least inclusive, are:
kingdom, phylum, class, order, family,
genus, species and subspecies. Every
single species on earth (or at least all
those that have thus far been described
by science) has a taxonomic
classification that includes these ranks.
To give an example of a taxonomic
classification that should be close to
your heart, here is the taxonomy of
humans:
KINGDOM - Animalia
Animalia is the kingdom that describes
ALL animals. In terms of their shared
characteristics, animals are eukaryotic
(i.e. they have cells that contain complex
structures contained in membranes) and
mostly multicellular; they are
heterotrophic (i.e. they ingest other
organisms or their products for
sustenance); they lack rigid cell walls
(unlike plants and fungi); they are motile,
if only at certain life stages; their
embryos pass through a blastula stage (a
hollow sphere of cells is formed during
an early stage of embryonic development
- this is exclusive to animals); and for
the most part they create descendants via
sexual reproduction (i.e. offspring
receive 50% of their genes from each
parent).
PHYLUM – Chordata
This phylum describes all animals which
are either vertebrates, or one of several
closely related invertebrates, all united
by having (for at least some period of
their life cycle) a notochord, a hollow
dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an
endostyle, and a post-anal tail.
Basically, the phylum Chordata includes
all animals with a spinal cord.
CLASS – Mammalia
The class Mammalia describes air-
breathing vertebrate animals
characterised by the possession of
endothermy (i.e. warm blood, thanks to
an ability to regulate
their own body temperature), hair, three
middle ear bones, and mammary glands
functional in mothers with young.
ORDER - Primates
This order describes all of the animals
we think of as primates; lorises, lemurs,
monkeys, lesser apes, great apes and
humans.
FAMILY - Hominidae
The family Hominidae describes the
great apes (chimpanzees, orangutans,
gorillas and humans)
GENUS - Homo
The genus Homo includes modern
humans and species closely related to
them.
SPECIES - sapiens
This is the species name that describes
you, me and all other humans. So, to give
us our full title, we are Homo sapiens.
That is to say, we are the sapiens
species within the genus Homo and we
all share diagnostic characteristics that
can be used to differentiate us in
taxonomic terms from all the other
species in the genus Homo, such as
Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo
ergaster (all of which are now extinct).
***
albimarginata complex:
Betta albimarginata
Betta channoides
anabatoides complex:
Betta anabatoides
Betta midas
bellica complex:
Betta bellica
Betta simorum
coccina complex:
Betta brownorum
Betta burdigala
Betta coccina
Betta hendra
Betta livida
Betta miniopinna
Betta persephone
Betta rutilans
Betta tussyae
Betta uberis
dimidiata complex:
Betta dimidiata
Betta krataios
edithae complex:
Betta edithae
foerschi complex:
Betta foerschi
Betta mandor
Betta strohi
picta complex:
Betta falx
Betta pallida
Betta picta
Betta simplex
Betta taeniata
pugnax complex:
Betta apollon
Betta breviobesus
Betta cracens
Betta enisae
Betta ferox
Betta fusca
Betta kuehnei
Betta lehi
Betta prima
Betta pugnax
Betta pulchra
Betta raja
Betta schalleri
Betta stigmosa
rubra complex:
Betta dennisyongi
Betta rubra
splendens complex:
Betta imbellis
Betta mahachaiensis
Betta siamorientalis
Betta smaragdina
Betta splendens
Betta stiktos
unimaculata complex:
Betta compuncta
Betta gladiator
Betta ideii
Betta macrostoma
Betta ocellata
Betta pallifina
Betta patoti
Betta unimaculata
waseri complex:
Betta chloropharynx
Betta hipposideros
Betta pardalotos
Betta pi
Betta renata
Betta spilotogena
Betta tomi
Betta waseri
Longevity
The question of how long bettas live is
not as straightforward to answer as it
might at first appear, as there are so
many variables that can have an effect on
the life expectancy of bettas.
These include:
Veiltail
Without a doubt, the first step along the
path towards what we now think of as
show bettas was the creation of the
veiltail betta. As we saw above, the first
record of veiltail bettas comes from the
1927 shipment to Frank Locke and Hugh
Smith in San Francisco. However, in
October of the same year Hermann
Meinken described veiltail bettas in an
article he wrote for the publication
‘Aquatic Life’ in Germany.
The fish Meinken described showed a
high degree of elongation in all three
unpaired fins (dorsal, anal and caudal)
and also in the ventral fins. Although the
mutation had an effect in female bettas,
making their fins slightly longer than
those of wild fish, the effect in male
bettas was startling. Males with the
long-fin mutation grew fins that were
twice as long as those of their wild
counterparts and twice as impressive.
Because their long finnage was
reminiscent of a bridal veil, these bettas
were given the name ‘veiltail’, a name
which is still used today.
Veiltail bettas were a real game changer
in the aquarium world. Male veiltails
became the must-have show fish thanks
to their incredible beauty and ease of
care. Seeing an opportunity to cash in on
‘betta fever’ , Asian breeders were
quick to put their vast experience with
bettas to good use, manipulating the
genetic make-up of Betta splendens
through selective breeding to produce
veiltails in a wide range of colours, to
meet the demands of an ever increasing
market.
The Asian breeders weren’t the only
ones working hard to improve veiltails.
In the 50’s an American named Warren
Young made a significant contribution to
the betta world through his creation (as a
result of carefully selecting the fish he
used for breeding) of a particularly large
strain of veiltail with even longer fins.
He named this fish the ‘Libby betta’,
after his wife.
For decades the only show bettas
available were veiltails, and it is
testament to the huge popularity of this
breed that you can still readily find
veiltail bettas in fish shops all over the
world. Long may it remain thus – a
really good veiltail can, to my mind,
easily rival a betta of any other tail type.
Doubletail veiltail
In around 1960 a genetic mutation
allowed India betta breeders to produce
bettas that had two caudal fins. These
were the first so-called doubletails, and
probably arose in veiltail stock. As well
as having two tails, these fish typically
had extremely broad dorsal fins and, in
some cases, reduced body length. The
reduced body length meant that some
males were unable to breed successfully.
In an attempt to overcome the negative
effects of reduced body length, breeders
crossed doubletail fish to singletail fish.
This yielded offspring with normal body
length, but much broader dorsal and
caudal fins.
These fish were the ancestors of what
we now called deltatail bettas.
Deltatail
The first deltatail bettas seen in Europe
were bred in the 60’s by Edouard
Schmidt Focke of Germany. His fish
were not as long finned as Warren
Young’s ‘Libby’ bettas and instead had
broader fins like those of modern day
bettas. The tail was symmetrical and
triangular.
In 1967 the IBC (International Betta
Congress) was formed by a group of
betta breeders. The IBC aimed to
breed fish with fins that were broad in
body and symmetrical instead of long.
This goal came about in part because
the IBC founders felt that in some
veiltails the fins were so long that the
fish were unable to swim properly,
resulting in concerns over animal
welfare.
Superdelta
The start of the next chapter in the
history of show bettas wasn’t until 1982.
This was the year that the American
betta breeder Peter Goettner managed to
produce a male betta with a caudal
spread of almost 180˚ (a so-called
superdelta).
He named the fish Mr Great. Mr Great
was the forefather of all the bettas we
now refer to as halfmoons, so called
because their caudal fins are shaped like
a half moon (or a semicircle, if you
prefer!).
Mr Great was special for two reasons.
Firstly, as I have said, he had a very
wide caudal spread; secondly, he had
secondary branching in his caudal fin
rays. If you remember, secondary
branching is where each caudal ray
splits to form two rays, which in turn
also split in two, resulting in four rays at
the outside edge of the fin. Remember
this fact, because it will be important
later on!
Anyway, returning to our story, Peter
Goettner’s breeding stock originally
came from another American betta
breeder, Chuck Hale, who had sold
some of his bettas to another breeder by
the name of Parris Jones in 1977.
Goettner bought his breeding stock from
Jones and used it to produce Mr Great.
We now skip forward to the early
1980’s, when a Frenchman named Guy
Delaval imported some bettas produced
by both Peter Goettner and Parris Jones
(from Chuck Hales’ original stock).
Delaval line bred these fish, selectively
breeding the best fish from each spawn
in a particular sequence (in this case
brother to sister, then father to daughter),
to produce fish in the resultant
generations that were progressively
closer to his desired goal.
By applying this process to the
American bettas he had imported,
Delaval succeeded in producing some
male bettas with a caudal spread of a
full 180˚ between the lower parts of the
caudal rays. It is important to remember
that Delaval’s fish still exhibited the
curved upper rays of their veiltail
predecessors. Although the fish were
stunning, they were overlooked by show
judges in 1987.
It wasn’t until 1988, at a fish show in Le
Mans, that anyone paid any attention to
Delaval’s bettas with their 180˚ caudal
spread. It wasn’t a show judge however,
but fellow betta enthusiast Rajiv
Masillamoni, who had travelled to the
show from Switzerland. Masillamoni
knew all about Mr Great and the
progress made by the American
breeders, so when he saw the caudal
spread of Delaval’s bettas he
immediately suspected that they came
from American bloodlines. After
confirming this with Delaval,
Masillamoni bought two of the three
180˚ caudal males at the show,
alongside five other males and two
females from the same line. His plan
was to breed these fish upon his return to
Switzerland.
Unfortunately, this was not to be: Once
back in Switzerland Masillamoni
discovered that all seven of the males he
had purchased from Delaval refused to
spawn properly. They courted the
females fine and even built bubblenests,
but all seven failed to wrap the females
successfully and fertilise any eggs.
Masillamoni consulted two other
breeders who had purchased stock from
Delaval (Laurent Chenot and Marc
Maurin) and found that they too had
experienced similar problems with their
fish. All three breeders put their lack of
success down to the fact that Delaval’s
fish had gone through too many rounds of
inbreeding, with the result that the males
had lost their spawning instinct.
With the males not performing,
Masillamoni was left with only one
option: To spawn the two females he had
purchased from Delaval with lower
quality bettas from a pet store, in the
hope that the genes for the 180˚ spread
would
appear in the next generation. Although
he carried out the spawns, the resultant
offspring were nowhere near the quality
of Delaval’s bettas in terms of their
form. To make matters worse, one of the
two females died!
Halfmoon
Eventually, Masillamoni was able to
acquire a melano doubletail male betta
(see chapter on fin types) from the Parris
Jones line through his connections with
the American chapter of the International
Betta Congress (IBC). He bred this fish
to his remaining Delaval female and as a
result managed to produce one fish
which stood out from the rest: a green
male betta with a perfect 180˚ caudal fin
with straight rays. He dubbed this fish
R39.
R39 is really the reason we have
halfmoon bettas today: Masillamoni
bred this male with every single one of
his females. He then loaned R39 to two
other breeders - Laurent Chenot and Jean
Luc Corso - and they bred him to their
females as well. The offspring of these
crosses were the basis of the very first
true halfmoon breeding line.
All halfmoon bettas today are the
descendants of R39.
It is tempting to stop the history lesson at
this point, but first I want to share a story
with you about the work that Rajiv
Masillamoni and two of his co-
conspirators did, to further spread the
popularity of halfmoon bettas and make
them the hugely popular fish they are
today.
Over halfmoons
Selective breeding of halfmoons resulted
in the creation of so-called ‘over
halfmoon’ bettas. Whilst the angle
between the upper and lower caudal
rays in halfmoons is 180˚, in over
halfmoons the angle is greater than 180˚,
so that the upper and lower caudal rays
bend forwards towards the head of the
fish, overlapping with the dorsal and
anal fins.
Halfmoon plakat
By crossing long-finned halfmoons with
short-finned plakat bettas, breeders
produced the halfmoon plakat. This is
essentially a short-finned betta with a D-
shaped caudal, like a halfmoon.
Different categories of halfmoon plakat
are recognised by the IBC (and other
betta organisations with show
standards), but I will leave discussion of
these to a later chapter on tail types.
Crowntail
The next betta fin type to take the world
by storm was the crowntail, a form
created by the Indonesian betta breeder,
Ahmad Yusuf. Crowntail bettas carry a
gene that causes the webbing between
the fin rays to be reduced. This gives the
impression that the fin rays extend
beyond the edges of the fin, like a crown
(hence the name). Where there is only
minor webbing reduction, the fish is
called a combtail. A halfmoon betta with
slight webbing reduction is called a
‘half sun’. There are several variations
of crowntail betta, which I will discuss
in the section of the book relating to this
fin type.
Newer forms
Other forms that have been subsequently
been produced include dumbo bettas,
which carry a gene for elongated
pectoral fins; giant bettas, some of which
can be over 3.5” long; doubletail
halfmoon plakats; and over halfmoon
plakats.
The most recent development in bettas is
probably the crowntail plakat, a short-
finned version of the crowntail. This tail
type is rapidly becoming very popular
(although some people think they look
like insects!).
Now that we have reached the end this
not-so-brief history of how the various
types of show betta came to be, I hope
that I have managed to make the point
that domestic betta stocks are constantly
evolving (both figuratively and literally)
as new genetic mutations crop up in
breeders’ tanks. Just when you think
there won’t be any more tail types, a
new one appears on the scene. It all
makes for a very exciting future!
I do think that breeders will always
come back to the halfmoon, as there is so
much that a breeder can work to perfect
in this breed and there is no denying that
a good halfmoon betta is a joy to behold.
However, one of the best things about
bettas is that there is a tail type to suit
everyone’s tastes.
Personally, I am a huge fan of short-
finned bettas. I just think they hold their
fins better than longer finned varieties
and seem to have so much more energy,
like little rockets!
But enough of that, there is more to learn
in this chapter on the history of bettas. In
the next section I want to rewind our
journey back to the point where the story
of bettas split in two, between fish bred
for their beauty and fish bred for their
brawn. It’s time to learn about the real
fighting fish.
- Dr Carl Sagan
The fighter plakat - a lean mean fighting machine ©
Kitti Watcharaworatham
Any book on bettas is, in my opinion,
incomplete without some mention of fish
fighting. After all, this is the reason
bettas became so popular in the first
place. People have kept bettas for
fighting purposes for far longer than they
have kept them as show fish, and they
have been doing so very successfully
without the use of modern materials and
fancy aquarium gadgets. Thus, there is
much that we, as modern show betta
keepers, can learn from the old ways of
keeping fighting fish. Whether you
approve of it or not, without fish fighting
we simply wouldn’t have any of the
show betta strains that are available
today.
In this part of the book I would like to
present you with an overview of fish
fighting – what it involves and why
people do it. My aim is certainly not to
encourage anyone to take up fish
fighting, but rather to provide more
detail about what it involves, so that
even if you are against the practice, you
can at least appreciate the level of
dedication and skill involved on the part
of the competitors.
Let’s start with the mechanics of a fight.
The premise is very simple: Bets are
placed on the outcome of a fight between
two male bettas. Each betta handler is
allowed to choose which of his males to
use against his opponent’s fish. Males
must be evenly matched in terms of size
in order to be allowed to fight one
another and methods vary between
countries as to how this size-matching is
achieved (either by sight or weight). The
two chosen males are then placed into a
jar to fight until one male defeats the
other. The fights are frenetic and brutal,
with both fishes dealing and receiving
vicious bites that can result in severely
torn scales and fins. Very occasionally,
the losing fish will die, either through
exhaustion or asphyxiation. However, in
researching this book I have learned that
the death of a fish is the exception rather
than the rule in betta fights. It turns out
that in most cases one of the males will
stop fighting back. This fish will then
usually be given the opportunity to flare
at a so-called ‘police fish’ in a separate
fighting jar. If it flares at the police fish,
then it can continue to fight. If it does not
flare, it has lost the match and the other
fish is declared the winner. The prize
money is then distributed. After a
tournament, each handler takes his males
home to be healed up ready for the next
tournament.
Something I never really thought about
before, but which is pretty obvious on
reflection, is the fact that most
competitors who take their fish to a
tournament want to take those fish home
again. Think about it. If you’d put all that
time and effort in to breeding some
champion bloodline fish, cared for them
to keep them in peak physical health, and
then trained them for several days to get
them ready for the arena, would you be
happy if they were all allowed to die in
their first fight? Of course not. You’d
want there to be rules in place to give
you the chance of rehabilitating any fish
that loses so that next time you might
pitch it against a different opponent that
it would have a better chance of beating.
Sure, two males fighters will fight to the
death, but only if they are left together in
a confined space with no-one on hand to
intervene. The fact that matches are
stopped when one fish no longer shows
any inclination to fight back means that
the losing fish has a chance of recovery.
A chance to win on another day.
Betting on animal fights is clearly not a
new thing. Throughout history people
have waged money on the outcome of
such fights, the most notorious examples
being dog fighting and cock fighting,
both of which are historically more
widely practiced than fish fighting (and
both of which are far more brutal). In
terms of fish fighting, records from the
reign of Phaya Lithai, king of the
Sukhothai kingdom from roughly 1346
until his death in 1374, talk of fighting
fish being reared for sport. What this
means is that Thai people have been
keeping and breeding bettas for the
purposes of fighting purposes for over
650 years! It therefore goes without
saying that they have more than a little
expertise in terms of what it is that
makes a champion fighting fish. In fact,
the term ‘plakat’ that we use today to
describe short-finned bettas comes from
the Thai ‘Pla Kat’ meaning ‘biting fish’
– although in Thailand this term is also
used for other Betta species, not just
Betta splendens.
Two fighting cocks square off in Bali, Indonesia.
Photo by Yusuf IJsseldijk
(flickr.com/photos/ijsseldijk/8680249631/), available
under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
(creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
It is fitting that the country responsible
for giving the world Muay Thai (the
fierce martial art more commonly known
as Thai boxing) has such a long-standing
cultural connection with the fighting fish.
This is a country that understands the
glory of a good fight, hard won.
I have often wondered if there is more to
the fact that Thailand is the major
exporter of bettas in the world. Maybe,
just maybe, it’s a case of national pride;
perhaps the betta symbolises the
strength, tenacity and beauty of a nation.
So what is it about fish fighting that
made it such a popular past time? To
answer this question is really to answer
the question “Why does any sport
become an institution?” Clearly there is
potential for writing an entire book in
answer to this question (indeed, many
such books have been written on the
subject), but to spend too much time
answering this question would detract
from my goals for The Betta Bible.
Instead, I’m going to limit myself to a
few paragraphs with the aim of
persuading you that there’s more to fish
fighting than two fish forced to kill each
other in a glass jar.
Betta fighting is a sport, and all popular
sports have the following in common:
***
How to build a fighting
machine
All male bettas will, given the chance,
fight. It’s a behaviour that’s hard-wired
into their genetic make-up. But what
makes one male a better fighter than
another? And if you could recognise
these characteristics, then would the key
to owning a winning male simply be to
find a male with as many of those
characteristics as possible from the
wild? Would you need to train your fish,
like a trainer would train a champion
boxer? What if you knew all the winning
characteristics? Could you selectively
breed a prize-winning male?
There are so many questions, but what
are the answers? In order to find out, we
must start by learning some new
terminology. You are hopefully now
aware that the Thai word for fighting
fish is ‘Pla Kat’ (or more commonly
‘plakat’). What you probably didn’t
know is that there are several words
that, in combination with the word ‘Pla
Kat’, can be used to describe different
types of fighting fish. Some of these
words are:
‘Par’ = forest/wild
‘Tung’ = fields
‘Mor’ = Pot
‘Chin’ (or ‘Cheen’) = Chinese
‘Thai’ = Thai (obviously!)
Fighter training
- Muhammad Ali
Priming
The first stage is to prime the fighter.
There are three basic techniques that
handlers use to prime a fighter:
Isolation
Conditioning
Medication
Training
A quick search online will produce a
plethora of pages (mostly from Thai
sellers) outlining various training
techniques for getting a fighting fish
ready to compete. For the most part
these methods are designed to build the
stamina of the fish; boost its confidence;
and boost its aggression.
Methods vary a great deal (every betta
handler has his own secret formula!), but
they are all roughly similar to the
following two-week pre-fight training
schedule:
Days 1-7
The fighter is kept in isolation in aged
water containing Indian almond leaves
(or treated with almond leaf extract) for
a week. According to my research, the
purpose of this is apparently to help the
fish to develop tough scales.
In my experience, isolating bettas for
several days generally has the effect of
increasing their responsiveness to other
members of the same species. For this
reason, it is often recommended that
bettas be isolated prior to any attempt to
spawn them, as this makes both parties
more responsive to one another and
therefore improves the chances of
spawning success.
Day 8
The fighter is moved to a new container
containing aged water (conditioned with
dry banana leaf). Shortly after moving
the betta to its new container, a small
female is added to the container for a
few minutes. The presence of the female
causes the male to flare and chase the
female around. Eventually the male will
try to bite the female, at which point she
is removed.
The exercise is designed to improve the
confidence of the fighter and reinforce
his dominant status. When the female is
removed, the male perceives that he has
‘won’ the first fight since coming out of
isolation. This is why a small female is
used, as there is no chance that she will
be more aggressive than the male. He is
guaranteed to win.
The process of adding the small female
is repeated again in the evening.
Days 9-11
A circular tub is filled 30 cm deep with
aged water. A small bottle containing a
female is placed in the centre of the tub.
This is followed by a small aquarium
water pump, which is positioned so that
it can propel water in a circle around the
tub. The pump is not switched on at this
stage. Next, the male is added to the tub.
Upon seeing the female the male will
swim around the bottle trying to attack
her. At this point the water pump is
turned on, causing the water to flow
around the tub and forcing the male to
swim against the current in order to keep
his position next to the female’s bottle.
The male is left to swim like this for 15
minutes. The process is repeated twice a
day after feeding, once in the morning
and once in the evening.
