Certain colors easier to breed?

[indjo]

Bettas we know of today have been excessively mixed bred - regardless whether they were bred for quantity or quality. You will have a hard time finding a betta with "true" genes. One side effect is that modern type bettas are often harder to breed. So, IMO, it's not about certain types but rather ALL modern types (HM,PK,CT, etc). .... If you know someone breeding fighters/wild type PK/ traditional PK, you can compare their results to that of modern types and understand what I mean.

Some colors are harder to achieve than others. The basic colors are irids, cherry red, and black + cambodian. Combine them and you will get wild type colorings. But to achieve desired colors/patterns isn't as easy as it looks. Black melano's are harder to achieve because most, if not all, melano females are infertile. Thus you will have to constantly cross breed melano males to other colors (usually royal blue). Bright red is also hard to maintain because it is actually a mixture of genetic codes (red + blond). The same goes for white, yellow, orange, and other colors.

Certain patterns like a multi 3 - 4 color, a balanced butterfly, etc are also hard to maintain. Unless you start with the desired mutated genes, you will have a hard time creating them.

I agree with Basement Betta, breed colors that you love - that alone will give you a number of colors to choose from - specially if you work with combined genetic colors (bright red, white, yellow, orange, fancy multi, metallic, dragon, etc.)

[Joelouisvachon]

With cat genes white is covering a different color, breeding two white cats you could still get other colors that the parents are hiding. This can happen with betta fish too, right? That's what I think you mean by mixed bred. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I know more about budgie genetics and cat genetics than betta fish genetics...

[teeneythebetta]

Originally Posted by Joelouisvachon

With cat genes white is covering a different color, breeding two white cats you could still get other colors that the parents are hiding. This can happen with betta fish too, right? That's what I think you mean by mixed bred. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I know more about budgie genetics and cat genetics than betta fish genetics...

Correct. That is why most don't reccomend breeding pet store betta fish- their genetic history is unknown..

[Joelouisvachon]

I also wouldn't breed my pet store's betta fish anyway, they are not up to show quality, all VTs with some problem or other. I just buy from them for pets.

[Bambi]

part of the issue with some colors being easier to breed then others is availability and which ones breed true.

Like..say you wanted to breed orange dalmatians, I don't believe they breed true(orange dal to orange dal doesn't produce orange dal fry).
orange dalmatians are also harder to come by, especially breeding quality ones.

On the flip side, look at royal blues. You can fairly easily find a pair of these from set lines that'll produce blues(steel and more royals usually, my last pair gave me a blond that was quite pretty).

[Basement Bettas]

Originally Posted by Joelouisvachon

No, this is what I was referring to:

"Not all strains were created equal :) and some of them are much more challenging than others. Melanos are a good example and very often will be hard to spawn. Halfmoon males are also notorious for being horrible breeders. My advice is:
Pick a strain according to your bettabilities. If you are just starting, pick one that is easier to breed even if it's not your favorite color. One has to start somewhere and you still have alot of learning to do. Later when you know what you are doing (as if we EVER do! LOL) then you can move to fancier,
rarer and more fragile, tempermental and exspensive strains."

Black is one of the hardest colors because of the female issues. The blues are pretty easy and if you get fish without patterned fish in their genetics you can rest assured you will get blue [blue/steel/turq] fish. Reds now have Cambodian in them so you tend to get reds, light reds, cambos and splotchy reds. Butterflies are marble based so you get lots of patterned fish. Need to breed marble to solid to get the best patterns. Don't know about pastel.. will let you know in a few generations. Most of the stuff you get from AB, even the solids, have patterened fish in their background so be prepared for some "work" no matter what color you get. Trying to breed some pretty AB fish that is an odd color will probably get you lots of multis and nothing close to what you started with.