Good pair?

[smellsfishie]

I am trying to match up a male for my female koi betta. I found this male, he is a "fantasy" betta. They are both HMPK. If I breed these two, will I get babies with red, yellow and black spots/splashes? Also, am I ruining the "koi"/"fantasy" trait by mixing the two, or does it not really matter? I don't understand how the color/pattern names are decided, if there is more than one kind in the same spawn, or if I need to breed koi to koi and fantasy to fantasy etc...

My Koi Female



The Fantasy Male

[MrVampire181]

Marbles are marbles. It will be an interesting spawn. Also dont be fooled by the fancy names you'll see...just a gimmick to make money.

[leeb62]

From what I read online read is the dominant color so most of your frys will probably have the red instead of the yellow and black you see. You can read more online by google it.

[MrVampire181]

Personally I think you'll get a lot of red and marble based black.

[smellsfishie]

What makes a fish a marble? Hmm, if they are mostly red I might pass. I want both red and yellow.

[indjo]

IMO those are exceptional mutations. Even if you breed 2 of the same kind you may not get specific patterns like the parents. Never the less the offspring has that mutating gene and will show similar coloring.

A marble is when the fish changes color from it's original color when young. Most often marbles turn into a pale/whitish pattern. Recently I came up with marbles that sort of turned pale and eventually became reddish (from copper).

I don't really like marbles because it's unpredictable. They change color patterns that I like. Some marbles change partially while others may change totally....... I don't know how to best describe it - unpredictable.

I wouldn't mix yellow to red. For yellow to appear you need non red gene (Nr) which is recessive towards red. It would be more probable to mix marble, red cambodian, and yellow or something containing such genes.... I'm not sure. I don't think I've ever seen one fish having both yellow and red colors. So I assume that those colors don't mix - you either have one or the other... but then again new mutations may occur.... who knows.

Good luck.

[Sanka101]

Id breed that female to a nice yellow or yellow marble.. the red is dominant like others have said and youll probs get mostly red marbles.. you may get a few like the mom but its a bit of a gamble..

[smellsfishie]

If I bred the female to a solid yellow, do you think there would be mostly solid yellows or a mix of solids and splashes/spotted ones?

Thanks, everyone, for all the advice so far.

[1fish2fish]

When dealing with marbles it's a total crapshoot. Your female could end up being totally clear or totally black or even decide she wants to turn blue. You just have to pick marbles based on fins and colors you'd hope to have and then cross your fingers and see what results.

I suggest you do a little more research on color genetics before jumping into a pair. You want to have at least a basic idea of what you're working with.

[indjo]

Originally Posted by smellsfishie

If I bred the female to a solid yellow, do you think there would be mostly solid yellows or a mix of solids and splashes/spotted ones?

Thanks, everyone, for all the advice so far.

What ever you breed those with, you'd most probably get more with mixed colors. Other than the recessive yellow, you have marble genes... unpredictable.

Yellow is very recessive (I think). I bred 2 generations - copper x yellow then F1 to yellow - but none turned out yellow. So IMO, you need parents with very strong yellow genes.... or what ever its called.... to get yellow offspring.

I second 1f2f that it would be best for you to read more on color genetics, particularly yellow. Because though the fish may show a single yellow color, it's actually comprised of many genetic codes...... I've been reading all I can find on yellow/gold and still don't understand.... lol. I often think that the Mendelian theory doesn't apply to betta genetics. lol.