This method is used by betta handlers to
improve a fighter’s stamina and strength.
It is also designed to help the fish
develop good breathing techniques, as it
still has to get to the surface to breathe
atmospheric air whilst swimming against
the current.
Days 12-13
The fighter gets a rest from strength
training and instead repeats the exercise
from day 8, with small female being
added to and then removed from his
container. This time he only completes
the exercise once a day.
On the eve of the fight the fighter is fed
less food than normal.
Day 14 (fight day)
The fighter is given a small meal in the
morning. He is then placed back into the
circular tub, but this time there is no
water pump and the female is added
directly to the tub without the bottle. The
male is allowed to fight the female for
five minutes. He is then ready to be
taken to the show.
Pre-fight checks
The handler has to judge very carefully
whether or not a fighter is ready for the
arena. The key indicators are that the
fish is very active and very aggressive.
The fighter should attack immediately
when it sees another fish (or the
handler’s finger!).
Some handlers test their betta’s
readiness for battle by placing another
male into a plastic bag of water and
floating this bag in their betta’s
container. This allows the handler to
assess how willing his betta is to attack
another male betta without running the
risk of either fish becoming injured. If
the betta in the container attacks the betta
in the bag vigorously, then he is ready to
fight.
I have even seen video footage of one
handler using a betta ‘puppet’ (made by
cutting out the silhouette of a male betta
from a sheet of black rubber) attached to
a chopstick as part of training, to
simulate another male. Amazingly, his
fish responded to this puppet as though it
was a live fish and proceeded to attack
it viciously.
It’s worth pointing out that modern show
bettas also need to be trained in order to
perform at their best It is very common
for breeders to train their fish to flare
(i.e. to spread their gill covers and fins)
in response to a particular stimulus.
These stimuli typically include pointing
a finger at the fish, letting it see another
betta, or showing it a small mirror. The
flaring behaviour is easily conditioned
by presenting the stimulus to the fish and
then rewarding it with food each time it
responds by flaring. The betta soon
learns to connect the two events and will
flare upon seeing the stimulus even
without the food. This type of training
ensures that when the fish is being
judged in a show, it will show off its
fins beautifully. Fish that don’t flare are
often disqualified from judging, which
underlines the importance of training.
That’s it!
If you can provide these three things then
you can keep bettas. You may think I’m
over-simplifying matters, but I’m really
not. These three rules apply to all betta
keepers regardless of if they are (as you
may be) a newcomer to the hobby, or an
internationally renowned breeder of
show quality fish.
Of course there are logistical issues to
overcome depending on the number of
bettas you want to keep, and everyone
has their own opinion of what makes a
high quality diet for feeding bettas, but
essentially that’s all there is to it.
In the rest of this chapter I will take each
element in turn and hopefully guide you
through the maze of betta keeping so that
you can find a method that works best
for you. That’s really my goal for this
entire book. I want to give you all the
information, so that you can decide what
keeping bettas is all about for yourself,
once you’ve weighed up all the options.
Hopefully you’ll write back to me one
day and tell me your methods. I have no
doubt that you will teach me a thing or
two!
But for now let’s get started: Your first
purchase (apart from this book!) should
be an appropriately-sized container that
will meet the needs of your betta. As it
turns out, you might have something
suitable already…
Housing your betta
FACT: You can keep a single betta in
any glass or plastic vessel that holds
water and is big enough for the fish to
turn around in.
This will no doubt be a shock to many
people reading this book and will
probably not sit too well with those at
the more extreme end of the animal
rights spectrum, but the fact remains that
if you wanted to, you could quite happily
keep a single betta alive for many years
in a large wine glass.
Before you run off to call the animal
welfare officer, let me explain: Most
tropical fish available to fishkeepers are
totally reliant on dissolved oxygen in
water. If you were to place such a fish
into a very small container, like a wine
glass, the rate at which the fish uses
oxygen in breathing is likely (depending
on the size of the fish) to be faster than
the rate at which more oxygen can
dissolve into the water from the
atmosphere. As a result the oxygen in the
water would run out and the fish would
ultimately die from asphyxia
(suffocation). Bettas, as we know, have
a specialised labyrinth organ that allows
them to utilise atmospheric air. Hence,
unlike fish that lack this organ, they do
not rely on the water they inhabit to
provide their bodies with the oxygen
required for life. Instead, they are able
to acquire oxygen easily by swimming to
the water surface and taking gulps of
atmospheric air. Thanks to this ability,
bettas are very rarely at risk of
suffocation in a captive environment.
HOWEVER…
…there are some very important caveats
to the ‘wine glass’ scenario:
Filtration
FACT: You do not need to filter water
to keep bettas in excellent health.
When it comes to filtration, there is only
one question you need to ask yourself:
“How much time do I want to spend
changing water?”
In the section on clean water, I discussed
the importance of keeping your betta’s
water clean. I also talked about using
filtration and plants as a means of
reducing the frequency of water changes.
Hopefully you’re starting to get the
message:
Internal impeller-driven
sponge filters
A second, more advanced, type of
sponge filter operates on exactly the
same principles, except that this time the
sponge is encased in a plastic housing
with holes in it (to allow water in) and
instead of relying on an air pump to
drive water through the sponge, water is
drawn through the filter by an
electrically powered impeller.
In terms of filtration, sponge filters are
the simplest type and I cannot
recommend them highly enough as a
cheap and efficient filtration mechanism
for tanks housing relatively few bettas.
Home-made filters
One of the great things about bettas is
that they can be maintained long-term
without the need for fancy equipment.
One of my bugbears when it comes to
tropical fishkeeping (having kept
tropical fish for the best part of 20
years) is the cost of all the equipment
required to keep your fish in good
health. The fact is that most tropical fish
species do need a minimum amount of
equipment in order to keep them healthy,
particularly if you wish to breed them.
As bettas are such hardy fish, the idea of
spending a lot of money on hi-tech filters
and tank systems can seem excessive.
HOWEVER…
…something that the beginner to tropical
fishkeeping (and indeed betta keeping)
often overlooks is the fact that with a bit
of imagination you can make much of
this equipment yourself. This is
particularly true of biological filters.
Sure, you will need to spend money on
an air-pump, but a quick search on any
internet search engine will quickly
provide you with inspiration for how to
make your own filter. Here are three sets
of instructions to start you off, one for a
sponge filter, one for a bottle filter, and
one for a so-called Hamburg
Mattenfilter.
DISCLAIMER: If you are a child then
please ask a grown up to help you to
build these filters. I don’t want to be
held responsible for any power-tool
related accidents!
Bottle filter
The simplest filter you will ever build.
To build it you will need:
Sponge filter
The second simplest filter you will ever
build. To build it you will need:
Hamburg mattenfilter
The third simplest filter you will ever
build.
Note: This design is only for bare-
bottomed containers with rectangular
ends e.g. standard glass aquariums.
To build this filter you will need:
Mosquito larvae
Daphnia
Cyclops
Mosquito larvae make excellent food for bettas.
Photo by Darron Birgenheier
(flickr.com/photos/darronb/14261861522), available
under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)
Baby brineshrimp
Microworms
Vinegar eels
Grindal worms
White worms
Wingless fruit flies
Starter cultures of all these live foods
are usually available to aquarists either
via local fishkeeping clubs or online.
Sellers tend to provide instructions with
each starter culture to ensure that you
know how to look after them and ensure
a constant supply of live food for your
bettas.
In my opinion, the most useful live food
to learn how to culture is baby
brineshrimp, as these tiny shrimp are the
ultimate fry food and have literally
transformed my ability to breed bettas.
The next most useful livefood to culture
is probably grindal worm, as it is very
useful for achieving rapid growth in
young bettas (many excellent betta
breeders I know swear by it). Personally
I don’t use grindal worm for growing
bettas, as every time I have tried to
maintain a grindal worm culture it has
always been infested with mites!
However, having seen the results
achieved by fellow aquarists who do
feed their growing bettas on these
worms, I am 100% convinced that they
are worth the effort if you can keep the
mites out.
A bowl of adult brineshrimp. Photo by me and the
sysop (flickr.com/photos/pyxopotamus/5913886924/),
available under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NoDerivs licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nd/2.0/)
Bettas love bloodworm. Chopped up it makes great
fry food. Photo by istolethetv
(flickr.com/photos/istolethetv/3187177450), available
under a Creative Commons Attribution licence
(creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
Temperature
As we learned in an earlier chapter,
bettas are adapted to life in relatively
shallow water of a high temperature.
This is something that we need to
replicate in captivity in order to keep
our bettas happy.
Your method for achieving this will
depend on where you live in the world
and the size of the container you have
chosen. If you are fortunate enough to
live in a country where the ambient air
temperature is constantly 26°C or above
then you are in luck my friend, because
once it reaches room temperature, the
water in your betta container will be
warm enough for bettas. My only advice
would be to not leave the container in
direct sunlight at any point, to avoid the
risk of cooking your fish!
Those of us who aren’t so fortunate must
resort to some form of artificial heating
in order to maintain the water in our
betta containers at the correct
temperature.
The easiest way to do this is simply to
buy an aquarium heater that is small
enough to fit submerged in your
container. Such heaters have been
around for decades and are readily
available from aquatics stores. The
heater should be set to the correct
temperature (anywhere between 26 and
28°C is fine) and oriented in the
container/aquarium according to the
manufacturer’s instructions.
For containers that are too small to
accommodate a heater, it is possible to
use a heat mat of the type designed for
keeping reptiles to keep the water warm.
When I was younger I successfully kept
nine male bettas in this way for the
duration of a biology experiment I was
carrying out. Each male was kept in a
blue plastic storage jar and all nine jars
were placed on top of a large heat mat.
These males thrived on daily feeds and
twice weekly 100% water changes. The
only downside with using the heat mat
was that it was hard to control the
temperature very precisely, as these mats
work by increase in heat relative to the
ambient temperature of the room they are
in. Having said that, I imagine that this
could be achieved by using the mat in
conjunction with a thermostat unit.
The final method for getting the water in
your betta containers to the right
temperature is, of course, to heat the
whole room to that temperature. At first
this might sounds crazy, as surely the
costs of heating a whole room far
outweighs the cost of running a single
aquarium heater, but the benefit of
heating the whole room quickly becomes
clear when you start to add more bettas
and more containers to your collection.
Eventually a point is reached where it
becomes far more cost effective to heat
the room than it is to run all those
individual heaters. There is a reason
why most betta breeders in cool climates
opt to have a heated fish room in
preference to several individually
heated tanks. It’s all down to running
costs.
I’ve already mentioned that bettas should
ideally be kept at a temperature
somewhere between 26 and 28°C.
However, bettas can actually survive
(note I said survive, not thrive) at
temperatures slightly beyond this
recommended range.
In fact, in his book ‘A Complete Guide
to Bettas’, Walt Maurus talks of bettas
surviving for several hours, after being
left in a car in winter, at a temperature of
7˚C! This is reassuring for two reasons.
Firstly, it means that in the event of a
power cut, those of us in cooler climates
have a longer time window than might
be expected in which to find an
alternative heat source for our fish, until
the electricity supply is turned back on.
Secondly, it helps to explain how, when
bettas are transported around the world
in their thousands, packed individually
in tiny little plastic bags, they are more
than capable of coping with the
inevitable drop in temperature that
comes once the exporter’s heat packs
stop giving out heat.
An aquarium heater is the simplest way to heat the
water in your betta’s tank to the correct temperature
Light
Do bettas need light? The simple answer
is yes, of course bettas need light, but
only in the way that most animals need
light: To see things better!
Bettas evolved in the tropics, where the
sun rises around 06.00 and sets at
around 18.00, so in effect they are
‘designed’ to live in places where they
get natural sunlight for roughly 12 hours
a days, all year round (is it just me, or
does that make anyone else want to
emigrate?!).
Despite this, bettas don’t need any
special lighting arrangements in
captivity. They will live and breed quite
happily in the ambient light available in
whichever room in your house you care
to put them. If you want to use standard
fluorescent or LED aquarium lighting to
light their tank then that’s up to you, but
they really don’t need it.
Please note, I am not suggesting
keeping your betta in the dark. These
are living organisms that are to be
cared for and admired, not shut away
and forgotten about!
Obviously, if you are planning to use
live plants in your set-up, then you will
need to provide a light source in order
that those plants can photosynthesis and
stay alive.
IMPORTANT: Never put your betta’s
container in a location where it
receives direct sunlight, as the sudden
increase in temperature can kill your
fish.
One of the author’s LED strip lights
Shopping list
Okay, so now we’ve covered the basics
of betta care: a container (furnished or
not), clean water (filtered or not), high
temperature (heated tanks versus heated
room) and food (dried, frozen, collected
or cultured). In theory you should now
be fairly well placed to head to your
nearest pet store and buy everything you
need to get started with betta keeping,
but before you do, here’s an example
shopping list of everything you might
need to house one betta:
Cons:
The fish can be overly expensive
(the shop wants to make a profit
after all!).
The fish might not be kept in very
good conditions (depends on the
shop).
The variety of breeds available is
likely to be limited (depends on the
shop).
If you should choose to breed the
fish, you have no way of finding out
its genetic background.
Online Retailers
Some of the best quality bettas in the
world can be purchased online and
shipped right to your front door. I have
personally bought fish from Thai
breeders (sent via a UK transhipper) and
had them delivered from Thailand to me
in England in the space of a few days.
The quality of those fish was outstanding
and spawning them has had a huge
impact on my breeding programme.
In terms of convenience, buying bettas
online is hard to beat. You don’t even
have to leave the comfort of your home!
The world is your oyster. However,
there are some downsides that are worth
considering.
First of all, when you buy a fish from a
website you are usually basing your
choice on a photograph of the fish in
question. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the
breeder will include a video of the fish,
which is much better, but usually it’s just
a photo of the fish taken from both sides.
Either way, neither a photo nor a video
is as good as being able to see the fish in
the flesh. To highlight this, a common
complaint from customers using online
fish auction sites is that the fish they
receive doesn’t look like the fish they
saw in the advert. Sometimes
this is down to unscrupulous breeders
sending a completely different fish (the
exception rather than the rule). More
commonly, this is simply the effect of
time. Many of the modern colour
patterns can change their appearance
dramatically in a short space of time
thanks to carrying the marble gene.
Similarly, a betta’s finnage can change a
lot as it grows, so if the photo/video was
taken when the fish was younger it is
entirely possible that it won’t look the
same when it is delivered. This problem
doesn’t occur when you are looking at a
betta in a fish shop. The fish you see is
the fish you will get!
Buying fish online from overseas
suppliers can be risky in that the bettas
have to be shipped a long way.
Although, in my experience, fish sent
from overseas arrive alive and well,
there is always a risk that they won’t
make the journey and that you will take
delivery of dead fish. Sadly, this is
usually due to factors out of our control
(e.g. adverse weather conditions or
rough handling in transit). Having said
that, there is considerable variation in
the care with which breeders pack their
fish for shipping. My advice is to ask
around to find out which sellers other
people have used in the past (or read
their feedback from customers) and only
use those with great feedback or those
that are recommended as sellers who
pack their fish up well. That is precisely
what I did the first time I bought fish
from AquaBid.com and I have to say that
the level of service I received (from two
different breeders) was fantastic.
The other issue with buying bettas online
from overseas suppliers is that it can be
very expensive, thanks to the cost of
shipping and associated paperwork.
Usually, once you’ve bought the fish on
the site you then have to pay an
additional handling charge to the
exporter, a handling charge to the
transhipper, and a delivery charge to the
transhipper. What might seem like a
bargain online can soon turn into a
serious investment! In my case I feel that
it is worth the additional expense to get
the precise fish I want for my breeding
projects because if I can breed that fish,
then the offspring will be good quality
and selling some of them will help
recoup the costs involved. I think that if I
was looking for a male betta to keep as a
pet, or a pair of bettas to practice
spawning them, then I probably wouldn’t
look at buying fish from abroad.
Of course, in many countries you can buy
bettas online from shops based in the
same country. The UK has several web-
based tropical fish shops that will
deliver fish nationally. Plus there is a
plethora of eBay stores! Buying from
online stores based in your country will
reduce the costs, but you still need to
bear in mind that you won’t get to see the
fish in the flesh and you won’t be able to
control the means by which it gets to
you.
In my experience, buying bettas online
(whether international or national)
always carries with it some inherent
risk, but once you’ve found a reliable
supplier much of this risk is removed,
allowing you to buy with confidence.
Pros:
Cons:
Breeders
By far the best way to buy bettas has to
be to visit a breeder of high quality
bettas and buy the fish directly from
them. This route has many benefits and
few, if any, downsides. Firstly, you will
be able to view the fish directly,
allowing you to make a well-informed
choice (often with the breeder’s help);
secondly, the breeder will usually be
able to tell you the genetic background
of the fish you want to buy, or at the very
least tell you what the parents were like
(or even show you the parent fish);
thirdly, they will be able to tell you how
their fish are kept in terms of diet, water
parameters and temperature, so you can
replicate those conditions; and finally
(my favourite) you get the opportunity to
make a new acquaintance who will be
able to give you plenty of advice and
improve your skills as a betta keeper.
What’s not to like about that?
Pros:
Cons:
Step 2 – Behaviour
Once you’ve established that the betta
you are looking at isn’t in water riddled
with disease, take a step back from the
betta’s container and watch its behaviour
for a few minutes. What is it doing? Is it
active? Is it hiding? Does it swim
strongly and carry its finnage easily, or
is it lethargic and dragging its fins?
Sorority tanks
A lot of betta enthusiasts keep all-female
community tanks in the belief that female
bettas get along just fine and it’s only
male bettas that are aggressive and cause
problems. And who can blame them?
Tropical fish books, magazines and web
pages all seem to be convinced that this
is a good idea.
Whilst I fully acknowledge that there are
people out there successfully keeping
multiple female bettas together in the
same tank, I am personally of the opinion
that this has nothing to do with female
bettas being peaceful and
everything to do with the betta keeper in
question having successfully managed
the situation (i.e. by providing hiding
places for weaker, less dominant
females and removing super-aggressive
females) to enable the fish to coexist.
I say this because it’s just not true that
female bettas aren’t aggressive. They
can be every bit as aggressive as male
bettas, downright murderous in fact. I
have at one time or another owned
female bettas that have killed males,
killed other females and even killed
other tropical fish in the same tank!
The thing is, when people set up all-
female community tanks they generally
put together a whole bunch of unrelated
adult female bettas. These females, upon
finding one another, invariably do what
bettas do best when they meet a strange
betta. They fight. The reason for this
fighting is to establish a dominance
hierarchy, with the most dominant fish
typically enjoying access to all areas of
the aquarium (and first dibs on any food)
and the weaker fish having a pretty rough
time of it. Females lower down in the
pecking order have to constantly be on
the lookout for the more dominant
females, who are liable to attack them,
just to remind them who’s boss. Often
the weakest fish will end up with torn
fins as a result of all the skirmishing,
sometimes she is hounded and killed by
the most dominant female.
That’s what can happen if all the females
are added to the tank simultaneously.
However, the usual process is that once
a few females have been added to the
sorority, the owner of said females
decides to add another female. And
another. And another. What these well
meaning betta fans perhaps don’t realise
is that every time a new female is added
to the tank, the fighting must start again
to establish a new pecking order.
Sometimes they get lucky and a truce is
called. Other times the new addition
will severely unbalance the whole
community and there will be losses.
This tank of females looks peaceful because there are
so many fish that one cannot possibly terrorize the
rest. Even so, some of them have nipped fins. Photo
by The Wandering Angel
(flickr.com/photos/wandering_angel/3176135732/),
available under a Creative Commons Attribution
licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/).
Female:
Female:
Female:
Male:
Female:
Intermediate forms
The following are examples of betta fin
types that are commonly discussed in the
hobby, but which are not a breed in their
own right, as they are intermediate forms
produced as a result of trying to produce
a recognised breed.
Spadetail
Spadetail bettas are really just a
variation of veiltail, hence their
placement here in this list of betta
breeds. They are not generally
recognised as a breed in betta shows and
would need to be shown in an ‘Any
other variety’ or ‘Form and variations’
class in order to have any chance of
winning a prize.
Male spadetail bettas have caudal fins
shaped like a spade (as in the suit in a
deck of cards, not the gardening tool).
This is the result of the outer caudal fin
rays curving towards one another in
equal amounts. Females usually don’t
show this trait and instead look like
females of other betta types.
Interestingly, some males from shortfin
plakat lines show hints of spade tail,
with the posterior edge of the caudal
narrowing to a point, so it is perhaps
possible this tail type is influenced by
the amount of wild type genes in the
lineage of the fish.
Male:
Female:
Roundtail
Again, not strictly a breed but an
intermediate, roundtail is the term given
to any single-tailed long-finned betta
with rounded upper and lower edges to
its caudal fin, giving the tail a round
appearance. The effect is caused by the
upper and lower caudal branches
curving downwards and upwards
respectively to give a ‘C’ shape.
Because there are no restrictions about
the degree of caudal branching, this tail
type is relatively common as it can
randomly appear in almost any long-
finned betta spawn. Roundtails typically
crop up in spawns of delta, superdelta
and halfmoon bettas.
I am of the opinion that the trait results
from fish inheriting ‘wild-type’ plakat
genes, as traditional plakats by
definition exhibit this inward curving of
the outer caudal rays. I have crossed
male halfmoons to wild type traditional
plakats multiple times and can vouch for
the fact that a high proportion of the
resulting offspring were roundtails.
Before the arrival of halfmoon bettas,
roundtail bettas were very popular and
they can be stunning, but nowadays they
are not held in particularly high regard
in comparison to the more impressive
superdelta and halfmoon bettas. This is
probably down to the fact that their
finnage is less impressive overall.
