Crackhead Johny Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Well the first batch is growing nicely. My goal is to breed females with fins like males. I suspect culls will go to craigslist or get donated to a local betta shop. Since the babies began swimming around only 1 has died (had a large scrape on its side) and 2 have lost an eye (someone in the tank is a jerk). Pirate Pete and Cyclops have been separated and are in a bowl. At this point I'm looking to build a large sorority tank (75gal?) for the females and run heated tubs or some custom power filtered acrylic for the males that get kept as breeding stock. At this point I'm thinking that with 2 males to start and then next gen will be between their off spring, that will give me time to find an additional females with massive fins. Unfortunately the 3rd male is a diamond eye and so unsuitable for breeding (his lineage is highly questionable to boot). So he will live out his life alone, wearing his blue chrome sunglasses in a Spec 3. It is really too bad that the chrome sunglasses look has nearly blinded him. adrand, Shrimp Life and Louie 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soothing Shrimp Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Love your idea of the direction to breed! What's a diamond eye? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jem_xxiii Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 these are pretty sweet. I have always been a sucker for koi patterned bettas myself. What color were the parents of these offsprings? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adrand Posted February 17, 2016 Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Diamond eye? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted February 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 Diamond eye? You will have to pardon the picture as my phone take 3 sec to take the pic and during the time the fish moves. this was the best of 6 pics. This should give you an idea of how the blue chrome sunglasses look. As I understand it is a recessive trait in dragon scale bettas and that it is scales growing over the eye. What this means is that the fish goes blind. Due to the blindness it is unethical to breed these. Kind of like breeding blue collies to blue collies trying to get white collies and just euthanizing all the blind pups. If this is true, it is even worse when you find ebay sellers selling "rare" diamond eye bettas. Louie and Soothing Shrimp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted February 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2016 these are pretty sweet. I have always been a sucker for koi patterned bettas myself. What color were the parents of these offsprings? The male is the big red one in the baby pics. He is pretty but unbelievably stupid. He will have to be removed soon or will starve as the babies eat all the food before he can find it. The female is smart as a whip and fast like one.. so getting anything like a pic is hard.She is also a complete pig who tells anyone who comes near the tank that we haven't fed her in years. As she is so charming this gets her fed again. We have been warned that she may become too big for a normal betta to wrap if we keep giving her food when she wants it. in the dual tank photo you can see her in the back of the right hand tank. that is a female betta not a male. in the other pic she is the big colorful out of focus blob who is speeding along rather than flaring her fins like she was told. The fin damage is from the mating 3-4 weeks ago. In this breeding I hope to get females with bigger fins. I'm especially hoping the full moon (double tail half moon) genes do something interesting. As a side note: In my original post, is that plant on the metal mesh on the ground in the front of the first and 3rd pic, riccia? I'm cultivating it to figure out what it is as I found it and another moss in my fissidens. Louie 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adrand Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 You will have to pardon the picture as my phone take 3 sec to take the pic and during the time the fish moves. this was the best of 6 pics. This should give you an idea of how the blue chrome sunglasses look. As I understand it is a recessive trait in dragon scale bettas and that it is scales growing over the eye. What this means is that the fish goes blind. Due to the blindness it is unethical to breed these. Kind of like breeding blue collies to blue collies trying to get white collies and just euthanizing all the blind pups. If this is true, it is even worse when you find ebay sellers selling "rare" diamond eye bettas. Wow thanks for the info, something Ive never heard of before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted February 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 Here is a you tube video of someone's diamond eye Louie 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted March 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2016 Sadly the female betta was dead this morning. She has become lethargic and was as big as an ore barge. She had developed what looked like pectoral muscles she was so big. So we didn't feed her the last 2 days thinking that this was obesity. My wife took her out of the tank and squeezed her and all this was eggs (popped out of the fish and not through her egg spot). I'm not sure if female bettas can fill with eggs until they die of if the fish had a medical issue that kept the eggs from coming out. A real shame as she was the best looking female betta I have seen. She also had tons of great personality. A real bummer to wake up to. Soothing Shrimp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soothing Shrimp Posted March 25, 2016 Report Share Posted March 25, 2016 I'm sorry to hear about this. Thanks for the update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShrimpP Posted March 25, 2016 Report Share Posted March 25, 2016 Sorry to hear. Are the eggs able to be saved? How do the diamond eye bettas fare? Does it appear they really are blind (running into things, can't find food very easy, etc)? Or do you still think they can somewhat see through that "scale" layer over their eyes (I know fish can still smell food and feel vibrations throughout the water)? Unbalanced osmotic regulation can lead to fluid retention causing bloat. So can eating too much plant matter (I hear some bettas love duckweed). There is dropsy as well (where the scales pineconing?). Were there a ton more eggs than a normal batch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted March 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2016 Can't save the eggs. She was dead when we found her. Besides the process of fertilizing them the artificial way would have required sacrificing another fish. She had way more than normal egg wise, like a full size male betta worth of eggs in her. He body was so swollen that it looked like she had a chest and pectoral muscles. When my wife was gently squeezing the fish's corpse they burst out the side of it. My wife has done some research since then and has found that they should be fed less and if they plug up it is "possible" to gently get them to express the eggs so they do not die. As for diamond eye I get the idea that the fish lives in a world of shadows vision wise. he can find food if I take the top off the tank and tap the water and then drop the food within an inch of his face. Sometimes I can just move my hand around and get him in a position to drop food within an inch of his face. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted May 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2016 Well all the babies are now orphans. Sadly the father Dumb Dumb was just found dead. He seems to be fine except for having shifted off the mortal coil. Can male betta's fins kill them with exhaustion? One of the local betta shops suggested that with show bettas that their fins should be cut short when they are not showing. This is Dumb Dumb Jr (who like his father. is sadly a very stupid betta.. I have a whole tank with lots of smart ones, he just didn't win that genetic lotto). He has proportionally about 1/3 of his father's finnage (Dad was a fish body in a cloud of fins and the fins were still growing actively). Should I prune him? Yes teh photos do not show off his fins well as it takes my phone 5 seconds to go click from the time I hit the button. 1 second perfect, 2 seconds perfect, 3 seconds perfect, 4 seconds perfect, fish completely moves and turns, click. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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