Not the best example of a roundtail betta, as the
caudal isn’t fully round in shape, but you can clearly
see the inward curving of the outer rays, which
results in this tail shape. © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Male:
Female:
Female:
Female:
Rosetail (RT)
Rosetail bettas are characterised by
excessive branching in all three of the
unpaired fins (in particular, excessive
branching and the overlapping rays in
the caudal). This breed arose as a result
of selectively breeding for increased
branching and straight caudal edges in
order to make the perfect halfmoon.
In the caudal fin the rosetail trait usually
manifests itself as a minimum of 16 rays
per branch at the caudal edge and
(thanks to all the branching) a caudal
spread of over 180˚. The result of this
excessive branching is that the fins take
on a ruffled appearance, which can often
look like the overlapping petals of a
flower (although this varies depending
on the extent to which the trait is
expressed). This overlapping petals
effect is where the term ‘rosetail’ comes
from.
Although they can be exceptionally
beautiful, rosetail bettas are something
of a double-edged sword when it comes
to breeding. On the one hand, there are
several positive factors that come from
using rosetail bettas as part of a
breeding program. The two main
benefits are increased ray branching and
increased caudal spread, both of which
are perfect for improving a halfmoon
line, or indeed creating a halfmoon line
from superdelta stock.
On the other hand, once the rosetail traits
have been introduced into your breeding
stock they can have negative
consequences and are almost impossible
to get rid of!
When you use rosetails in your line you
automatically increase the percentage of
rosetail in the next generation.
Sometimes this will be a good (or even
excellent) thing and the result will be a
good proportion of fish that develop
superb form. The flip side of this is that,
as a result of the genes involved, some
extreme rosetails exhibit deformities.
These can include greatly reduced
ventral fin length, smaller dorsals,
unwanted paler body colouration, scale
defects, reduced growth and impaired
swimming capabilities.
Extreme rosetails are the result of
breeders trying too hard to increase ray
branching without paying enough
attention to producing fish that are strong
enough to hold their finnage with ease.
Fish that exhibit these deformities are
referred to in the hobby as ‘x factor’
fish, to indicate the negative effect of the
deformities.
Although the deformities mentioned
above are generally found in the more
extreme forms of rosetail, the outcome of
using rosetail bettas for breeding
purposes is that most spawns will leave
you with some deformed fry. For this
reason, some breeders refuse to use
rosetails in their breeding programs.
Even those that do use rosetails for
breeding will cull any fry that exhibit the
extreme forms. Such breeders will
carefully select from only the normal
bettas and those showing only mild
rosetail influence in order to create the
next generation.
The caudal fin of this rosetail male shows clearly the
results of excessive ray branching © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Male:
Female:
Feathertail (FT)
Feathertail bettas are basically extreme
rosetails that were lucky enough to have
avoided inheriting lethal genes, or genes
resulting in serious deformity. As such,
they are very rare in the hobby, as any
serious attempt to produce feathertails
would yield a lot of extreme rosetails,
resulting in the majority of the spawn
being culled. Feathertail bettas will
always be viewed like Marmite: Some
people adore them, some people hate
them with a passion.
I have to say that, when they are good,
feathertails can be truly spectacular. The
caudal ray branching is so extensive that
the caudal fin looks for all the world as
though it is made up of individual
feathers arranged into a fan! No prizes
for guessing where the breed name
comes from.
Sexing is the same as for rosetails, with
the only difference between the breeds
being the unique feathered appearance of
the caudal fin feathertails.
The genetics of feathertail bettas are the
same as for rosetails, as the former is
simply an extreme example of the latter.
Rosetail allele symbol = X
A feathertail male with extreme caudal ray branching.
Not to everyone’s taste! © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Asymmetrical halfmoon
plakat (HMPK)
The asymmetrical halfmoon plakat
combines the basic form of a traditional
plakat with the additional caudal spread
and caudal ray branching of a halfmoon,
and a rounded tip to the rear of the anal
fin. In terms of behaviour, however, they
are more similar to wild-type or
traditional plakats: Vital and aggressive!
A stunning marble male asymmetrical halfmoon
plakat bred by Eugenio Fornasiero © Eugenio
Fornasiero
Symmetrical halfmoon
plakat (HMPK)
The symmetrical halfmoon plakat (a.k.a.
short-fin halfmoon, or shortmoon) was
created in an attempt to incorporate all
the ideals of the long-finned halfmoon
into a short-finned betta.
As with long-finned halfmoons, the goal
is symmetry. In a good symmetrical
halfmoon plakat, the rays of the dorsal,
caudal and anal fins should all be the
same length, such that you could draw an
imaginary line from the top of the first
dorsal fin ray round all three unpaired
fins to the first anal fin ray, in a seamless
arc. Hence the name symmetrical: If you
draw a horizontal line through the fish,
the top half will more or less mirror the
bottom half (ignoring the ventral fins).
In terms of form, symmetrical halfmoon
plakats should meet the same criteria as
their long-finned halfmoon counterparts.
As with asymmetrical halfmoon plakats,
because good symmetrical halfmoon
plakats have a caudal spread of 180˚,
they are commonly sold under the catch-
all names of ‘halfmoon plakat’ or
‘HMPK’.
Male symmetrical HMPK bred by the author (the rear
edge of the anal fin should ideally be shorter)
Male:
Female:
Crowntail (CT)
Crowntail bettas are characterised by
having greatly reduced webbing between
the rays of all three unpaired fins. The
fin rays protrude beyond the edge of the
webbing, giving the fin a spiky
appearance like a crown, hence the
name.
The creation of the first crowntail betta
is said to have occurred in 1997 and has
been attributed to an Indonesian breeder
by the name of Ahmad Yusuf. His
original name for this breed was ‘cupang
serit’ (‘ikan cupang’ is the Indonesian
term for betta). The name ‘crowntail’
came much later and was coined by a
well-respected crowntail breeder named
Henry Yin.
The amount of webbing reduction is
important in defining what is and what is
not a crowntail. According to the IBC, in
order for a male betta to qualify as a
crowntail, the degree of webbing
reduction must be equivalent to at least a
third (33%) of the length of the fin rays,
in all three unpaired fins. Any fish with
less than 33% webbing reduction would
be classed as a ‘combtail’.
Personally, I see no reason to argue with
these definitions, as to my eyes male
bettas with anything less than 33%
reduction just don’t look like crowntails!
Male black copper double-ray crowntail with nice
webbing reduction in all fins © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Crowntail variations
I have added this sub-heading for the
simple reason that the topic of
crowntails demands a little more
attention. This is because breeders have
succeeded in producing several
variations of crowntail, all of which
have been given names to help identify
the traits they exhibit. Thankfully, most
of these variations deal only with
differences in the appearance of the
caudal fin.
The most basic form is the single-ray
crowntail (or SRCT). These fish exhibit
primary branching and have the same
degree of webbing reduction between
the primary fin rays as between the
secondary rays, such that the webbing is
in the shape of a semi-circle, with
individual ray ‘spikes’ of roughly equal
length extending beyond the webbing.
The next form up from this is the double-
ray (DRCT). DRCTs differ from single
ray crowntails in that the webbing
reduction is greater between the primary
caudal rays than between the secondary
rays. As a result, the secondary branches
are conjoined, near the base, and project
as a pair of spikes from the rest of the
caudal fin. The DRCT is probably the
most commonly seen type of crowntail.
Expanding on the theme of web
reduction on two levels (lower between
the primary rays than between the
secondary rays), breeders succeeded in
creating the double-double-ray
crowntail (DDRCT). As you might
expect, this fish is similar to the DRCT,
expect that instead of having two
conjoined spikes emerging from the rest
of the fin, it has four; the result of the
fish in question having tertiary
branching.
Now things get more interesting:
Through selective breeding, breeders
were able to produce DRCTs in which
the two spikes were curved away from
one another. By working to maximise
this effect, they produced the first cross-
ray crowntails, so called because the
central spikes of the caudal fin cross one
another.
Not content to stop there, breeders have
since pushed the boundaries even further
to produce a betta in which all of the
caudal spikes cross one another. This
fish is the most desirable crowntail form
of all and enjoys the lofty title of king
crowntail!
The traits exhibited by a king crowntail
are not controlled by a single gene and
therefore a breeder is very lucky if
he/she can produce such a fish, as it is
pure luck that the right combination of
genes comes together.
Needless to say, thanks to their rarity,
king crowntails usually fetch a high
price.
Male:
Doubletail crowntail
(DTCT)
Incredibly, breeders have also
succeeded in producing a doubletail
version of the crowntail, which is a
crowntail that also carries two copies of
the doubletail gene. These fish are very
hard to perfect, as the ideal doubletail
crowntail should have the form of a
good doubletail halfmoon, with the
webbing reduction of a good crowntail.
Because they are such a challenge to
produce, doubletail crowntails are very
rarely seen in the hobby. Personally I
would like to see more people take on
this challenge, as the few examples I
have seen online were real show-
stoppers.
Crowntail allele symbol = Ct
Long-fin allele symbol = F
Doubletail allele symbol = Td
Dumbo
Dumbo bettas have greatly elongated
pectoral fins that are usually opaque.
They get their name from the fact that
when viewed from the front the fins look
like great big elephant ears sticking out
of the sides of the fish’s head, just like
the Disney character Dumbo, which is
also why some sellers refer to such fish
as ‘elephant ears’ bettas. I haven’t been
able to find out who created the first
dumbo bettas, but having spoken to
various breeders that I know it is clear
that elongated pectoral fins do crop up in
spawns occasionally on a random basis,
so it’s not so hard to envisage how the
first dumbos would have created from
such fish. The dumbo gene is recessive,
affects only the pectoral fins and
behaves in a predictable manner, such
that fish with two copies of the gene
have dumbo pectorals and fish with only
one copy have normal pectorals. Dumbo
pectoral fins have been bred into long
and shortfin halfmoon bettas, and this
phenotype is most commonly seen in
bettas with so-called ‘salamander’
colouration, although in the last year or
so I have seen dumbos in gold,
pineapple and platinum white. I even
saw a photo of a male crowntail plakat
that had dumbo pectorals!
Because dumbos exist in shortfin and
longfin forms (with respect to the
unpaired fins and ventrals), the ideal
form for these fish and the methods for
telling apart males and females are
exactly the same as they would be for the
fish if it did not have the enlarged
pectoral fins.
Dumbo allele abbreviation = dm
Dumbo bettas get their name from their long flowing
pectoral fins © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Giant
Giant bettas are well deserving of their
name. They are BIG bettas! They have
also caused considerable controversy in
the hobby, as betta enthusiasts are
somewhat divided as to whether or not
they believe that giantism in bettas is
caused by a single gene, or is simply the
result of careful selective breeding for
increased size. The truth may well be a
mixture of the two: At the end of the day,
we know for a fact that it is possible to
breed large betas simply by selecting the
largest fish to breed over successive
generations. However, experiments
undertaken by Dr Gene Lucas when giant
bettas first appeared in the hobby
suggested strongly that the giant
phenotype might be produced by a
partially dominant gene, as bettas
inheriting one copy of the ‘giant gene’
grew larger than normal bettas (so-
called ‘half-giants’) and bettas carrying
two copies of the gene grew to be giants.
Personally I think there is some truth in
the hypothesis that the first giants were
produced from an individual betta with a
genetic mutation that resulted in it
growing to an extraordinarily large size.
Certainly the account of how the first
line of giant bettas was created would
seem to suggest as much.
According to giant betta breeder Surat
Bhutipanya, the first giant bettas were
created by three Thai breeders who
called themselves Team Giant. This team
comprised Athapon Ratanapichad (a.k.a.
Uncle Sara), his son Natee, and Wasan
Sattayapun (wasanbetta on
Aquabid.com). In 1999 Athapon and
Natee discovered an unusually large
green male fighter plakat in amongst the
other bettas on their farm. Athapon had
already noticed that his green bettas
seemed to grow much larger than those
of other colours, but this fish was over
three inches long! To my mind the size of
this fish was almost certainly the result
of a genetic mutation (or genetic
mutations) that perhaps increased the
rate of development, or affected
whatever it is that limits growth in adult
bettas. As it turns out, whatever the
mechanism, this was a very lucky
mutation for the betta hobby!
The Ratanapichads bred this giant male
to the largest female they had available
at the time, in the hope of producing
more giant bettas and creating a whole
new strain. In the first generation, only a
small percentage of the fry grew to be
large. However, by continually selecting
the largest fish in each subsequent
generation for breeding, they were able
to increase the percentage of giants in
each brood. From what I have read, it
would appear that it took Team Giant as
little as five generations to produce the
first three inch long bettas, with those
bettas made up about a fifth of the fry in
the spawn.
Once they were consistently producing
giant bettas, Team Giant began to expand
their range by outcrossing those giants to
normal-sized bettas of various other
breeds, in a range of colours. Each time
they pursued a new colour, they had to
repeat the painstaking process of
selecting the largest fish from each
brood in order to produce fish of the
right size.
Thanks to the hard work of Team Giant
and an ever increasing number of
breeders worldwide, the giant betta is
here to stay and is available in an ever
increasing range of forms, although the
two most common are asymmetrical
halfmoon plakat and halfmoon (and the
inevitable delta and superdeltas that
come as part of the halfmoon package).
Giant betta fry are reported to grow at a
much faster rate than normal betta fry
and as such they require far more food in
order to reach their full potential. As a
result of this, differences in size between
giant and normal fry are apparently
visible from only a few weeks old.
Some strains of giant betta can attain a
length of three inches (including the
caudal fin) in just five months!
Once adult, giant bettas require less
food, but will still happily consume
more than twice the amount of food
required by a normal betta on a daily
basis. Note that in order to cope with the
increase in waste produced as a result of
eating all this food, giant bettas should
be kept in larger containers than normal
bettas and receive more frequent water
changes.
Adult giant bettas are prone to
constipation, which can lead to death if
not carefully treated. Live brine shrimp
and live/frozen daphnia should be made
a regular part of their feeding regime, as
both these foods act as a mild laxative.
Similarly it is a good idea to add Indian
almond leaves or leaf extract to a giant
betta’s water. If the giant does become
constipated, the best treatment is to
starve the fish for a day or so (I would
also recommend adding a little salt to
the water).
The giant trait is heritable and appears,
for now, to be codominant, with carrier
individuals being a ‘halfway house’
between normal and giant bettas with
respect to their final adult size. Put
simply, if you breed two giant bettas
together, the offspring will all be giants
(although their final adult size will
vary); if you breed a giant to a normal
betta, then the offspring will carry the
giant gene (if indeed it is a single gene),
and as a result will grow to an
intermediate size between normal and
giant. Such fish are referred to as ‘half-
giants’. Breeding two carriers together
will give you 25% full giants, 50% half-
giants and 25% normal bettas (more on
this in the Genetics chapter).
Giant allele symbol = G
A pair of gold giant HMPKs (male top, female
bottom) - note the deep body of these fish © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Colouration
When I first got into betta-keeping, as
teenager living in West Yorkshire in the
early 1990s, bettas only came in three
colours: Red, blue or tri-colour (white,
red and blue), and they were always
veiltails. There wasn’t a whole lot of
choice!
Nowadays, bettas are readily available
in a vast array of fin types, colours and
colour patterns. Some of those colour
patterns can even change over the course
of the fish’s lifetime! Pretty cool, huh?
No wonder bettas are more popular now
than ever before.
For me, the arrival of the modern betta
breeds and colours into the UK was like
getting a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s
Chocolate Factory. These wonderful
mutations are the reason I got back into
bettas after a break of many years. I
strongly suspect that if they hadn’t
become available in the UK, my fish
room would still be packed to the rafters
with Central American cichlids.
Anyway, I digress. The main purpose of
this section is to give you a quick
introduction to betta colours and colour
patterns. I think that by the end of this
chapter you’ll agree that having too little
choice is no longer the problem!
Wild-type colouration
Wild-type bettas, as I mentioned above,
show some degree of pigmentation in all
of the skin layers. In researching this
book, I have read numerous references
to a theory that wild Betta splendens
have a different arrangement of the
pigment layers when compared with
domesticated bettas; namely that the
black and red layers are reversed, with
red on top and black beneath. I have as
yet been unable to find any scientific
support for this theory and therefore, for
the sake of simplicity, I have chosen to
ignore it, particularly as I can see no
biological reason why this should be the
case.
Wild-type bettas (by which I mean wild
bettas and domesticated forms with
wild-type appearance) tend to have a
rather fixed colouration and are pretty
hard to mistake. Typically they have a
dark brownish red body with
iridescence in the dorsal half, and a
combination of red and iridescence
(royal blue, turquoise or steel blue) in
the three unpaired fins. The ventrals are
typically red with white tips. Whichever
way round the black and red layers are,
the brownish red body colour is the
result of both layers expressing pigment
to some extent. The iridescent layer is
always on top.
Note that the head region in wild-types
is usually darker i.e. there is either less
red pigmentation or more black
pigmentation in the anterior half of the
fish.
A whole bunch of genes are involved in
producing the wild type colouration. The
take home message is really that all of
the other colours and colour patterns we
will discuss are the result of mutations
in the wild-type (here meaning ‘as found
in the wild’) version of the genes
controlling colouration.
As there is no single allele for ‘wild-
type colouration’, it follows that there is
no allele symbol to signify wild-type
colouration. There is, however, a
symbol that geneticists use to describe
the wild version of a gene, which is ‘+’.
Don’t worry too much about this right
now, but it is worth storing away
somewhere in your brain for when we
get to the Genetics chapter.
Wild allele symbol = +
A pair of traditional plakats bred by the author, both
showing wild-type colouration
Metallic
Depending on where you live in the
world and the number of fish shops you
have locally that stock bettas, the
chances are that you will have seen
metallic bettas. They are pretty hard to
miss, as rather than having the relatively
matt appearance of the early betta colour
varieties, they have a very shiny,
metallic appearance.
The fascinating thing about metallic
bettas is that the first metallics were
created as a result of crosses between
Betta splendens and at least two of its
close relatives in the Splendens
complex: Betta imbellis and Betta
mahachaiensis. A third species, Betta
smaragdina, may also have been
involved.
This fact has some interesting
ramifications for the hobby. The most
important of these is the realisation that
pretty much all modern day bettas are
hybrids, which is to say that they carry
genes from Betta splendens and either
one or two (or possibly even three)
other species!
This stunning red-green bicolour halfmoon betta has
a metallic green (turquoise) body © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Dragon
The dragon trait can be thought of as an
extreme form of metallic iridescence. It
is characterised by the very thick
silvery-white (and sometimes blue or
turquoise) metallic appearance of the
scales on the body.
Credit for creating the first dragon bettas
has been attributed to the Interfish
breeder team from Thailand, who
introduced the first red dragon bettas to
the world. Interestingly, it appears that
the key to producing the dragon trait was
to breed Betta splendens not to Betta
imbellis as you might expect, but instead
to Betta mahachaiensis (a much harder
cross to achieve, as we discussed
above).
To produce the first red dragon bettas,
the Interfish team used three fish: a
super-red plakat, a red-copper plakat
(i.e. copper body, red fins) and a Betta
mahachaiensis. The first step was to
cross the Betta mahachaiensis to the
red-copper plakat in the hope of
enhancing the metallic trait from the red-
copper in the next generation. The fry
from this spawn were then raised to
adulthood and a male was chosen to sire
the next generation. This male was
crossed to the super-red plakat female.
This next generation was then raised to
adulthood and another male chosen for
breeding. This time, instead of crossing
the male to an unrelated female, the
Interfish team chose to carry out a back-
cross, spawning the male with his super-
red mother. It was this pairing that gave
rise to the very first red dragon bettas.
Orange dragon bettas like this stunning OHM are a
rare sight. What a stunner! © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Cambodian
The first commercial colour pattern ever
produced in bettas was called
Cambodian, after its country of origin.
The original Cambodian bettas had a
cellophane body and red fins, although
nowadays we also have blue
Cambodians (i.e. cellophane body and
blue/turquoise fins).
The Cambodian appearance comes as a
result of carrying two copies of the
recessive Cambodian gene, which acts
to suppress the expression of all pigment
from the body cells and the expression
of black pigment in the fins. More recent
discussions suggest that there may even
be two genes involved in producing the
Cambodian pattern, both inherited
simultaneously: One that brings about the
loss of black pigmentation in the fins;
and one for the loss of all pigmentation
on the body.
Cambodian bettas are often used by
breeders to remove black pigmentation
from their extended red breeding lines.
Extended red bettas often end up with
black edges to their body scales. By
introducing the Cambodian gene(s) into
such a line, extended red bettas with two
copies of the Cambodian gene can be
produced that do not show these black
scale edges.
The Cambodian gene has played an
enormous role in the creation of many of
the colour varieties we see in bettas
today, thanks to its ability to remove
black pigmentation. Obvious examples
include pastel and opaque white bettas.
Cambodian allele symbol = c
Female halfmoon with Cambodian colouration -
cellophane body with red fins © Sirinut Chimplee
Bicolour
The term bicolour is used to describe
bettas that have a body of one colour and
fins of another. Cambodian bettas do not
fall inside this group, as technically the
body has no colour.
Clearly there are myriad possibilities in
terms of the colour combinations that
could go into bicolour bettas and list of
combinations that have been achieved
gets longer every day. In the early days,
the most popular bicolour bettas
generally had yellow fins and were split
into just two groups: Chocolate bettas
and so-called ‘mustard gas’ bettas.
Chocolate bettas have a black or brown
body and yellow (or orange) fins. The
term ‘mustard gas’ was invented by Jude
Als to describe his particular line of
bettas that had iridescent bodies and fins
with three distinct colour bands (yellow
near the body, then white, with black at
the fins edges). Sadly for Mr Als, the
term mustard gas has since come to be
used to describe any betta with an
iridescent body and yellow fins.
Bicolour HM with orange fins and chocolate body
with royal blue iridescence © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Multicolour
Multicolour is a catch all term used to
describe bettas that have three or more
different colours, but do not fit into any
other colour pattern category.
Multicolour HM © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Grizzled
The grizzled pattern is a random
speckling, spotting, or peppering of any
iridescent colour over a pastel or
opaque body.
Grizzled male CTPK © Kitti Watcharaworatham
This male halfmoon has a grizzled body, but also
shows partial butterfly pattern in the fins © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Butterfly
Butterfly bettas are easily recognised by
the fact that their unpaired fins are split
horizontally into different bands of
colour. Usually there are two bands of
colour in the fins with the lower band
being the same colour as the body and
the upper band being white (although
this is not always the case). Ideally the
colour split in the fins should be very
neat (no blurring at the edges) and also
roughly equal in terms of the area of fin
covered. This should be the same in all
three unpaired fins. Butterfly bettas can
also have a multiple-band fin pattern
(three bands). Again, all bands should
be relatively equal in width and breadth
regardless of their number, and have
clear separation of colour.
The butterfly trait is caused by the
‘variegated fin’ mutation. This gene is
dominant but the effects are highly
variable from fish to fish. As with the
marble gene (discussed below), the
pattern of butterfly bettas is prone to
change as the fish grows, so what may
have been a perfect butterfly pattern in a
young fish can wind up looking nothing
like butterfly once the fish matures.
When you cross two butterfly bettas
together the resulting fry will all express
the butterfly trait to some extent, but as
we have discussed, only a few of them
will retain this appearance for any length
of time before they start to look like
marble bettas, with no defined pattern.
Butterfly allele symbol = Vf
Royal blue butterfly rosetail © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Marble
Marble bettas are characterised by
having areas of different colour all over
the body, as well as some areas with no
pigmentation at all. To put it simply, they
look like an accident in a paint factory!
The distribution of colours and the
patterns they produce change over the
lifetime of the fish, so you really can
wake up to a new fish every day. To
some (myself included) they are
stunningly beautiful. To others, they are
less so.
The genetic mutation that produced the
first marble bettas was first discovered
by a prison inmate named Orville
Gulley. Gulley was trying to create a
black butterfly betta and in doing so
inadvertently produced a number of fish
with either solid-coloured blotches on a
cellophane body, or vice versa. Excited
by his find, he sent some of these fish to
Walt Maurus and a handful of other
well-known breeders in the IBC, who
liked the appearance of these fish and
began breeding them in earnest.
At that time, presumably because Gulley
had originally been working with black
bettas, all the marble bettas were
basically black and white fish. It was
therefore originally hypothesised that the
action of the marble gene was to
randomly suppress or activate the
production of melanin in discrete
patches all over the body and fins.
However, since that time marble bettas
of every colour imaginable have been
produced and it is clear that this gene
affects the production of other pigments
too.
The appearance of marble bettas is now
thought to result from the action of so-
called ‘transposable elements’. It was
Barbara McClintock who first identified
transposable elements, in maize, a
discovery that earned her a Nobel prize
in 1983.
A transposable element (or transposon)
is a DNA sequence that can change its
position (i.e. transpose itself) within the
genome (an organism’s complete set of
DNA), sometimes creating or reversing
mutations and altering the cell’s genome
size. Transposable elements were
formerly thought to be found only in a
few species, but now they are
recognized as components of the
genomes of virtually all species. In fact,
transposable elements occupy
approximately half the human genome!
Transposons are ubiquitous in all living
things, and are highly successful in
propagating themselves. Their ability to
change position, or ‘jump’, within the
genome has earned transposons the
common name ‘jumping genes’.
It is important to note that the change in
the position of jumping genes within the
genome is not always permanent and
therefore the effects produced by such
genes are subject to change over time.
This is particularly relevant in the
case of marble bettas, whose colour
patterns, as I have said, change more or
less continually throughout their lives.
Other than sharing the ability to ‘jump’
within the genome, transposons show
considerable diversity. Some code for
an enzyme (a so-called ‘transposase’)
that cuts the transposon out of the
genome. This causes the cell to make a
copy of the transposon to fill the gap.
The cut out transposon then reinserts
elsewhere, where it can have an effect.
Other transposons are non-replicative,
meaning that they move without making a
copy of themselves. Because of their
ability to affect the DNA sequence of an
organism’s genome, transposons are
major forces in the evolution and
rearrangement of genomes: Some
transposition events inactivate genes,
since the coding potential or expression
of a given gene can be disrupted by
insertion of the transposable element. In
other cases, transposition can activate
nearby genes by bringing an enhancer of
transcription (located within the
transposon) close enough to a gene to
stimulate its expression. If the target
gene is not usually expressed in a certain
cell type, this activation can have a
negative effect, although the reverse is
necessarily also true. In other cases,
because the transposon is inserted in a
location where it has no effect on gene
expression, no obvious effect results
from the transposition. Thus, transposons
can activate, inactivate or have no effect
on nearby genes, depending on exactly
where they insert in the genome, their
orientation and a range of other factors
that I won’t go into for the purposes of
keeping things simple!
In the case of the first marble bettas, it
would appear that their distinctive black
and cellophane colouration was the
result of a jumping gene inserting itself
into a location on the genome that
inactivated the gene for melanin
production. This had the effect of
preventing the production of melanin in
particular cells, and all daughter cells
(clones) derived from them, giving rise
to bettas with patches of cellophane
colouration. These cellophane patches
changed in size over time - sometimes
disappearing, sometimes getting larger -
due to the fact that jumping genes can,
and do, change position within the
genome contained in the cells.
Note, however, that jumping genes don’t
always jump. If a jumping gene present
in the genome did not insert in a location
that prevented melanin production, for
the duration of a particular marble
betta’s growth period, then the fish
would not exhibit any marbling and
would remain a black fish. Likewise, if
a jumping gene inserted in a location that
prevented melanin production in all
cells of a betta and never changed
location, the fish would remain
cellophane all its life. Fish regularly
crop up in marble spawns that show no
signs of marbling (but are subsequently
confirmed to be carriers of the marble
trait in subsequent spawnings). As we
know, cellophane bettas are generally
produced from marble betta spawns,
which nicely illustrates that jumping
genes don’t always leave once they have
inserted into the genome.
It is all well and good understanding
some of the theory behind how jumping
genes gave us the first ‘black and white’
marble bettas, but the fact of the matter
is that most modern marble bettas are not
black and white; they are every colour of
the rainbow! How on earth do we
explain how this original marble gene,
which affected only melanin production,
was suddenly able to affect all the other
pigment pathways as well?
Marble OHM © Kitti Watcharaworatham
It is relatively straightforward to
hypothesise that the effects on other
pigment pathways are the result of the
actions of other types of jumping gene,
totally unrelated to the original ‘marble
gene’ unknowingly discovered by
Orville Gulley. After all, there is no real
reason why several transposons couldn’t
all be inherited at once. What is slightly
confusing is how, if there really are
several different marble genes, it took so
long for these genes to take effect and
crop up in betta breeders tanks. Of
course it may simply be that the
necessary mutations resulting in the
modern marble genes have only
occurred relatively recently as a result
of selective breeding by betta breeders.
On the other hand, we don’t know
whether marbling in other colours is
simply the result of a mutation in the
original marble gene that has enabled it
to have an effect on several different
pigment pathways. Until we know more,
it is probably safest to consider
marbling in bettas as being the result of
the actions of a single gene.
In terms of genetic inheritance, marble is
considered to be partially dominant (for
the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that
this applies to transposons that are
responsible for marbling in all the
different colour pigments, not just
melanin). Thus, crossing a marble betta
to a non-marble betta will usually result
in mostly fish that don’t look marble,
plus a small number of obvious marbles.
Note that if the marble gene were
dominant, we would expect 100%
marbles from such a cross, which is not
the case.
Breeding marble to marble will usually
give you a mixture of solid (dark- or
light-bodied), cellophane, butterfly and
marble bettas.
A point that is often made in betta
literature, specifically in relation the
marble gene, is the fact that once this
gene has been introduced into a line of
bettas, it is notoriously hard to eradicate
from that line. The reason for this is that
solid-coloured fish from spawns
involving the marble gene can carry the
marble gene without expressing any
signs of marble. As such, it becomes
difficult to identify which fish do and do
not carry the gene, making it very hard
when choosing solid-coloured fish to
breed in the next generation to ensure
that those fish don’t carry the marble
gene.
Marble dragon HMPK © Kitti Watcharaworatham
It is worth reminding ourselves that the
first marble bettas arose from butterfly
betta stock. These two traits (marble and
butterfly) seem to be very strongly
linked. Marble spawns often result in
butterfly bettas (and vice versa).
Marble allele symbol = Mb
Mask
The mask trait first appeared in bettas
that resulted from crosses between
copper (i.e. metallic steel blue) bettas
and normal iridescent bettas.
In normal iridescent fish (i.e. those that
do not carry the metallic or mask genes),
the body and fins of the fish are royal
blue, turquoise, or steel and the head is
brown or black.
This black copper HM does not carry the mask gene,
hence the black head © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Spawning such fish to metallic bettas
usually introduces both the metallic gene
and the masked gene into the next
generation. The former gene brings about
changes in the colour of the subsequent
offspring; and the latter brings about the
spread of colour into the face and head
area of the betta, producing a solid-
coloured fish.
Note that the mask gene can work
independently from the metallic gene, so
it is possible to breed a non-metallic
iridescent fish to a metallic fish in order
to get the masked trait in the next
generation, and then selectively breed
away from the metallic gene, but keep
the mask gene in the strain, thereby
producing a solid iridescent fish.
In addition, the degree of masking
produced by the mask gene can be
reduced or increased through selective
breeding to produce anything from a fish
with barely any masking to a fish with a
fully masked head.
Interestingly, because the mask trait is
now so prevalent in bettas, some
breeders are now trying to produce betta
strains that have the dark heads of
earlier strains. This has proved difficult,
because the mask gene, once it is
introduced into a line of bettas, it is very
hard to remove. The tell-tale sign that a
fish still carries the mask gene is the fact
that the fish still shows metallic
colouration on its lips, despite the rest of
the head being dark coloured.
Mask allele symbol = Mk
This male betta has a full mask covering his entire
head © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Armageddon
The so-called Armageddon betta is a
betta with a non-red body, iridescent
scaling, and yellow fins that have large
red blotches (see photo on page 160).
Often these fish have a black or
iridescent edge to the unpaired fins.
Black Orchid
Black orchid is a commercial term that
was originally coined by Henry Yin to
describe a particular line of melano
black crowntails that had excessive steel
blue iridescence, particularly in the fins.
It is now commonly misused by sellers
to describe any black betta with a high
degree of iridescence in the body and
unpaired fins.
Black orchid crowntail male © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Chocolate
Chocolate is the term used for yellow-
black bicolour bettas. In terms of
genetics, chocolate bettas are likely to
be extended red fish that express the
non-red gene (making their fins and body
yellow) and the normal black gene
(making their bodies brown).
Dalmatian
The term Dalmatian has traditionally
been used to describe orange bettas with
red spots in the unpaired fins. Now it is
sometimes used for marble bettas that
have a cellophane or white body and
small dark spots (like the dog).
Devil
The term devil is constantly misused by
betta sellers, but is most commonly used
to describe a dark-bodied betta with
metallic body scales and unpaired fins
that are red near the body and black at
the edges.
The red spots are very clear in this orange dalmation
halfmoon male © Mr Majcha
Eagle
Used for bettas that have big forward-
facing dorsals (similar to skyhawk
bettas), but with slight webbing
reduction in the dorsal and anal fins,
making these two fins look like the
wings of an eagle.
Fancy
Fancy is simply a commercial term used
to describe multi-coloured marble
bettas. It is particularly used for marble
bettas that also have dragon scaling.
Koi
Koi is another term used for marble
bettas, although this term is specifically
for marble bettas that exhibit small
patches of red and black on a cellophane
body and fins. The term is used because
the fish have patterns resembling those
of the ornamental carp of the same name.
Monkey face
This term is used to describe coloured
bettas that have a colourless
(cellophane) head. Typically the area
between the mouth and the rear edge of
the gill covers is colourless.
Koi bettas have been hugely popular since they first
showed up on the betta scene © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Monster
A monster betta has a white head
(usually covered in dragon scaling),
with the head being very distinct from
the body colour.
Mustard gas
Mustard gas is a commercial name that
was given to a very specific true-
breeding strain of bettas created by Jude
Als. These bettas were dark-bodied
iridescent bettas (blue or turquoise) with
yellow fins that had black edges. Today
the term mustard gas is used to describe
any betta with an iridescent body
(including metallic iridescent colours,
such as copper) and yellow fins, often
with blue/black edges.
Pineapple
Pineapple bettas are yellow with a black
‘criss-cross’ pattern on the body.
Genetically they are extended reds that
express the non-red gene (making the
fins and body yellow) and the blond
gene (reducing melanin density to
produce the criss-cross effect), but do
not express the Cambodian gene.
Salamander
Originally, the name ‘salamander’ was
given to the line of bettas produce by
Marianne Lewis by outcrossing mustard
mas bettas she had acquired from Jude
Als to other lines. Jude objected to her
use of the term ‘mustard gas’ when
selling these new fish, as technically
they were not ‘pure’ mustard gas fish. As
a result, Marianne picked a different
commercial name for the outcrosses she
was producing and the term
‘salamander’ came into common usage.
Thus, the word ‘salamander’ should
really only be used for those bettas
produced by Marianne Lewis…which it
clearly isn’t!
In more recent times the word
salamander has been used to describe
extended red bettas with royal blue
iridescence on the body, but not on the
head. The iridescence gives them a
purple appearance. Such bettas often
have white edges to the unpaired fins
(see photo on page 130). It is said that
this colour pattern first arose as a result
of the mustard gas outcrosses undertaken
by Marianne Lewis (presumably by
crossing mustard gas fish to red bettas),
but I have not been able to confirm this.
Either way, the colour pattern is unique
and readily identifiable, and is therefore
perhaps worthy of its own special
moniker.
To add to the confusion, the term
‘lavender’ is also used to describe fish
with the above colour pattern. In reality,
this term is best used to describe pastel
bettas that are lavender in colour (i.e.
the colour of lavender flowers).
Samurai
Samurai is perhaps the newest fad in
naming betta varieties. It generally
applies to bettas with dragon scaling in
the dorsal half of their bodies.
Skyhawk
The term ‘skyhawk’ is regularly used to
describe bettas, usually halfmoons and
over-halfmoons that have particularly
large (i.e. tall) dorsal fins, with long,
forward-angled first rays.
Tiger
Tiger bettas are yellow or orange with
black marks on the body like a tiger’s
stripes.
This tiger butterfly over-halfmoon is truly unique -
what an amazing colour pattern! © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Breeding
People breed bettas for many reasons.
Some breeders are driven by a desire to
witness the betta’s complex spawning
ritual for the first time, some hope to sell
their fish and make a profit, some strive
to produce fish with perfect form that
will bring them glory at betta shows.
The first of these reasons is one that I
have a lot of empathy for, as a previous
student of animal behaviour. Animals
have evolved via natural selection to
reproduce in ways that not even the most
imaginative of sci-fi authors could come
up with, and bettas are no exception.
I think all beginner fishkeepers must
read a description of the betta spawning
process and think to themselves, “Wow,
I would love to see that”. The first
spawn I ever witnessed (pictured
below) was between a giant Cambodian
halfmoon plakat male that I had imported
from Thailand and an extended red
plakat female, bought from my local pet
shop. I must have watched the pair for
hours as they danced their way through
the spawning process, completely
mesmerised. I have no shame in telling
you that I consider this, my first
experience of the betta spawning
process, to have been a pivotal moment
in my life. I certainly wouldn’t have
written this book had that spawn been
less successful. Watching those two fish
compounded my absolute awe at the
power of natural selection to drive the
evolution of complex animal behaviour.
How wonderful that such an incremental,
logical process can give rise to
something as beautiful and complex as
the betta spawning process? Seeing that
dance unfold in front of my eyes was an
amazing experience, and I still get the
same feeling of wonderment whenever I
am lucky enough to catch any of my
current pairs spawning.
On the subject of selling bettas for
profit, I sometimes wonder if breeding
any animal on a large scale for the sole
purpose of making a profit takes all the
joy out of what usually starts out as a
passion for that species. Having said
that, I am adamant that people should put
a value on the animals they breed. After
all, if you buy a cat for next to nothing,
or the same cat for a small fortune, you
don’t need to be a genius to realise that
you will take better care of the cat if it
costs more. It’s all about the perceived
value of the animal.
The good news is that many people are
able to maintain their passion for the
animals they breed and still operate a
profitable business. However, in the
case of bettas, it is my belief that the
only way to breed them and make a
profit is to do so in a tropical climate, in
order to remove the cost of heating the
water to the required temperature.
Anywhere else, the costs of heating will
rapidly eatinto your profits, or force you
to charge such high prices for your fish
that you won’t be able to compete with
overseas betta farmers.
I do sell my bettas, but for the same
reasons as most small-scale betta
breeders: To make space in my tanks for
the next generation; to help offset the
costs of keeping my fish; and to help out
other betta enthusiasts who want to buy
high quality stock for their own breeding
projects. I certainly don’t make any
profit!
At the end of the day, the point I am
trying to make here is that unless you
happen to live in a hot country, please
don’t try to breed bettas for the money,
because you won’t make any. Do it for
the love of the hobby instead. For the
reward of making something beautiful.
Another great reason to breed bettas is
to produce show fish. I went to my first
betta show (the Holland Betta Show) in
2013. What a fantastic experience! Lots
of like-minded betta fanatics to talk to,
lots of stunningly beautiful bettas to
admire, and lots (and lots) of fun.
I have to admit that before I went I was
terrified of having my fish judged against
the Bettas4all Standard, but as it turned
out, three of my males placed second,
third and fourth in the Male
Asymmetrical Halfmoon Plakat
(Marble) category, and one of my
females placed second in the equivalent
female category. Not a bad result for my
first show. I was over the moon!
What did I learn from this experience? I
learned that my research into the show
standards had paid off because I chose
the right fish to take to the show. I
learned that breeding your own show
bettas is a hundred times more
rewarding than just buying a fish and
taking it to a show. And I learned that,
thanks to generations of carefully
controlled individual breeding
programs, European bettas are easily
some of the best in the world!
So, in summary, breed your fish. If you
can. If you have the time and the right
fish, just do it. It is worth it just to see
the fry grow up. Anyone can buy
themselves a huge betta collection, the
same way that a collector buys works of
art. And there’s nothing wrong with
being a collector. In fact, all of us are
collectors to start with. But just think
how much more meaningful that
collection would be if you had painted
every piece.
Here’s what I think: If you have the
chance to be an artist, then be an artist…
and paint beautiful bettas!
Photographs of the first spawn ever witnessed by
the author. From the top down, these photos show:
The male courting the female; the female’s vertical
spawning bars; the spawning embrace beneath the
bubblenest; the male catching eggs as they fall from
the female; and the male collecting eggs to place
them back in the bubblenest.
- Chinese proverb
1.
Picking a goal for your spawn
2.
Selecting a pair to spawn
3.
Conditioning the pair for breeding
4.
Setting up the spawning tank
5.
Introducing the breeders
6.
The spawning process
7.
Raising the fry
8.
Culling deformed fry
9.
Jarring
10.
Deciding what to do with all those
bettas!
Males
Ideally you should choose a male that is
fully grown, but not too old. Opinions
vary between breeders as to the optimum
age for breeding bettas, but most agree
that the fish should be at least three
months old and no older than a year. The
reasons for this are simple: If the fish is
too young, he may develop unwanted
traits as he grows older that you won’t
know about until after you’ve bred him.
He may also turn out to be physically too
small to breed with your chosen female.
If the fish is too old, he may not have
sufficient energy to successfully cope
with the rigours of spawning, which will
reduce your chances of success.
Of course, it isn’t so easy to age bettas
(unless you are buying from a breeder
who knows the age of his fish). Also,
different bettas from different breeders
are capable of attaining different sizes as
adults, so it’s hard to know if your fish is
full grown or not. How can we
overcome this problem? Well, if you
can’t find out the age of the fish from the
breeder, then the best advice I can give
you is to choose the largest, most active
male available that meets your
requirements (remember, you must
always have your goal in the forefront of
your mind!). This way you will increase
the chances that the fish is fully grown
and that he has plenty of energy for
breeding.
In terms of whether the fish is ready to
breed, the most obvious clue is if he has
blown a bubblenest in his container. The
bubblenest is a nest of saliva bubbles
that male bettas blow prior to spawning,
as a safe haven for the eggs and
subsequent fry. Males in good condition
that are kept in isolation will usually
blow bubblenests even in the absence of
external stimuli, such as another male or
a female. The bubblenest is therefore a
great sign of readiness for breeding.
However, it is not essential for a male to
have built a bubblenest for you to know
he is ready for breeding. There are clues
as well. For example, you could assess
the male’s response to being shown a
female betta. If he’s keen to breed then
he will immediately spread his fins and
gill covers wide (this is called flaring)
and dance for her, in a bid to impress
her. If you aren’t at liberty to show the
male a female then you could try
showing him another male or even a
small mirror. Basically it is worth trying
anything that will convince him to flare
so that you can assess his vigour. If he is
strong, active and aggressive, then you
should be reassured that he is a good
candidate for spawning.
In reality, once you have a bit of
experience with bettas you don’t even
need to present a male with a stimulus to
see that he is healthy. A betta in good
condition will hold his fins well, swim
without difficulty, and spend a lot of
time exploring his surroundings on the
hunt for food.
It is important to remember that often
you won’t be choosing your fish with the
aim of using him for breeding straight
away. Nine times out of ten, you will be
buying the fish from an unknown source
(a pet store or a breeder whose betta
set-up you haven’t seen), which means
that once you get it home the fish should
be quarantined, in isolation, for up to
two weeks, to ensure it isn’t carrying
any hidden diseases. Following the
quarantine period, you may also need to
spend time getting the fish into optimal
condition before you can even think
about breeding it. Having said that, the
need for quarantine and conditioning
prior to spawning does depend largely
on the condition of the fish when you get
it and where you get it from. Some bettas
are ready to breed the minute you get
them home, because they were kept
under optimal conditions at the place
where you bought them. I have had this
experience on several occasions,
particularly with fish that I have bought
from other breeders.
This pair of marble HMPKs is well matched both in
terms of colour and form © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Females
As with males, female breeders should
be fully grown, young and full of life.
Look for fish with deeper and wider
bodies, as these individuals will already
have invested energy into egg
production. In bettas of certain colours
you can even see the light-coloured mass
of eggs in belly of the fish! The key
when it comes to choosing breeding
females is to pick the ‘ripest’ female you
can find. This is because the fatter the
female is, the more eggs she will
produce and the more fry you will end
up with. Hopefully it is obvious that the
more fry you have, the more fry you can
afford to lose (although ideally you will
minimise this as much as possible) and,
importantly, the more fish you will have
to choose from to produce subsequent
generations (or take to fish shows, or
sell). Remember, breeding bettas is
ALWAYS a numbers game. Choosing a
plump female can dramatically improve
your odds of getting good quality
offspring.
In terms of tell-tale signs that a female
betta is ready for spawning, I tend to
look for a very bright white and
pronounced ovipositor (the ‘egg spot’),
a rounded belly region, and obvious
vertical bars (note that these may not be
visible on a pale-bodied female). As is
the case with bubblenests and male
bettas, female bettas that are in good
condition will often show vertical bars
in isolation from any external stimuli.
The presence of these vertical bars is a
very accurate predictor that a female
betta is ready to breed. Even better is if
these bars appear, or become more
obvious, when a female is presented
with a male betta.
Other than the rounded belly, protruding
ovipositor and horizontal bars, the basic
advice for choosing a breeding female is
the same as the advice for choosing any
betta: Pick an active fish that holds its
fins well, swims easily and is constantly
investigating its environment.
The other useful (but again, not 100%
rigid) rule when picking a breeding
female is that you should try to pick a
female that is of equal size or smaller
than your breeding male, as during
spawning it is very important that the
male is able to wrap his body around the
female. This will all become clear in the
‘Spawning’ section.
The pale vertical bars on the body of this female
indicate that she is ready to breed © Kitti
Watcharaworatham
Fin rays
As a general rule, breeding a fish with
less branching in the caudal fin rays to
one with more branching in its caudal fin
rays (e.g. a fish with primary branching
crossed to one with secondary, tertiary
or quaternary branching) will result in
fry that predominantly have more
branching in their caudal fin rays than
the parent with least ray branching.
To put it another way, if you breed a
traditional plakat with primary
branching to a halfmoon plakat with
secondary branching, most of the fry will
show some degree of secondary
branching.
This is a useful way to add more rays
into the fins of your betta line and also
applies to some extent to the other
unpaired fins (i.e. the dorsal and anal).
Body shape
It isn’t just fin form that can be
influenced by your choice of breeding
pair. Body shape has been found to be
similarly malleable.
Among the most common unwanted traits
in bettas is so-called ‘spoon-head’. I
have no idea who first coined this term,
but it is very appropriate and applies to
bettas that have a concave facial profile,
such that the line from their forehead to
their mouth is curved upward, like a
spoon. This line should really be
straight, or even convex, to give the betta
a nice smooth ‘top-line’ from mouth to
caudal fin. The good news is that, as
with the fins, the body shape of fry can
be influenced by careful choice of
parents. Breeding a spoon-headed fish to
one with a better facial profile will
produce a percentage of fish that do not
exhibit the spoon-head trait. Spawning
these fish to each other, or to other bettas
that have good top-lines, will ultimately
enable you to eradicate the trait from
your line.
Facial profile is only one aspect of body
shape that you can influence through your
choice of breeders. Other examples
include body length, width and depth.
The ability to manipulate body length is
particularly important for breeders of
doubletail bettas, as doubletails often
have shortened bodies. If a short-bodied
doubletail has really good finnage that a
breeder would like to see in the next
generation, he or she will generally try
to breed this fish to a related doubletail
carrier that has a normal (long) body in
the hope that the offspring (50%
doubletail; 50% singletail) will inherit
the nice fins and the normal body length.
This works best where the short-bodied
doubletail is the female, as short-bodied
males are often unable to wrap females
during spawning.
Colour
To give you any specific guidance for
achieving your colour goals here would
add nothing to the information already
provided in the ‘Genetics’ section. All I
would say, is that you need to make sure
that the fish you buy carry the colour
genes you need to attain your goal. This
is more important for some colours and
colour patterns than others. For example,
there is no point buying two fish, neither
of which carry the marble gene, if your
goal is to produce marble bettas!
Form
I listened to an interview that my friend
Joep van Esch (a top breeder of
halfmoon plakats in the Netherlands and
co-creator of the Bettas4all Standard)
gave to an American radio station in
2012. In the interview he said something
that really resonated with me:
“At the end of the day, a betta has to be
able to swim.”
Selective breeding
Although the above suggestions will
help you decide on the fish you use for
your first spawn, they really come into
their own when you start thinking about
carrying out many spawns
(simultaneously, or one after the other)
in order to reach your goal, as you will
be able to select the fish with the best
form from
each generation to continue your project.
Each of these suggestions is simply
giving you the first step in a long process
of so-called ‘selective breeding’, which
in simple terms is the process of
selecting breeders based on the traits
they exhibit, in order to perpetuate those
traits in future generations.
REMEMBER: Pretty much every
domestic betta you will ever see is the
result of a particular breeder’s
selective breeding programme.
Intentional, or otherwise!
Given that good form takes more time to
achieve than good colour, in an ideal
world we would all start with a male
and female fish that exhibit the form we
want. This would, in theory, maximise
our chances of getting offspring with
good form, leaving us free to explore
various colour avenues without
worrying about producing unbalanced
fish. It’s a nice theory and it is definitely
the case that choosing fish with a form as
close to your ideal as possible will
improve your chances of achieving your
goals in terms of form, but in practice it
is often very difficult to find such perfect
fish and we are often forced to achieve
our goals via an alternative route.
Selective breeding enables new traits resulting from
new genetic mutations to be passed on to the next
generation. For example the unique caudal of this
one-of-a kind ‘swordtail’ betta could, if the trait has a
genetic basis, be the start of a selective breeding
program to produce a line of swordtail bettas. ©
Jirasak Vimonrattanakit
Stage 3 - Conditioning
bettas for spawning
To condition or not to condition? That is
the question.
Okay, so maybe it’s not the question, but
it certainly is a question that has caused
some controversy in betta keeping
circles and I suspect it will continue to
do so.
To clarify, conditioning bettas for
spawning simply means making sure that
they are sufficiently healthy and have
sufficient energy stores to cope with the
stresses of the spawning process.
The animal kingdom is full of examples
of animals using visual or physical
attributes of prospective mates in order
to gauge the genetic fitness of those
individuals (I won’t bore you with a
massive list of examples, but if you are
interested in this, the classic example is
the long-tailed widowbird – look up
Andersson’s 1982 study on Wikipedia).
The purpose of this assessment
(otherwise known as sexual selection) is
to ensure that they breed with the most
genetically fit partner available, thereby
equipping their offspring with the best
genes for survival. Bettas are no
exception, and as a result betta courtship
is a pretty strenuous test for both sexes.
It is for this reason that you need to be
sure your fish are up to the challenge
before introducing them.
Clearly there is a case for quarantining
your new breeders to ensure that there is
time for any diseases they may carry to
manifest itself. No-one wants to try and
breed sick bettas: If the adults don’t die
from the disease, the tiny fry will surely
succumb.
Most people keep any new bettas under
observation in isolation for at least a
week, sometimes two. It’s up to you how
long you want to quarantine for, but in
my experience a week is usually
sufficient to give me confidence that the
betta is healthy, or sick, as the case may
be. During this time you should aim to
get your bettas into breeding condition
by providing clean water conditions, a
higher temperature (29-30˚C) and a
regular supply of nutritious foods - in
particular livefoods (either living or
frozen).
Most people find bloodworm or daphnia
to be excellent conditioning foods,
supplemented with commercial pellet
food. I have read and been given advice
from successful breeders detailing very
specifically how many pellets to feed
each day and how much bloodworm etc.
in order to achieve optimal conditioning.
The advice even went so far as to offer
specific amounts of food for males
versus females! Personally, I have
always believed that a good aquarist
should know their fish and be able to
read their behaviour. In doing so, you
will soon learn your fish’s appetite and
will be able to tailor the amount of food
to the individual.
As far as I’m concerned there are only
three rules that make sense to me when it
comes to how much to feed during
conditioning for breeding:
1.
Offer the fish more food than it
would normally receive;
2.
Make sure that the conditioning
food is of higher nutritional
value than the staple diet you
offer your fish;
3.
Feed females more than males, as
they have higher energy demands
than males, as they need to
produce eggs.
Container
The container should be large enough to
for the female to escape from the male if
he proves to be very aggressive; and
small enough so that the male can still
find the female and entice her to breed,
even when she is hiding.
One of the biggest risks faced by betta
breeders is that the male may kill the
female (or vice versa – it does happen).
For this reason, it is important to use a
container that is large enough to allow
the female to swim away from the male.
Conversely, if you provide too large a
container, there is a risk that the male
will lose sight of the female and one or
both partners will give up on the idea of
spawning altogether!
I have used a range of different tank
sizes and container types, but in general
my spawning tanks measure 25 x 25 x 30
cm. This should give you an idea of how
small you can go without risking your
female.
Hiding places
Spawning can be a dangerous time for
female bettas thanks to most male bettas
being very aggressive. You must provide
some form of hiding place in the
spawning tank. This is betta breeding
gospel. If you don’t provide somewhere
for your female to hide, you run the risk
of her being killed by the male (or vice
versa).
Males chase and bite females during
courtship as a test of their suitability as a
breeding partner. If you provide cover
for the female then the worst case
scenario is that at the end of this chasing
and biting she ends up with torn fins and
a few missing body scales. If she is not
ready to breed and there is nowhere for
her to hide then the male will kill her. I
guarantee it. You don’t want that to
happen, so please provide some cover
for her.
The type of hiding place varies between
breeders. In Thai betta farms they either
use a single large Indian almond leaf, or
native water plants. Hobbyist breeders I
know have used everything from
terracotta plant pots, to java moss tied to
a stone, to floating sections of plastic
pipe, to fully planted aquaria. I like to
keep things simple and easy to maintain,
so I use plastic plants. It is possible to
buy large (30 x 30 cm) mats of plastic
plants that are designed to provide a
floor covering of plants of the same
species in large tanks. The ones I buy
resemble an aquatic grass. I cut these
mats up to give me strips of plastic grass
which fit across the back of my
spawning tanks and provide the perfect
refuge for females during spawning.
They also make great cover for betta fry!
Water
Fill the spawning tank with clean, aged
water to a height of 10cm. Ideally the
water should be a few degrees warmer
than the water you keep your bettas in
normally.
I already told you that in the wild the
arrival of rain results in cleaner water
conditions, as the rain has a diluting
effect. This is a natural trigger for bettas
to spawn.
By using clean water you are replicating
this effect and maximising the chances
that the fish will spawn. You are also
reducing the speed with which pollutants
will build up in the spawn tank. This is
important, as when the eggs hatch you
will be raising the tiny fry in this water,
without a biological filter to keep the
water clean, for the first few weeks
(more on this later).
The water should be aged to allow any
chlorine to evaporate and avoid
damaging your bettas’ delicate gill
membranes.
In the wild, the heavy rains create new
areas of shallow water that bettas
migrate into to breed. It is important to
have shallow water in the spawn tank
for two reasons: Firstly, it mimics the
shallow conditions present for breeding
in the wild; and secondly, it makes it
much easier for the male to collect the
eggs released by the female during
spawning, thereby maximising the
number of fry you will get from the
spawn. This is clearly a good thing!
The water in these shallow pools is
warmer than normal (another spawning
trigger). Unless, like me, you have a
space-heated fishroom, you will need to
add a small aquarium heater to your
spawning tank to maintain the water
temperature between 28˚C and 30˚C. In
my fish room I have all my spawn tanks
on the top two tiers of my shelving unit.
Because hot air rises, these tanks are
always a bit warmer than the other
containers in the room.
There is an additional benefit to raising
the temperature: Several aquatic
pathogens are ineffective at higher
temperature. By spawning your bettas in
warmer water you reduce the likelihood
that the resulting fry will succumb to
disease.
I should point out that the higher
temperature is not absolutely essential. If
you don’t want to do this, your bettas
will still breed in water of the same
temperature that they are used to. All I’m
saying is that raising the temperature a
few degrees can improve your chances
of success.
Nesting Site
Finally, you need to put something in the
spawn tank under which the male can
build his bubblenest. Clearly this needs
to float. By far the two most popular
nesting materials are bubble-wrap and
Indian almond leaf, although I know
breeders who swear by a small piece of
polystyrene foam, or half a polystyrene
cup. As always, feel free to experiment
and find out what works best for you.
Personally I have had excellent results
with bubble-wrap and I honestly think
there is some truth in the theory that the
bubbles in the bubble-wrap fool females
into thinking that the male has built a
much larger nest than he may have
actually built, thereby encouraging her to
accept him as a mate and spawn. If you
decide to go down the bubble-wrap
route, cut a piece around 6cm x 6cm in
size and float it in the container. If you
wish, you can use a piece of sticky tape
to fasten the bubble-wrap in place in the
tank to prevent is moving around.
That’s really all there is to setting up a
spawn tank for bettas: A suitably-sized
container with a lid, filled with warm,
aged, shallow water that contains a
hiding place for the female and a nesting
site for the male. No substrate, no filter,
no lights. Easy.
***
***
Starter foods
There are several options available to
you in terms of first fry foods and
different breeders swear by different
foods. The key requirement of the first
food is that it should be smaller than
newly hatched brineshrimp. Why? Well,
quite simply, this is to maximise the
number of fry you can raise. Breeding
bettas is ultimately a numbers game; the
more fry you produce, the more choice
you will have in terms of fish to use for
the next generation.
Baby brineshrimp (BBS) is the ‘magic
bullet’ solution for raising the fry of a
vast number of tropical freshwater fish
species kept in captivity, and bettas are
no exception – they love it! Indeed, some
breeders feed baby brineshrimp (BBS)
from day one, and say that the fry are
able to pull the shrimp apart no problem
and eat them up in small bites.
Personally I think this depends on the
size of the betta fry you are dealing with.
You see, there is no such thing as a
standard size for betta fry. Some female
bettas produce large eggs that hatch
into large fry that will quite happily
dismember BBS, but other females
produce lots of small eggs that hatch into
tiny fry. If those tiny fry don’t get tiny
food then I guarantee there will be
losses very early on. The solution? Well,
one of the solutions is actually a
solution! A solution of egg yolk, to be
precise. This is a first food commonly
used by betta breeders in Asia. You
simply hard boil an egg, remove the yolk
and then crumble this into water to
produce a yellow solution, full of tiny
egg particles. This solution is then drip
fed (or sprayed, using a mister) into the
fry tank, wherever the fry are
congregated.
The problem with egg yolk solution is
that it goes bad rather quickly, so you
really ought to make a new batch each
time you feed the fry. It’s also worth
making sure that the fry have eaten the
last helping before you feed them again,
to avoid fouling the water. With small
tanks any uneaten yolk solution can
quickly pollute the water.
A good, but less convenient, alternative
to egg yolk solution is to the feed the fry
with infusoria. I know many aquarists
who swear by this as the ultimate live
food for tiny fry. In theory it’s a perfect
fry food: tiny swimming freshwater
aquatic micro-organisms that stay alive
in the tank indefinitely, providing a meal
for the fry every day until they are all
gone. The only problem is that culturing
infusoria is a rather unpleasant
experience, as infusoria cultures tend to
smell awful!
Betta fry are tiny when they first hatch, so they need
appropriately small food in the first few days
Unless you are going to buy a culture, the
quickest way to culture infusoria is to
place a banana skin in a jar of rainwater
on a sunny windowsill. Eventually the
water will become cloudy with infusoria
as the population explodes thanks to the
abundant food in the form of the banana
skin. This solution can then be syphoned
off and fed to the fry, with less fear of
polluting the water in the tank. The
difficulty with infusoria is maintaining a
culture in the long term. When the
population gets too large, the waste
products produced will eventually kill
off the culture, so you end up in a cycle
of continually seeding new cultures with
infusoria from the previous culture. Not
as easy as just boiling an egg, but
potentially worth it if you end up in a
position of having lots of very tiny betta
fry to feed.
Probably the most popular first betta fry
food is microworms. Microworms are a
cinch to keep, thanks to the ready
availability of starter cultures online.
Once you’ve acquired a culture, take a
plastic tub with a tight fitting lid, make
some holes in the lid with a needle
(remember to heat the tip over a flame
first), add COLD porridge to a depth of
about 1 cm and then add your
microworm culture. Within days you
will see thousands of microworms
crawling up the sides of the container,
ready to be fed to your fry. If you want to
put the culture into overdrive, you can
even add yeast to the porridge to speed
things up, although personally I don’t
recommend this as it tends to make the
culture go off sooner, which means more
work for you!
When betta fry eat their bellies get big and turn the
colour of the food you give them - in this case liquid
fry food
Microworms are a great first fry food.
Betta fry LOVE them and they even stay
alive for a relatively long time after you
add them to the fry tank. There’s just one
problem with microworm…
If you overfeed with microworms,
then some, or most likely all, of your
fry will fail to develop ventral fins.
This is far and away the most common
cause of bettas developing without
ventrals. I’ve made this mistake myself
and I see it time and time again on betta
forum spawn logs. Mostly this problem
arises when people feed microworms
exclusively, in large volume, for the first
week. As far as I’m aware no-one has
yet figured out whether the fry actually
lose their ventral fins, or if they simply
fail to grow them. There are several
theories as to how the microworms
cause this effect. To be honest, you don’t
need to know how or why this happens,
only that it does. I can vouch for it
myself. So, what’s the answer? Don’t
feed microworms to your new fry for
more than a few days; and if you do feed
them for longer, make sure you are
feeding them something else at the same
time (e.g. BBS).
Note that there are at least two other
type of worms that you can buy that are
suitable to feed to your fry as first foods.
These are Walter worms and banana
worms. Both are similarly easy to
culture and as far as I know these worms
also cause the ventral fin problem if
overfed.
Interestingly, the lack of ventral fins
from overfeeding microworms is not
heritable. Bettas overfed with
microworms that don’t develop ventral
fins can be spawned together to produce
fry with perfectly normal ventral fins.
This is also something that I have tested
in my fish room. I crossed a male with
no ventrals (pictured on page 114) to his
sister, who also lacked ventral fins. I
decided not to feed the fry any
microworms. Lo and behold every
single one of them went on to grow a
perfect set of ventrals.
Personally I no longer use microworms,
for two reasons: Firstly, I got fed up of
going away for the weekend and coming
home to find my cultures had gone bad
(the smell is horrendous); and secondly I
don’t want to risk producing fry with no
ventrals when you can raise fry perfectly
well without them ever having seen a
single microworm. In fact, I don’t use
yolk solution, infusoria, or microworms,
but please do try all of these for
yourself, as they may be ideal for you.
What do I use instead? A commercial
liquid fry food.
Here in the UK there is a company that
produces a range of liquid fry foods.
These are all liquid suspension foods
that vary in the size of the suspended
particles. The solution with the smallest
particle size is my favourite first food
for raising betta fry. All you have to do
is unscrew the lid, look to see where all
the fry are in the tank and squeeze a drop
of food into that location. Here’s a tip: It
works best if you squeeze the bottle until
the drop sits at the end of the nozzle and
then touch the water surface with the
drop. This causes the food to spread out
across the water surface, where the fry
tend to be resting. If you drop the food
from a height, you run the risk of the
mass of food simply sinking to the floor
of the tank, where the fry will take much
longer to find it, which means more risk
of polluting the tank. A simple trick, but
it is very effective.
Now, some of you will already be
wagging your fingers and saying ‘Hey,
but that’s exactly the same as using yolk
solution!’. I assure you, it’s not. Yolk
solution, as I have said, goes off very
quickly. This commercial liquid fry food
seems to keep for ages. Don’t ask me
why (maybe it contains preservatives),
but one tiny bottle lasts me for months
and the fry are happy to consume the
contents all the while. At the end of the
day, much of fish keeping is about
making things easy for yourself. Liquid
fry food does exactly that. No
preparation and no nasty smells, just
clean, quick and easy fry food.
In my experience, the first few meals are
always the most fraught with nerves, as
there is a fine balancing act to perfect.
You need to provide the fry with food of
a small enough size for them to eat, but
only provide enough food that they get a
decent meal without leaving too much
uneaten food in the tank, which can
quickly pollute the water and kill the fry.
After a day or two of eating suitably sized foods,
your fry will turn into little eating machines!
Stage 9 - Jarring
Assuming you have at the very least
culled all of the sick and deformed fish
from your spawn, you should now be left
with a bunch of half-grown bettas, some
of which you will already be able to sex.
The process of jarring is exactly as it
sounds: It is the process of removing
individual fish from your growout tank
and isolating them in a jar (or any other
suitable container). This process serves
three purposes. The first is that it allows
you to remove any overly aggressive
individuals (usually, but not always,
males) from the rest of the spawn,
thereby minimising damage to the fins of
your other fish. Secondly, it allows you
to isolate the best fish from the spawn in
terms of form (or colour, or breeding
potential) so that they won’t get damaged
and can be sold to buyers, or used for
breeding, or exhibited at shows
(depending on what you wish to do with
those fish). Thirdly, by isolating each
fish you can control its diet much more
effectively, ensuring that it is getting the
best food without having to compete
with its siblings, which will often result
in faster growth. It is a good idea to
place a card between each jar to prevent
the jars’ occupants seeing one another.
This will prevent exhaustion from
constant flaring!
As with all other aspects of betta
keeping, breeders vary in their approach
to jarring bettas. For example, if the goal
is to raise some fish with good genetics
to breed together and make the next
generation of bettas, then a few fin nips
won’t matter too much; you may as well
keep the whole spawn together, only
jarring the most aggressive individuals.
On the other hand, if the plan is to sell
the fish, then you will probably want to
jar all the fish that are likely to fetch a
good price, as buyers will definitely pay
more for a fish with undamaged fins. For
anyone breeding their fish to compete in
shows, the most important thing is to jar
any fish that look like they might
blossom into show champions.
Temperature
First off, let’s cover the basics. My
bettas are all kept in one room of my
house, the fishroom, which is space-
heated by a storage radiator. The
radiator is on a timer plug that switches
it on during my electricity provider’s
off-peak economy tariff time, in order to
keep the bills down. Basically, the
radiator heats up the bricks inside it,
which store the heat, overnight and then
the heat is released from the bricks over
the course of the day. What this means is
that my fish room starts the day very
warm around 27˚C and then slowly
loses heat over the course of the day to
around 25˚C at night.
The next things you need to know is that
there is a window in the fish room that
faces west and so receives a small
amount of direct sunlight in the
afternoons (when the English weather is
kind enough to deliver sunshine!). This
sunlight has the effect of elevating the
temperature inside the fish room in the
afternoons on sunny days.
The third point I want to make about
temperature, is that because the radiator
is at ground level and heat rises, the
temperature near the ceiling in my fish
room is a few degrees warmer than near
the floor.
To summarise, the temperature in my
fishroom fluctuates a great deal on a
daily basis, and is strongly affected by
the weather. This has an important
impact on my betta breeding process.
Firstly, because the temperature is higher
in the upper sections of the room, the
majority of my spawning tanks are on the
top two shelves of a shelving unit that
sits to the right of the window in the
fishroom. This was a calculated
decision on my part, based on the fact
that an increase in temperature is one of
several spawning triggers in bettas.
Having the spawning tanks on the top
two shelves means that when I introduce
my breeders (usually from cups or small
containers) into the spawning tanks to
breed, they will experience a slight
increase in water temperature, which
will hopefully encourage them to spawn.
Spawning tanks
My spawning tanks are a mixture of
plastic tubs (remember the refrigerator
vegetable trays I mentioned earlier?) and
small glass tanks. Whatever container I
am using, they all measure roughly 25
cm long x 20 cm high x 20 cm wide. I
find that this size works well for me,
providing enough space for females to
escape the aggressive courtship of males
without allowing the male to completely
lose the female (and lose interest in
spawning).
When I am setting up a spawn, the first
step is to completely drain the spawning
tank, add a tablespoon of salt and some
hot water to it, and give it a good scrub.
Household vinegar is also perfect for
this. The reason for cleaning the tank is
to remove any leftover detritus (and in
some cases the cysts of disease causing
protozoa) from previous spawns. Once I
am happy that the spawning tank is
clean, I pour in aged water to a height of
10 cm.
I use aged tap water for all my fish. In
Cambridge our tap water is very hard
and a little over pH 7, with a relatively
high nitrate concentration. Whilst this is
perhaps less than ideal, my bettas live in
it just fine. In the fish room I have a 100
litre (22 gallon) plastic water butt
containing a submerged aquarium heater
set to 26˚C. I fill this up regularly with
water from the cold tap and then use it
for water changes once the water is up to
temperature.
After adding water to the spawning tank,
I add a row of fine-leaved plastic
aquarium plants to the back of the tank,
which will provide the female and
subsequent fry with a hiding place. I use
plastic plants because they don’t break
down in the water, can’t harbour
anything that might harm the fry, and are
easy to wash between spawns.
Next I add a small sponge filter (which
remains off until any fry are at least 7mm
in length), half an Indian almond leaf
(for its antibiotic properties), a 6cm x
6cm square of bubble-wrap (the nesting
site), and a lid.
I cut most of the lids on my spawning
tanks myself from a sheet of acrylic, but
I sometime use either a small towel
(good if the pair is easily spooked by
your presence), or one of those plastic
condensation trays they sell in fish
shops, trimmed to size.
Introducing the pair
Having set up the spawning tank, I
introduce the male into the tank. As
most of my breeding males are kept in
large jars, I prefer to do this by gently
scooping the fish out of its jar by hand.
My bettas are used to being
manhandled, as I do the same when
transferring them to new jars whenever I
need to clean their old ones!
Once the male is in the spawning tank, I
give him a few minutes to get used to his
surroundings and find the bubble wrap.
Then I add the female to the tank. I let
the pair interact for a brief moment
before placing a clear plastic spawning
chimney over the female. This chimney
serves three very important functions: It
protects the female from being attacked
by the male during the time he should be
concentrating on building a bubblenest;
it allows the male to see the female,
thereby encouraging him to court her
through the plastic and build the
bubblenest in the first place; and it
allows the male to pick up chemical
cues produced by the female that tell him
she is ready to breed and vice versa
(hence the holes in the chimney).
With the female in the tube, I watch the
behaviour of both fish to work out
whether or not they are interested in one
another. I look for all the behavioural
signs that tell me the two fish are
interested in each other as prospective
mates:
Cleaning
From day one, I monitor the tank floor to
make sure the detritus doesn’t build up
too much. The aim is to keep the bare
bottom of the tank as clean as possible,
so that the fry can easily find any food
you feed them that falls to the floor. This
makes sense: If the fry have to spend a
lot of energy searching for food, then this
is energy they can’t then use for growth –
and above all at this stage you want them
to grow! The bigger you can get them,
the more likely it will be that they will
survive to adulthood.
Keeping the tank floor clean requires a
regular regime of siphoning waste away
and replenishing the lost water with new
fresh water. To siphon the fry tanks I use
a long length of airline tubing fastened to
a chopstick in three places using a
rubber band (high tech or what?). When
they are small, the fry are very
vulnerable to shock, so I always try to
pour the replacement water into the tank
as slowly as possible to avoid causing
too much turbulence.
It’s not just the floor of the tank that gets
dirty. The surface of the water gets dirty
too. It is very common for a film to form
on the surface of the water as a result of
uneaten food floating there. I remove this
film whenever I see it using a plastic
cup. The process is simple: I take the
cup and, holding it at a 45˚ angle, I
lower it into the water slowly until the
lip of the cup is level with the water
surface, but the cup is still empty. Then I
push the cup down a little bit, which
makes the water flow into the cup, along
with the unwanted greasy film. The
technique does require a little practice,
but once you’ve got it down it is easy to
remove the film without accidentally
removing any fry. Having said that, I still
check the plastic cup every time before I
empty it in case there are any fry in
there!
Apple snails
At this stage the fry should have fully
developed their air-breathing apparatus
(the labyrinth organ) and should be
swimming well, so I do two things to the
tank to help with keeping it clean.
Firstly, I add one or two small apple
snails to eat any the uneaten food; and
secondly I turn on the small sponge filter
(running very gently, with just a small
stream of bubbles) to filter the water.
More cleaning!
Having covered all the angles relating to
food, the only thing stopping my bettas
growing big and strong is the cleanliness
of their water. For me this is more a
factor of the time I have available in
between doing my day job and having a
some semblance of a social life. To be
completely honest, I go through cycles of
being really good with my water changes
and of being completely hopeless.
What this has shown me is this: If you
want to grow bettas quickly then you
need to be able to commit to doing large
water changes on a very regular basis. If
you don’t then you will have to wait
longer for your fish to grow (especially
with some of the more fragile
domesticated betta strains).
That pretty much wraps it up. It’s just an
ongoing cycle of feeding and cleaning
until its time to start jarring my future
show fish and breeders. The remainder
are either given away or sold.
Other Methods for Breeding
Bettas
Now that you know my method for
breeding bettas, I hope that you will be
able to take some useful ideas from it
and apply them to your own method.
Next I want to tell you about another
equally (or maybe even more) successful
method for breeding bettas.
The method I am about to share is
deceptively simple and requires only
space, and a room of the correct air
temperature. This is the method is used
by many of the Asian betta farms and
relies heavily on having a lot of bettas to
start with, as the success of this method
is largely a numbers game. The more
bettas you have, the higher your chances
of success with this method, and the
greater the rewards.
I learned about this method from
watching online videos posted by Asian
betta farms. The system works as
follows: Rows of large plastic bowls
are laid out on the floor. Each bowl is
filled with water, and a male betta is
placed in each bowl. Often a nesting site
is added to the bowl in the form of an
Indian almond leaf or a clump of aquatic
plants such as Java moss. The males are
left in the bowls for the rest of the day
and the next day a female betta is added
to any of the bowls in which the male
has built a bubble nest. The pairs are
then left to spawn. As there are so many
bettas involved, there is little concern as
to whether or not the females end up a
little shredded.
A batch of adult fish ready to be sorted into breeding
bowls or isolated individually into bottles © The
Majcha
The bowls containing pairs of bettas are
checked every day for eggs in the
bubblenest. When eggs are present, the
female is removed and the male is left to
tend the eggs and newly hatched fry.
Once the fry are swimming horizontally,
the male is removed and the fry are
transferred to a large concrete pond that
has been prepared previously by filling
it with water, treating the water with
lime to kill pathogens, and then seeding
with fertiliser to encourage algae
growth. After being left for several days,
these ponds also build up large
populations of aquatic organisms that the
fry will eventually feed on, such as
mosquito larvae.
The young fry from all the bowls are
added to the same pond, where they feed
on algae and microorganisms and then
progress on to eating the larger aquatic
organisms.
Because the weather in these Asian
countries is suitably warm and humid,
and the fry have an endless supply of
nutritious food, they grow very quickly.
Once they are big enough, the farm staff
start feeding the growing bettas on
commercial fish foods to boost their
growth until they are close to being big
enough to sell. At this point, all the fish
are netted out and jarred into hundreds
and hundreds of empty glass bottles used
for spirits. These bottles are arranged in
long rows sitting on the concrete. Each
bottle has a horizontal cut made on one
side, at the shoulder. This cut is too
narrow for the fish to fit through and
allows water changes to be carried out
really quickly by simply spraying water
from a hose into the neck of the bottle.
This washes the old water and any
detritus out of the hole at the shoulder,
replacing it with the new fresh water.
Each time the farmer wants to change the
water in all the bottles, he simply walks
along each row with the hose, spraying
each bottle in turn. It’s a genius system.
Concrete ponds used for growing out fry on a Thai
betta farm © The Majcha
After jarring, the fish are examined and
any low quality fish are either culled or
sold in bulk to pet stores. The rest are
raised individually, with daily feeding
and water changes, before being sorted
in terms of their quality and then sold.
This method results in a very high yield
of bettas, as fry from multiple spawns of
the same age are combined and raised
together. The high volume also improves
the chance of producing a higher
percentage of fish with good form (i.e.
fish that will ultimately be more
valuable either to the breeder or a
prospective customer). The downside is
that, as a direct result of combining
several spawns, it is becomes
impossible to know the genetic
background of each betta for sale, as it is
impossible to know which parent fish
produced which fry. This is especially
true when there is a lot of genetic
variation in the pairs used for spawning
in the first place.
In terms of other methods for breeding
bettas, everything else I have found is
either a variation of the method I myself
use or a variation of the method that I
have outlined above.
Close up of glass bottles used to house bettas in
their hundreds © The Majcha
Keeping records
There are two final tips I want to share
with you to finish off this section on
breeding bettas, both of which will
improve your ability to produce high
quality bettas in a consistent manner. The
first of these relate to keeping breeding
records.
The most important thing you need to
remember in order to have any hope of
keeping track of your betta breeding
progress is this: Always, always,
always keep records of every spawn you
carry out. You need to make a note of
which parent fish were involved, which
genes they carried that are likely to turn
up in the next generation, the date the
pair were introduced, the date the pair
spawned, and the date the eggs hatched.
That’s the bare minimum. I would also
suggest that you keep a separate ‘stud
book’ with the genetic information for
each of your breeders, so you only have
to write down the code (or name) of that
breeder in your spawning records,
instead of listing all of the genes it
carries, every time.
I have a very simple system for naming
my breeders. They are all given a code
consisting of two letters (to signify the
line the fish comes from) followed by a
hyphen, followed by a letter to indicate
the sex of the fish (M or F), followed by
a number to indicate the filial
generation, followed by a full stop
(period) and a number specific to that
fish. For example, a fish with the code
BB-M1.5 is a fish from my ‘Bluebird’
line (BB) that is male (M) and comes
from the first generation (1). This fish is
the fifth male I have jarred from the
spawn (5). Thus the next male I choose
to jar from the same spawn would have
the code BB-M1.6 and the one after that
would be BB-M1.7. The first sister
jarred would have the code BB-F1.1.
Note that I only use the codes for fish I
have jarred and am actually going to use
for breeding.
I find it helpful to name each spawn as
well, which I generally do by having
two letters to signify that I bred the fish
(my online forum name is Bluejax, so I
use the letters BJ) followed by the date
of the spawn e.g. BJ26012015. This is
common practice on online betta forums.
If you are new to breeding then you
might also want to consider making a
note of how you conditioned the pair for
spawning, what foods you fed the fry,
and when you fed each type of food, in
order to raise them to adulthood. Once
you have established a reliable method
you won’t need to do this anymore.
This record keeping might sound rather
laborious, but trust me it is really
important, doesn’t take long, makes all
the difference between being an average
betta breeder and being someone who
reliably produces fantastic fish. After
all, without having a basic knowledge of
what steps you took to produce a
great betta, how will you ever repeat
those steps in the future? Would you
rather rely on luck every time, or have a
proven formula that you can follow
again and again and again to achieve
success? For me it’s a no brainer - I’d
want that formula, every time.
Betta barracks
This next tip is designed to save you
time and effort and really only applies to
those of you who either live in a nice
warm country, or have the luxury of a
space-heated fishroom. The basic
premise of a betta barracks is that each
fish is housed in its own container, with
several rows of containers sitting on
multiple shelves, one above the other.
The key difference between a betta
barracks and a bunch of containers on
shelves is that the water in each
container in a betta barracks is
continually being filtered: Water is
pumped into the top of each container
via a tube and dirty water leaves the
container via a second tube, which is
usually located in the side of the
container, level with the desired height
of water in the container. The dirty water
from all the individual containers feeds
into a gutter, or pipe, from where it is
transported down into a large filter tank
that sits on the floor, below the shelves
of containers. The dirty water passes
through the filter media in the tank and is
then pumped back up to the top of the
barracks by a water pump, where it
feeds back into the tubes that enter each
individual betta container and the cycle
starts again. Thus each container is
constantly being filtered as part of a
larger continuous system. Because the
water is being filtered you don’t have to
carry out regular water changes, which
is a huge time saving. Some breeders
also install a UV steriliser as part of
their barracks, which kills off of
bacteria and prevents the spread of
illness in the system. I you plan to
maintain a lot of bettas individually,
either for breeding or show purposes,
then I strongly recommend that you build
a betta barracks, as it will make your
life much easier. There are many designs
for betta barracks available on the
internet, so a quick search will give you
all the information you could ever need.
I used to have a barracks system, but in
the end my fishroom proved too small
and too poorly ventilated to
accommodate one long term. The open
gutters of the barracks led to excessive
humidity, which in turn led to a build up
of mould and condensation. Not a great
result! In the end I am left keeping my
bettas in plastic jars and spending all my
time doing water changes. Hard work,
but ultimately worth it. Who knows? One
day I might find the time to build a new
betta barracks that retains all its
moisture. I can but dream!
Genetics
I’d be willing to bet serious money that
some of you who bought this book will
have jumped straight to this section, in
the hope of finding all the answers to
your burning questions about betta
genetics. Well, I hate to disappoint you,
but there a good chance you’re not quite
going to find what you’re looking for!
You see, the fact of the matter is that the
genes involved in producing the vast
array of beautiful bettas available in the
21st century are a long, long way from
being fully understood.
I like to think that there was a time, early
on in the development of modern bettas,
when we knew roughly how many
genetic mutations there were and what
they all did; a time when we could
accurately predict the outcome of a
spawn between two fish. Unfortunately
that time is long gone. Nowadays, thanks
to constant interbreeding of different
lines of bettas, all carrying different
mutations, we really have no idea what
genes any given betta is carrying. In
addition to this, we don’t know how
many genes are actually involved in
producing many of the traits in bettas.
For example, there may be more than
one gene involved in producing bettas
with the marble phenotype. The first
marble bettas were melanos that lost
their colour, becoming black and white
patched fish. Modern marble bettas can
be any combination of colours. So are
we looking at a mutation in just one gene
that has resulted in the marbling of all
colours, or has a different gene mutated
to produce this effect? Perhaps the
modern marble effect is the result of the
actions of two closely linked genes that
are inherited simultaneously. You get my
point.
The good news is that there are some
traits that we do have a good knowledge
of, or at least understand well enough to
serve our purposes as breeders.
My aim in this chapter is to give you an
outline of the genes that we know about,
as well as some of my own thoughts as
to what might be happening at a genetic
level in certain cases. Hopefully by
studying this chapter you will improve
your understanding of genetics and learn
how to begin predicting the outcome of
spawns (insofar as this is possible). I
want to inspire you to think about how
certain traits might be inherited and test
those theories with your own bettas!
Before we get stuck into it all, I want to
give you a quick overview of what genes
are, how they control the growth and
development of organisms and how they
are passed on from parents to offspring
i.e. how genetic inheritance works. The
field of genetics is incredibly complex,
but thankfully the small part of it that we
as betta breeders need to understand is a
little less so.
DNA
DNA is a ‘polymeric macromolecule’.
This sounds fancy, but in really it isn’t.
A ‘molecule’ is a chemical compound
comprising two or more atoms held
together by chemical bonds. Thus a
water molecule (H2O) is comprised of
two hydrogen atoms bonded to one atom
of oxygen. The term ‘macromolecule’
describe large molecules (makros is the
Ancient Greek word for big) that are
comprised of many smaller molecules. A
‘polymeric’ macromolecule is a
macromolecule in which the smaller
molecules are bonded together in
sequence to form a chain-like structure
(in Ancient Greek poly means many and
meros means parts).
In the case of DNA, the smaller
molecular units that make up the chain
are called ‘nucleotides’. Each
nucleotide has three components: a 5-
carbon sugar (deoxyribose), a phosphate
group, and one of four different
nitrogenous bases (guanine, adenine,
thymine, and cytosine), recorded using
the letters G, A, T, and C. The sequence
in which these four bases occur in a
strand of DNA is incredibly important,
but for now let’s return to the structure of
DNA.
The nucleotides in DNA are arranged in
two long parallel strands that form a
spiral structure called a ‘double helix’.
The appearance of a double helix is
similar to that of an upright ladder that
has been twisted along its vertical axis.
Imagine you and a friend grabbing
opposite ends of a ladder and then
twisting your ends in different
directions. If this were possible you’d
end up with a double helix.
To complete the ladder analogy: Pairs of
nitrogenous bases form the ladder’s
rungs, and the sugar and phosphate
molecules form the two sides of the
ladder. The base pairs forming the rungs
are called ‘complementary pairs’
because the same two nitrogenous bases
always bond to one another. Guanine
always bonds to cytosine (via three
hydrogen bonds); and adenine always
bonds to thymine (via two hydrogen
bonds).
Genome
All of an organism’s DNA, the entire
DNA sequence, is called its ‘genome’.
Pretty much every cell in an organism’s
body has to contain a copy of the genome
within its nucleus, which is the name
given to the dark mass in the centre of a
cell. As a result of this, before cells can
divide, the DNA they contain has to be
duplicated. This is achieved via a
process called ‘DNA replication’. DNA
replication ensures that when a cell
divides to form two daughter cells (a
process called ‘mitosis’), both cells
each contain a full copy of the genome
within their nuclei.
Genes
Located in the DNA sequence of the
genome are specific segments of DNA
that serve as a recipe for making protein
molecules. These segments of DNA are
called ‘genes’. Now, remember when I
said that the sequence of bases in DNA
was incredibly important? The reason
for this is that the DNA sequence of each
gene (i.e. the sequence of nitrogenous
bases making up that gene) contains
discrete groups of three bases in a row
that we call ‘triplets’. So, for example:
A gene with the sequence ATACGCTAA
would contain three triplets: The first
would be ATA; the second CGC; and the
third TAA.
This is where things get interesting. Each
triplet of bases contained within a gene
actually codes for a particular amino
acid to be synthesised. Amino acids are
the building blocks used to make
proteins. Therefore, because proteins
are made up of several amino acid
molecules, the number and sequence of
amino acids coded for by the gene
determines which protein will be
produced.
LET’S RECAP: Genes are segments
of DNA that contain particular base
triplets in a sequence. These triplets
code for a particular sequence of
amino acids to be synthesised and
combined, resulting in the creation of
a particular protein.
Protein synthesis
As we have established, DNA is stored
in the nucleus of a cell. Proteins,
however, are synthesised (made) outside
the nucleus in the ‘cytoplasm’ of the cell.
In order to get the instructions for
making a protein from inside the nucleus
out into the cytoplasm, a given gene has
to be transcribed into a ‘messenger
ribonucleic acid’ (mRNA) molecule, as
mRNA can leave the nucleus. This is
achieved via a process called
‘transcription’. Transcription involves
making an mRNA copy of the sequence
of bases that make up the gene. Once
transcribed, the mRNA is processed so
that any non-coding (junk) parts of it are
removed and it is then transported out of
the nucleus. Outside the nucleus, amino
acids are synthesised in the number and
order dictated by the number and order
of base triplets found on the mRNA (a
process called
‘translation’). These amino acid
molecules are then joined together in a
long chain to make a protein molecule.
Simple, right?
So why all the fuss about proteins? Well,
proteins are tremendously important
molecules in that they do most of the
work in cells and are required for the
structure, function, and regulation of the
body’s tissues and organs in all animals.
Put simply: Proteins are responsible for
how an organism grows and its
appearance.
LET’S RECAP: DNA is a molecule
that stores genetic information in the
form of a sequence of bases (guanine,
cytosine, adenine and thymine). Most
of an organism’s DNA is junk, but
some segments called genes code for
the production of specific proteins by
having a specific sequence of base
triplets. During protein synthesis,
genes are copied as mRNA, which
leaves the nucleus of the cell and is
used as a template to combine amino
acids in the correct sequence to make
particular proteins. These proteins
control how an organism grows and
(importantly for us, as betta breeders)
its appearance.
Genetic mutation
Because genes code for proteins, it
follows that mutations in genes (i.e.
changes in the DNA sequence of genes)
can affect the structure of the proteins
produced (or even prevent the
production of those proteins altogether),
which in turns can have knock-on effects
on how an organism develops. So, in the
case of bettas, a genetic mutation might
change the structure of a protein that is
important in the production of a
particular colour pigment, with the result
that the pigment is either not produced,
or changes colour in some way.
So, what brings about these changes in
the DNA sequence of genes?
Genetic mutations generally come about
as a result of one of the following:
Unrepaired damage to DNA genomes
(typically caused by radiation or
chemical mutagens); errors in DNA
replication; or the insertion or deletion
of segments of DNA by mobile genetic
elements (like the DNA transposons
responsible for the appearance of
marble bettas).
Note that mutations don’t always
affect genes, as they can occur
anywhere within the genome, much of
which is, quite simply, junk that
doesn’t code for anything (i.e. non-
coding sections of DNA).
Where mutations do occur in genes, they
can: a) have no effect; b) alter the
product of the gene; c) prevent the gene
from functioning properly; or d) prevent
the gene from functioning altogether.
Clearly, where mutations do have an
effect, this may result in different
outcomes in terms of an organism’s
appearance (i.e. changes to its
‘phenotype’).
LET’S RECAP: Genetic mutations
result in changes in the DNA sequence
of genes, which in turn have an effect
on the sequence of transcribed mRNA
and thus on the amino acid sequence
of the resulting protein. Changes in
the amino acid sequence can have a
profound effect on the very specific
three-dimensional structure of
proteins, affecting the efficiency with
which they carry out their various
functions.
Let’s explore this in more detail. Where
proteins interact with other molecules,
any change in the shape of one of these
proteins can dramatically affect the
outcome of this interaction. A classic
example of how protein structure is
important is the group of proteins called
‘enzymes’. Enzymes are biological
catalysts, meaning that they speed up the
rate at which metabolic processes and
reactions occur in living organisms,
without taking part in the reaction
themselves. Chemical reactions have an
‘activation energy’, which is the
minimum quantity of energy which the
reacting chemicals must possess in order
to undergo a specific reaction. One way
to reach this activation energy is to
increase the temperature of the
chemicals involved. This is all well and
good in a chemistry lab, but living
organisms tend to have an optimal body
temperature that they try to maintain, so
big increases in temperature are to be
avoided. Enzymes allow the necessary
activation energy required for specific
reactions to take place to be achieved
without the need for an increase in
temperature. Part of this process
involves the enzyme binding temporarily
with one or more ‘substrate’ molecules
in the reaction, at a particular location in
the structure of the enzyme called an
‘active site’.
Each type of enzyme has a different
active site shaped to fit a particular
substrate, or substrates. Thus, if we
change the DNA sequence of the gene
that codes for an enzyme, we ultimately
change the three-dimensional structure of
the enzyme that is synthesised, which
may result in changes in the shape of the
active site. If the substrate (or
substrates) can no longer bond to the
active site, or can only bond partially to
it, as a result of this change, then the
chemical reaction will have no catalyst
and will proceed at a slower rate, or not
at all. Changes in the rate of that one
reaction within a cell will have wide
reaching impacts on a whole suite of
other processes taking place in that cell.
It is this suite of knock-on effects that
results in the changes in phenotype that
we observe, not just the change in the
rate of that one reaction.
What this means is that it is not
necessarily what a single gene does, but
how that gene interacts with other genes
(or more properly, how the product of
that gene interacts with the product of
other genes) during the development of
an organism that results in the
differences we see between organisms
of the same and different species.
Genes, proteins, other chemicals inside
the cell, intercellular interactions and the
external environment all affect the traits
expressed by a particular individual.
Because these traits are built during
development, it is the interactions
between all these factors during
development that determine the final
phenotype of an individual.
If you’re still following this (and I really
hope that you are!) then you will now
have some understanding of how genetic
mutations occur and the effect that they
can have on the function of genes. You
will also have grasped the fact that there
isn’t really such thing as ‘a gene for trait
X’, because it is the interactions
between gene products (proteins) that
result in changes in phenotype.
Genetics can help you produce better bettas, like this
red dragon halfmoon © Kitti Watcharaworatham
Genetic inheritance
The next step in our discussion of
genetics is to look at how genes (and
genetic mutations) are passed on from
parents to their offspring. By
understanding how genes are inherited,
we can start to predict the outcome of
spawns between bettas in our breeding
program, based on the genes we know
(or suspect) those fish to be carrying.
To understand genetic inheritance we
must first return to the nucleus of a cell.
Chromosomes
When cells are not in the process of
replicating themselves, the genome
exists in the nucleus as strands of DNA
called ‘chromatin’ (imagine a tangled
ball of pearl necklaces). When a cell is
preparing to divide, the DNA becomes
coiled into very tight rod-shaped
structures called chromosomes. Within
the nucleus, these chromosomes exist in
pairs, also known as ‘homologous
chromosomes’. One chromosome in each
pair is inherited from an individual’s
father, the other from its mother. It is
important to understand that whilst
homologous chromosomes are similar in
that contain the same genes in the same
location (i.e. the same ‘locus’), they are
not identical. This is because at any
given gene locus the two chromosomes
can carry different alleles of that gene.
Homozygous or
heterozygous?
When homologous chromosomes have
the same allele of a gene at a particular
locus, the individual is said to be
‘homozygous’ for that allele. Where
alleles at a particular locus differ
between chromosomes in a pair, the
individual is said to be ‘heterozygous’
for that allele. Thus an individual can be
homozygous for some alleles and
heterozygous for others, and this
depends entirely on the genes they have
inherited from their parents.
The number of homologous chromosome
pairs in a cell differs between different
species. For example, human cells
contain 23 pairs of homologous
chromosomes (i.e. 46 individual
chromosomes) and betta cells have 21
pairs (i.e. 42 chromosomes).
Cells that contain the full complement of
homologous pairs are called ‘diploid’
cells and cells that contain only one half
of each of the homologous pairs are
called ‘haploid’ cells.
DNA replication
Before cell division takes place, the
rod-shaped chromosomes in the nucleus
copy themselves via a process called
DNA replication. The two identical
copies of each chromosome are called
‘chromatids’ and once formed they are
joined together by a ‘centromere’, which
functions to hold the sister chromatids
together until they separate as part of
cell division. Because the two
chromatids are attached together at the
same point along their length, the new
chromosome takes on a shape similar to
an ‘X’.
IMPORTANT: This new X-shaped
structure is still referred to as a
chromosome (singular) despite being
comprised of two identical chromatids
stuck together.
Mitosis
During normal cell division (i.e.
‘mitosis’), the two identical chromatids
making up each X-shaped chromosome
are pulled apart to opposing sides of the
cell, which then splits down the middle,
resulting in two identical, diploid,
daughter cells. This is all well and good,
but mitosis only allows a cell to create
an identical copy of itself, which by
definition does not allow for any genetic
variation between the two cells. In order
to achieve genetic variation you need to
produce non-identical diploid cells that
contain different versions of genes
inherited from different individuals.
So, how does this happen? How are
particular genes inherited by offspring
from their parents? And what causes the
variation we see between those
offspring?
It all comes down to sex.
Chromosomal crossover
Chromosomal crossover is defined as
the exchange of genetic material between
two homologous chromosomes (i.e. the
two chromosomes making up a pair of
similar chromosomes) in order to
produce ‘recombinant chromosomes’.
The term ‘recombinant chromosome’ is
just a fancy way of describing a
chromosome in which a section of DNA
has broken off and been replaced with
the same section of DNA from another
chromosome (the other chromosome in
the homologous pair).
Let me try to explain how this works in
simple terms: Imagine that two
homologous chromosomes are
represented by two identical X’s made
from wire; one blue and one red. Next
imagine overlapping one arm of the blue
X with one arm of the red X. This would
be the equivalent of sections of the
chromatids making up each chromosome
crossing over with one another. Now,
imagine cutting straight through the point
where the two arms overlap. This would
leave you with two X’s - both with one
arm shorter than the rest - and two
pieces of wire - one red and one blue.
The next step is to glue the short red
piece of wire to the short arm on the
blue X and vice versa with the short
piece of blue wire. Hopefully now you
have two X’s where one is mostly red
with a bit of blue wire at the end of one
arm and the other is mostly blue with a
bit of red wire at the end of one arm.
These new X’s are equivalent to
recombinant chromosomes, where the
exchange in DNA between chromosomes
is represented by the exchanged in the
two small sections of coloured wire. In
fact, several such DNA swaps take place
between matching regions on
homologous chromosomes during
crossover. Importantly, which regions
swap is entirely random.
Once chromosomal crossover has taken
place, the cell divides and the
(now recombinant) homologous
chromosomes are pulled apart into the
two daughter cells. In bettas, each of
these daughter cells would contain 21
chromosomes. Now each of these
chromosomes still comprises two
chromatids joined by a centromere, but
the really important point is that these
chromatids are no longer identical,
thanks to chromosomal crossover. This
is really important, because when the
two daughter cells divide again, what
happens is that the chromatids in each
chromosome are pulled apart, with one
half going to each cell. To use our wire
analogy: Remember we had the mostly
blue X with the short red section on one
arm, and the mostly red X with the blue
section on one arm? Well now imagine
that each of those X’s is inside a circle
that you have drawn around them in
pencil. These circles represent the
nuclei of the two daughter cells
produced after the first division in
meiosis. Now imagine cutting each X in
half vertically (which would be
equivalent to breaking apart the
chromatids of each chromosome) and
pulling the halves apart slightly so they
are separate. Next, rub out the two
circles and draw a circle around each
chromatid. You should now have four
circles, which represent the four nuclei
of the sex cells. These nuclei will
respectively contain a red wire; a blue
wire; a blue wire with a short red
section; and a red wire with a short blue
section. All four are different. Thus, the
end result of meiosis is that each of the
chromosomes in each of the four sex
cells carry a completely different
combination of alleles.
Just think how many times meiosis must
take place to produce the thousands of
sperm released by male bettas during the
act of mating and you will start to
understand the huge degree of genetic
variation between all those sperm.
Remember also that only one sperm can
fertilise each egg, so it really is the luck
of the draw as to what genes a betta fry
ends up inheriting from its parents.
To summarise the key points from this
section: The production of genetically
dissimilar sperm and egg cells via
meiosis is how we explain the huge
variation between individuals of a
species. This variation is clearly
observed at the level of ‘phenotype’,
which is why different bettas look
different to one another, and these
phenotypic differences stem entirely
from differences at the level of
‘genotype’ (i.e. the exact DNA sequence
of an individual) because different bettas
have inherited different alleles from
their parents. Okay, now that we’ve
covered how genes are inherited by
offspring from their parents and where
genetic variation comes from, you are
ready to learn how breeders can, to
some extent, predict the outcome of their
betta spawns. Given the complexity of
the previous discussion, you will no
doubt be relieved to discover that the
secret to predicting spawn outcomes is
in fact relatively simple. It’s time to
learn about Punnett squares.
The Punnett Square
Perhaps the easiest way to calculate the
mathematical probability of inheriting a
specific trait was invented by an early
20th century English geneticist named
Reginald Punnett. The Punnett square is
a simple graphical way of discovering
all of the potential combinations of
genotypes that can occur in offspring,
given the genotypes of their parents. It
also tells us the odds of each of the
genotype occurring in the offspring.
Mendelian inheritance
Punnett squares work because they apply
the first and second principles of
Mendelian inheritance, named after
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), the
Austrian monk who first discovered the
basic principles of heredity through
experiments in his garden, involving pea
plants.
In simple terms, Mendel’s first and
second principles are as follows:
1. The Principle of Segregation: For
any particular trait (e.g. fin length), the
pair of alleles carried by each parent
separate and only one allele from each
parent passes on to an offspring. Which
allele from a parent’s pair of alleles is
inherited is a matter of chance. As we
saw earlier, this segregation of alleles
occurs during the process of sex cell
formation (i.e. meiosis).
2. The Principle of Independent
Assortment: Genes located on different
chromosomes will be inherited
independently of each other. As a result,
if an offspring inherits a particular pair
of alleles for one trait this does not
increase or decrease the likelihood that
it will also inherit a particular pair of
alleles for another trait. So to give an
example for bettas, inheriting the alleles
for steel blue iridescence does not
increase or decrease the likelihood of
that fish also inheriting the alleles for
doubletail (or any other trait you care to
think of).
Alongside these two principles, Mendel
also discovered that the units of
inheritance (genes) often differed in their
dominance relative to one another, with
dominant alleles of a gene being
expressed over recessive alleles in
individuals that carried a copy of each.
Since Mendel’s original experiments,
geneticists have discovered that there
are extensions to Mendelian principles,
including the fact that some alleles are
incompletely dominant, that some genes
are sex-linked, and that some pairs of
genes do not assort independently
because they are physically linked on a
chromosome. Some of these extensions
to Mendel’s principles do apply in
bettas, but for the most part we have
some understanding of the situation.
Constructing a Punnett
Square
The basic Punnett square is incredibly
straightforward to construct. You only
need to know two things: The genotype
of each parent (i.e. which alleles they
carry for the trait you are interested in)
and the relative dominance of those
alleles to one another (i.e. if each allele
is dominant, codominant, partially
dominant, or recessive). Once you know
that, the rest is plain sailing!
So, let’s look at an example. Let’s say
we are interested in the doubletail trait
in bettas and we have two fish: A male
doubletail and a female singletail.
The first step in constructing a Punnett
square is two write down the genotype
of both fish.
The male is doubletail, so must have two
copies of the gene (Td). Therefore, his
genotype is:
TdTd
Note that I have used an upper case ‘T’
for this allele symbol because it is
partially dominant, and dominant alleles
are written with capital letters.
Assuming that the female isn’t a carrier
for doubletail, her genotype will be:
t +t +
Here, the ‘+’ indicates that the allele is
the wild version of the gene (i.e.
singletail). I have used a lower case ‘t’
because the doubletail allele is partially
dominant to the wild type allele.
The next step is to draw our Punnett
square. To draw a Punnett square for
investigating just one trait, you need to
draw a grid with at least four squares.
Leaving the top left cell blank, the
alleles that can be inherited from the
male are written along the top of the grid
and the alleles that can be inherited from
the female are written down the left hand
column. Then the remainder of the table
is filled in by writing down the two
alleles that are in line with each cell of
the table, one allele from the male on the
top row and one allele from the female
in the left column. In our example, the
male can only pass on the doubletail
allele and the female can only pass on
the singletail allele, so the Punnett
square will look like the example
below:
Blue/green colouration
NOTE: Heterozygous fish (BltBls) are
royal blue in colour.
Distribution of iridescence
on body and fins
NOTE: Doesn’t always spread
iridescence to the head.
Distribution of iridescence
on head
NOTE: Homozygous (MkMk) bettas
have full mask covering entire head.
Heterozygous (Mkmk+) bettas show a
variable degree of masking. Carriers
often have metallic iridescent lips!
Metallic iridescence
NOTE: Copper bettas are homozygous
for steel blue AND metallic
(BlsBlsMtMt). Heterozygous fish are
metallic.
Expression of pigment in
skin cells
NOTE: Homozygous marble fish tend to
show more extensive marbling, but the
effect is also seen in heterozygous
individuals. Note that this may not be
the same transposon that affects the
other skin layers!
Red layer
Yellow colouration
NOTE: This is probably only one gene
out of multiple genes that can result in
yellow colouration, as evidenced by the
fact that in some spawns between
yellow bettas, the resulting fry are not
100% yellow.
Orange colouration
Distribution of colour
within the fins
NOTE: The effects of this gene are
highly variable, with the distribution of
colour in the fins changing as the betta
ages.
Expression of pigment in
skin cells
NOTE: Homozygous marble fish tend to
show more extensive marbling, but the
effect is also seen in heterozygous
individuals. Note that this may not be
the same transposon that affects the
other skin layers!
Black layer
Presence of black
pigmentation
NOTE: Bettas that are homozygous for
Cambodian (cc) do not exhibit black
colouration.
Expression of pigment in
skin cells
NOTE: Homozygous marble fish tend to
show more extensive marbling, but the
effect is also seen in heterozygous
individuals. This is the ‘original’
marble gene.
Morphology
Fin webbing
Fin branching
Fin length (not pectorals)
Pectoral length
Tail number
NOTE: Heterozygous fish have wider
and taller dorsal fins and may also
have increased caudal spread.
Adult size
NOTE: Heterozygous fish are half-
giants.
Inbreeding
In general, when talking about domestic
breeding of animals, inbreeding is the
term used where two very closely
related animals are bred to one another
(i.e. brother to sister; or offspring to
parent). The term ‘linebreeding’ is used
for instances of inbreeding where less
closely related animals are bred to one
another (e.g. breeding half-siblings that
share one parent; or breeding uncle to
niece, or aunt to nephew). There is no
hard and fast rule as to when to use
either term, as linebreeding is
technically also inbreeding, but
providing you use the two terms in the
context described above (i.e. inbreeding
for very closely related individuals;
linebreeding for more distantly related
individuals) you should be fine.
So, how is inbreeding a useful tool for
the betta breeder?
Well, to cut a long story short,
inbreeding increases the chances that the
offspring produced from a cross
between two individuals will be
homozygous for any given gene (i.e. will
have identical copies of that gene on
both chromosomes) and that the gene in
question will be inherited from the same
ancestor. In particular, inbreeding
increases the likelihood that traits coded
for by recessive genes will be
expressed, because the offspring are
more likely to inherit one copy of the
recessive allele from each parent.
Remember that each individual has two
copies of any given gene (or, more
correctly, two alleles at each locus on
paired chromosomes), one inherited
from its father and one from its mother.
So the point is that if the father and
mother are related, there is a higher
chance that the two alleles in the
offspring are going to be identical,
inherited by the two related parents from
their common ancestor (i.e. one of the
grandparents; or great grandparents).
Inbreeding can therefore be a very good
thing, as it improves our chances as
breeders of reproducing recessive traits
in the next generation.
Unfortunately, there is a flip side:
Inbreeding will also increase the
chances of two alleles being identical
that result in a negative (or even deadly)
effect in the offspring. Thus, in the case
of genetic disorders that only express
themselves in homozygous recessive
individuals, inbreeding can act to make
these disorders crop up more frequently
over several generations of inbreeding.
Not great for the breeder – or the
animals concerned!
Of course, if there are no such recessive
genetic disorders in your population,
then inbreeding won’t have a negative
effect. But it only takes one random
genetic mutation in the wrong place to
change all that. As a result, breeders
often ‘outcross’ their lines.
Outcrossing
Outcrossing is the opposite of
inbreeding in that it involves breeding
two unrelated individuals. Now, of
course, there is no such thing as two
unrelated animals, as all individuals of
any given species are related to all other
individuals of all other species in some
way - that’s the beauty of evolution.
However, what we generally mean by
unrelated is that the two individuals
being bred don’t share any common
ancestor within at least the last five
generations (usually more).
Outcrossing introduces new genes into a
line, increasing genetic diversity and
thereby reducing the probability of all
individuals being subject to disease and
reducing the incidence of genetic
abnormalities (particularly those
expressed in homozygous recessive
individuals).
In the 1920s, a man called Sewell
Wright developed the ‘inbreeding
coefficient’ as a means of expressing the
probability that both copies of any given
gene are derived from the same ancestor.
The inbreeding coefficient is expressed
as a percentage, with a total outcross
(e.g. a wild betta to a red dragon
HMPK) having an inbreeding coefficient
of 0%. Pairings between related
individuals have higher coefficients the
more closely related the two individuals
are, and the coefficient is affected by the
degree to which the previous generation
or generations were related. Assuming
that the previous generations were
unrelated, breeding brother to sister
gives a coefficient of 50%; breeding
mother to son (or vice versa) gives a
coefficient of 25%; and breeding cousin
to cousin gives a coefficient of 6.25%.
Note that in the total outcross example,
the two fish would still have common
ancestors many generations back (after
all, they are the same species) so would
still be homozygous for some genes
shared by all bettas. What this means is
that even when the inbreeding coefficient
is 0%, matings between unrelated pairs
can still throw up genetic disorders.
An inbreeding coefficient of 100% can
only be achieved if full siblings are bred
to one another over lots of generations.
Such close inbreeding cannot usually be
maintained indefinitely due to the
increased risk of genetic disorders. In
order to avoid this scenario, breeders
usually select pairs that will work to
keep the inbreeding coefficient as low as
possible whilst still allowing them to
produce offspring with the desired traits.
A simple way that this is achieved with
bettas is to select an unrelated pair that
shares the same phenotype. Thus if you
owned several closely related male and
female copper halfmoon bettas and you
wanted to make another generation of
copper halfmoons, then you might
choose to buy an unrelated copper
halfmoon to breed with one of your fish.
As this would be an outcross, the
inbreeding coefficient would be low and
the next generation might well benefit
from the increase in genetic diversity
resulting from this outcross.
However, if all of the available
unrelated copper halfmoons had terrible
form and your particular group of copper
halfmoons has good form, you might
instead decide to continue linebreeding
those copper halfmoons to guarantee
good form in the next generation.
As I have already explained, the risk of
recessive genetic disorders cropping up
in a line increases the more you inbreed
your bettas, but the flip side of this is
that inbreeding gives you more control
over the colour and finnage of each
successive generation. Thus, there is a
fine balance between fixing the traits you
want via inbreeding (or linebreeding)
and making sure your lines don’t get too
inbred by outcrossing.
Interestingly, because inbreeding can
destroy a line, many breeders will make
sure that they regularly outcross fish
from a particular line as a means of
‘banking’ those good genes in other
lines. That way if recessive disorders do
crop up in the original line, they can
always go back to their ‘bank’ and start
again.
A final point worth making is that some
betta lines are, by necessity, more inbred
than others. This particularly applies to
those strains that rely on recessive
alleles for their colouration, such as
opaque white, or strains that have been
developed from a small number of
individuals showing a particular colour
pattern. This is worth bearing in mind
when working with these strains.
Disease
It is a sad fact that all of us who keep
bettas are eventually faced with the
prospect of having to treat them for
disease. Even those of us who keep
meticulously clean tanks and treat their
bettas to regular water changes can’t
escape the fact that as bettas age their
immune systems get weaker and
eventually they succumb to one disease
or another. However, it is far more
common that bettas contract a disease as
a result of poor husbandry on the part of
their keeper.
Prevention is better than
cure
All books that deal with the captive care
of animals will tell you the same thing:
Prevention is better than cure. I couldn’t
agree more.
As I have mentioned before, keeping
bettas healthy is largely down to keeping
their water clean, thereby avoiding the
build-up of toxins and harmful bacteria.
You will recall that the speed at which
water quality deteriorates is directly
related to the size of the tank that your
betta is housed in, and whether or not
that tank has a filter. The bottom line is
this: If you keep your betta tanks clean
and change the water regularly, then your
fish will most likely live a long happy
life. If you let your standards slip, then
you are opening the door to disease.
Unfortunately, the course of life is not
always smooth and inevitably there are
occasions when we are forced to
compromise our husbandry regimes. A
classic example is if you go on holiday
for a week or two and leave your fish in
the hands of someone less experienced
with bettas. When this happens, the fish
often get overfed, which leads to more
waste, which leads to more rapid fouling
of the water, which…you guessed it…
leads to illness.
Note however that bettas, like all
animals, vary in terms of their
susceptibility to disease. Some fish are
very resilient, others are disease
magnets! This variation exists not only
between individual bettas but also
between different strains of bettas. Just
ask any breeder if they observe
differences in health between siblings
from the same spawn that have been kept
in the same water. They will almost
certainly answer that they have. Some
bettas just seem to be weak, presumably
because they have weaker genotypes that
are more sensitive to environmental
changes.
On the subject of weaker genotypes, I
want to clear something up. Often people
complain that fish they’ve imported from
overseas (or even had posted to them
from the same country) are weak and
susceptible to disease, because they
rapidly decline in health for no obvious
reason once they are in the buyer’s care.
Commonly the buyers that make this
complaint already have several bettas in
their care that are all perfectly healthy,
so the only explanation for the death of
their new fish is that it was from poor
quality stock, right? Not necessarily.
In my opinion this issue has very little to
do with how ‘weak’ those fish are and a
lot to do with the difference in chemistry
between the water used by the seller and
that used by the buyer. Often fish that we
have kept for a long time have grown up
in our local water and may also be
accustomed to a somewhat less stringent
husbandry regime. Most exporters of
bettas have staff (or family members)
who clean out their betta containers on a
daily basis. What this means is that when
a newly imported fish is introduced into
its new home it has to deal with two
things: Firstly, the water will have
different chemical properties to the
water the fish has been posted in; and
secondly the water may not be as clean
as what the fish is used to.
The trick to solving this problem of
newly imported bettas succumbing to
chemical shock is to keep the betta in the
water it was posted in overnight and
then add small amounts of your local
water to the betta’s container over the
course of a few hours. This is very easy
if you have a heated fishroom, as you
simply pour the betta and its water into a
small container, leave the container
overnight to heat up and then start adding
a little of your own water bit by bit until
the container is full.
If you have a tank with a heater then you
can do the same thing by floating the bag
containing the betta and the water it was
posted in inside the tank (with the bag
open and the edges rolled down so the
bag floats). You then add water bit by bit
to the bag until it is full and then let your
betta out into its new home. The reason
for doing this is to allow the betta to
very slowly acclimatise to your water
conditions, which avoids it being
shocked by the sudden change in water
chemistry that would occur if you just
dumped the fish into its new tank. Once
acclimatised, your new betta should be
every bit as happy as all your other fish.
Identifying illness
I know that I have said this over and
over again during the course of this
book, but it’s so fundamental to
successfully keeping bettas that I’m
going to say it again: You need to know
your fish. Knowing the behaviour of
each betta is
very useful when it comes to breeding
bettas, but it is absolutely essential for
recognising when your betta is unwell. If
you know how your betta behaves when
he or she is content, it will be blindingly
obvious when something is wrong. Here
is a list of behavioural things to look out
for that usually mean your betta is sick:
Lethargy
Loss of appetite
Lying on the bottom of the tank
Difficulty swimming
Laboured breathing
Permanent horizontal stress stripes
Flicking against tank décor
WATER CONDITIONS
Poisoning
A poor water changing regime can
quickly result in high levels of ammonia,
nitrate or nitrite in your betta’s container,
which can poison your betta.
Symptoms: Watch for fish spending a
significant amount of time at the water
surface (more than usual), gasping for
air. This may be accompanied by
clamped fins.
Treatment: Buy an aquarium water test
kit and check the levels of ammonia,
nitrate and nitrite. If the test confirms
toxic levels, perform a large water
change with fresh water that has either
been aged (to allow chlorine to
evaporate) or treated with chlorine
remover. If this problem occurs
frequently your water supply may have a
high nitrate concentration already, so it’s
worth testing the water fresh from the
tap. If this is the problem then consider
using rain water or bottled water to keep
your bettas.
Prevention: Regular water changes.
FUNGAL INFECTIONS
Fungus
Symptoms: White cotton-wool-like like
patches on the body or head. Contagious.
Treatment: 100% water change
followed by treatment with an over-the-
counter fish medication designed to treat
fungus (there are many brands). Follow
the manufacturer’s instructions for
dosage.
Prevention: Consider adding 100%
aquarium salt or sea salt solution to your
betta’s water at a rate of 1 teaspoon per
10 litres of water.
Fin rot
Symptoms: Fins look like they are being
eaten away at the edges and take on a
ragged appearance. Contagious.
Treatment: 100% water change
followed by treatment with an over-the-
counter fish medication designed to treat
fungus (there are many brands). Follow
the manufacturer’s instructions for
dosage. Regular large water changes
should be carried out every other day
until the fins start to regrow. Adding
almond leaf to the water after each water
change can help as the leaves release
chemicals with antibiotic properties.
Fin rot is easily treated if diagnosed
early enough, with the fins growing back
to their former size (although often the
damaged areas that grow back are
cellophane).
Prevention: Keep on top of your water
changes! The most common cause of fin
rot in bettas is dirty water.
PARASITIC INFECTIONS
White spot (Ichthyophthirius
multifiliis) a.k.a. Ich
Ich is a freshwater protozoon parasite
that spends part of its life cycle living on
the skin of fish and feeding on the tissue.
It is present in most aquariums, but
healthy fish are typically immune to
infection. The parasite can only take
hold when changes in the aquatic
environment such as poor water
conditions, or extreme fluctuations in
temperature, weaken the fish’s immune
system, making it susceptible to
infection.
Symptoms: Tiny white spots all over the
body and head. Fish affected with white
spot often exhibit reduced activity, loss
of appetite and clamped fins. They may
also flick against décor in the tank in an
attempt to dislodge the parasites. Highly
contagious.
Treatment: The white spot parasite is
temperature-sensitive. Treatment
therefore involves raising the water
temperature (up to a maximum of 30˚C)
followed by treatment with an over-the-
counter fish medication designed to treat
white spot (there are many brands).
Prevention: Quarantine all new fish
before allowing them to come into
contact you’re your existing bettas.
Consider adding 100% aquarium salt or
sea salt solution to your betta’s water at
a rate of 1 teaspoon per 10 litres of
water.
Slime disease
Slime disease is the name given to
various parasitic infections of the skin
that cause freshwater aquarium fish to
produce abnormally high quantities of
mucus, hence the term ‘slime’. Slime
disease weakens a fish’s immune system
making the fish vulnerable to potentially
lethal secondary infections. In aquarium
fish this disease can be caused by
several different protozoan parasites
including Ichthyobodo necator,
Ichthyobodo pyriformis, Chilodonella
spp., and Trichodina spp.
The lifecycle of the parasites that cause
slime disease is roughly similar to that
of Oodinium discussed above. Rapid
treatment is essential to avoid the risk of
lethal secondary infections taking hold.
Symptoms: Abnormally high quantities
of white mucus on the body.
Treatment: Treatment with over-the-
counter medications for slime disease
according to the manufacturer’s
instructions.
Prevention: Keep on top of water
changes!
Internal parasites
Internal parasites take much of the
energy out of a betta’s food before it has
time to digest it. As a result the betta
obtains fewer nutrients from each meal,
causing it to lose weight and become
less active. Betta keepers need to be
especially vigilant of their betta’s
behaviour in order to notice this change
early enough to treat the condition
effectively.
Symptoms: Weight loss despite normal
eating, coupled with lethargy (but not
always). Contagious.
Treatment: 100% water change. Add
100% aquarium salt (or sea salt)
solution at a rate of 1 teaspoon per 10
litres of water. Repeat water changes
every other day. If there is no
improvement over a few days and you
have access to antibiotics, then treat
with antibiotics. Otherwise, there are
over-the-counter treatments for internal
parasites that you can also try. Follow
the manufacturer’s instructions.
Prevention: Quarantine all new fish
before allowing them to come into
contact you’re your existing bettas.
Consider adding 100% aquarium salt or
sea salt solution to your betta’s water at
a rate of 1 teaspoon per 10 litres of
water.
BACTERIAL INFECTIONS
Columnaris (Flexibacter
columnaris)
Columnaris is a common bacterial
infection in aquarium fish, largely due to
the fact that the bacteria that cause it are
present in the majority aquariums.
However, fish are only susceptible to
infection when their immune systems
have been compromised by factors such
as stress, poor water conditions, poor
handling or sudden fluctuations in
temperature.
Columnaris infection is often mistaken
for a fungal infection because of the
appearance of the mould-like lesions
that it causes. The disease can be
internal, but is usually external,
occurring in two forms: chronic and
acute. Lesions in chronic cases spread
slowly and take several days to bring
about the death of a fish. In acute cases
the lesions spread quickly and can wipe
out entire populations of fish within
hours. The rate of infection increases
with increasing water temperature.
Symptoms: Most columnaris infections
are external and first appear as white or
greyish-white spots on the head and
around the fins or gills. The first lesions
appear as pale patches on the skin that
lack the normal shiny appearance of the
rest of the fish. Lesions on the back
commonly extend down the sides of the
fish, giving the appearance of a saddle.
Mouth lesions can look like cotton wool,
and will eventually eat the mouth away.
The fins will erode and have a frayed
appearance as the infection progresses.
Less commonly, the infection is internal
and displays no external symptoms.
Treatment: 100% water change. Add
100% salt solution at a rate of 1
teaspoon per 10 litres of water. Treat
with either a copper sulphate medication
or antibiotics (if you have access to
them) according to the manufacturer’s
instructions
Prevention: Quarantine all new fish
before allowing them to come into
contact with your existing bettas. Keep
on top of water changes!
Popeye
Popeye is a gram-positive bacterial
infection that causes the fish’s eye(s) to
swell and protrude from the socket. It is
most commonly caused by dirty water as
a result of poor husbandry (i.e. not
enough regular water changes).
Symptoms: One or both of the fish’s
eyes is swollen and bulging out if its
socket. The fish may otherwise behave
completely normally.
Treatment: 100% water change and add
100% aquarium salt or sea salt solution
at a rate of 1 teaspoon per 10 litres of
water. Change the water every other day
until you see a reduction in swelling.
Popeye is not normally fatal if diagnosed
early enough. Severe cases should be
treated with antibiotics at the
manufacturer’s recommended dose
(mostly to rule out the possibility of a
more sinister infection).
Prevention: Keep on top of water
changes!
Dropsy
Not strictly a disease, but a symptom of
severe bacterial infection that often
leads to kidney failure and death.
Symptoms: Bloated stomach and raised
scales, giving the fish the appearance of
a pine cone. Almost always fatal, can be
contagious if triggered by poor water
conditions.
Treatment: There is no reliable cure for
dropsy.
Prevention: Keep on top of water
changes!
OTHER
Swim bladder disorder
(a.k.a. SBD)
Loss of correct swim bladder function is
usually caused by overfeeding (in betta
fry this is most commonly linked to
overfeeding of baby brineshrimp). Swim
bladder disorder can also occur in
female bettas as a result of damage
sustained during courtship.
Symptoms: Bettas with swim bladder
disorder have difficulty maintaining their
position in the water column because
their swim bladder has either increased
or decreased in size. When the swim
bladder has decreased in size, the betta
finds it hard to swim upwards and as a
result will tend to rest on the bottom of
the tank. If the swim bladder has
increased in size, the betta will tend to
float at the surface, unable to swim
down to the substrate. Rarely fatal, not
contagious.
Treatment: Bettas with swim bladder
disorder often recover on their own over
time. This is especially true of young fry.
In my experience it is much rarer for an
adult fish with swim bladder disorder to
recover.
You can increase the likelihood of
recovery by feeding the affected fish less
(or imposing a 24 hour fast) and making
sure that when you do feed you are
offering a variety of different foods. In
the case of so-called ‘belly sliders’ that
spend all their time resting on the floor
of the tank, lowering the water level can
be helpful as it helps them reach the
surface to breathe atmospheric air more
easily.
Prevention: Feed fry and adults a
varied diet.
My approach to the
treatment of diseases in
bettas
Although the above list of diseases is
quite long, in my experience bettas only
really suffer from four of the above
conditions on a regular basis: white
spot; velvet (especially young fry); fin
rot; and dropsy. As we have seen, the
first two parasitic infections are readily
treated with over-the-counter
medications and an increase in water
temperature. Fin rot is also easy to treat
with regular water changes and
antifungal medication. Sadly, dropsy is
incurable, so once your fish has dropsy
it’s time to think about euthanasia. Yes,
you could wait for the fish to die
‘naturally’, but this can take weeks and
it’s a really sad thing to watch. I speak
from experience.
In my opinion, it is pretty rare for bettas
obtained from reputable sources,
carefully acclimatised and kept in good
conditions to suffer from any of the other
diseases mentioned in the table. Of
course there are exceptions and on
occasion fish are imported or bought
from shops that carry such diseases.
I did have one horrendous experience
several years ago when fish I had bought
from a local breeder carried with them
columnaris, which ate away the body
tissue, leaving huge holes in the sides of
the fish and rapidly killing them off. So
bad was this infection that it killed my
entire betta collection over the course of
a few weeks. Needless to say, I had a
long break from keeping bettas after that
experience. It was awful, but it taught me
a very valuable lesson: If the first rule of
keeping bettas healthy is that prevention
is better than cure, the second rule has to
be that you must quarantine all new
bettas in isolation before you let them
anywhere near your existing bettas.
I have seen so many of my fellow betta
keepers heartbroken because they forgot
to observe this rule. Take it from me,
there is nothing worse than watching all
of your beautiful fish deteriorate before
your eyes.
Many of the worst diseases require
treatment with antibiotics. As these are
no longer available over the counter in
the UK, I tend to take the approach that if
a fish has something this nasty and isn’t
responding to any of the medication I
have tried, then it’s probably time to
euthanise it. I don’t imagine many
veterinarians have the time or expertise
to treat sick bettas, nor would I want to
pay the price of the consultation when
that money could be put to better use
purchasing new, healthy stock.
The final piece of advice I want to give
you is about this incredible, magical,
substance that can fix almost any sick
betta in the early stages of disease. It’s
like a wonder-drug, except much, much
cheaper, more readily available and
probably more effective. So, what is this
incredible substance?
Salt.
Plain old salt.
To clarify, I’m talking about aquarium or
sea salt, not the nasty processed stuff you
buy in the supermarket labelled as ‘table
salt’.
The effect that 100% salt solution can
have on a sick betta is truly amazing.
It may sound crazy, but 100% salt
solution is probably the most useful
medication I use and it is certainly the
one I use most often. Whenever I notice
one of my bettas looking a bit miserable
for whatever reason, I always start by
adding salt solution to its container.
To make a 100% salt solution, take a jar
and add a few heaped tablespoons of sea
salt into it. Then fill the jar with water,
put the lid on and shake it as hard as you
can for a few minutes, until no more of
the salt dissolves into the water and the
undissolved crystals are left sitting on
the bottom of the jar. Store it somewhere
safe.
The next time you notice one of your
bettas is sick, do a 100% water change
(if it is in a tank with other fish, isolate it
in a separate container with fresh, aged
water - you can float this container in the
main tank to keep the water at the right
temperature). Now add 100% salt
solution to the fresh water at a rate of 1
teaspoon per 10 litres of water.
Providing that you have acted early
enough (and the disease isn’t one of the
really nasty ones) your betta should start
to show an improvement within 12
hours. You can then capitulate on this
improvement by doing more water
changes until your betta is back to
normal. Simple!
No-one is quite sure how salt has such a
healing effect, but I have a theory is that
the sodium in the salt acts on boosting
the fish’s nervous system, which
improves its ability to fight off illness.
The salt may also negatively affect
whatever pathogen is attacking the fish,
weakening it and again allowing the
fish’s immune system to fight back.
Whatever the true explanation, all I can
say
is that salt has saved a whole bunch fish
in my fishroom and pretty much every
betta breeder I know uses salt as part of
their betta medicine cabinet.
Salt solution works even more
effectively when you increase the water
temperature. Again, this increase in
temperature probably has the effect of
increasing the fish’s metabolism
(enzymes can work better at higher
temperatures), thereby helping the fish
fight off the disease.
So there is it. The final bit of advice I
have to give you about bettas. May this
and all of the other advice I have given
you in these pages help you to make the
most of this amazing, challenging, and
gratifying hobby that so many others just
like you have come to love so much.
Parting words
I can’t take any credit for most of the
information in this book. My role as its
author has been to combine the
collective knowledge of some of the
world’s most influential betta keepers in
the hope that it will help you to be a
better keeper and breeder of bettas.
Without the hard work of these pioneers
of the betta world in improving our
understanding of betta genetics and in
promoting the importance of good form,
we simply wouldn’t have the incredible
variety of bettas that are available today,
nor would we understand how best to
maintain them.
With that in mind I would like to thank
the following people for making
available so much of the information
without which this book would not have
been possible: Walt Maurus, for writing
A Complete Guide to Bettas and giving
me the betta bug in the first place; Dr
Gene Lucas, for all of his wonderful
research into bettas and their genetics;
Victoria Parnell-Stark, for letting me
rehash her wonderful account of how the
halfmoon came to be; Precha
Jintasaerewonge, for his vast knowledge
of fighter plakats (see
www.plakatthai.com); Dr Robert J.
Goldstein, for writing The Betta
Handbook and opening my eyes to the
chemistry of pigmentation; and, of
course, my friend Joep van Esch, for his
incredible contribution to the modern
betta hobby via the Betta Territory, the
Bettas4All Forum and the Bettas4All
Standard.
Any book about bettas is worthless
without photographs, so I would also
like to thank all of the professional
breeders and fellow hobbyists who have
been so incredibly generous in allowing
me to use their beautiful photos to
illustrate this book. I am overwhelmed
by your generosity and can only hope
that this book does your photos justice.
There are three more people I need to
thank: The first is my darling wife
Amber, for indulging my betta obsession,
allowing me the time to write this book
and never doubting that I would finish it;
the second is Jym, my wonderful
creative brother, who by a strange twist
of fate was the catalyst for this whole
project; and the third is you, for taking
the time to read this book.
Thanks. I really appreciate it.
If you enjoyed this book, then please
leave
a review on Amazon so that others can
find it and benefit from it too.