Which color pairing tends to give the most variety?

[purplemuffin]

Just a curious question of mine. I was thinking about bettas and their colors and how not everyone has the same preferences (some are frightened by the clear ones while others fall for them, some prefer solids and some like marbles or multis) and I was thinking about what it's like if you were to successfully raise 100 fry..that are all nearly the same color and pattern wise!

I really like seeing a lot of variety, as I don't have a specific color that is my favorite, I just like to see lots of colors of different fish!

I was curious what pairing in your experience has led to the most baffling amount of colors and patterns in a single spawn? I've seen multi pairings where all the babies were nearly identical, each having a lot of colors--but each having the same colors and near same pattern. And yet I'll see two bettas of the same color have babies of all sorts of colors!

I guess it comes down to the genetics of the colors, huh. I know certain colors, like purple, are a mix of blues and reds and all those genes mixing perfectly, which is why they don't usually throw purple babies.


Sorry I ask so many random questions on here! Just random thoughts that run through my head!

[indjo]

Results from combination of colors will usually yield a variety of colors. But of all the colors I've worked with, dragons (specially combos) will produce a lot of outcomes - specially the red dragon.

Red dragon - not the clean ones, but the ones with white/metalic rays on fins will produce white, yellow, gold, orange, and of course red dragons - both combination and clean. All of these would show in one single spawn.

Combine that with a black dragon should (haven't tried) give you the above, black coppers, copper, black drg, white-black/gray colors. Not all of these would show in one spawn.

I combined a white platinum (not clean from a dragon line) with a copper and got white, yellow, gold, and red both drg and mere metallic plus cambodian colors both red and blue/green, grizzled (?), coppers, green/turquoise, marbles, sort of green mustard gas, plus a few other colors I don't know what to call..... This was the most varied outcome I've ever experienced. I usually only get 2 or 3 colors in a spawn.

[beat2020]

Well I don't really have a lot of experience with variety in a spawn as I only had two "succesful" spawns and one produced 6 multis and one MG and the other produced 100% MG (About 70 fish).

However I do know from reading that pretty much...

Red x Red will give you reds and cambodians.

MG's from MG lines will give you 100% MG

All depends on genetics. I would guess that breeding something like a marble to a multi (both from unrelated lines) should give you a nice variety of colors and patterns.

[Bambi]

Any two unrelated fish who have different colors will throw multies, lots of variety.

Even breeding similar fish you'll get some who look nothing like the parents becausethe grandparents might have been different.

I bred a multi to a butterfly and got alot of colors, blues red butterflies, marbles red and blue cambodians, a white, a few cellophane... xD

Thats why people try to breed like colors or avoid pet store bettas, because otherwise you can't predict the outcome.
if you go buy a nice pair of petstore bettas, a male you like and a female you like, you'll get multies and variety because of the mixed backgrounds.

[1fish2fish]

If you want variety.. go with multicolors (especially Karen's ).

In a cross between a "purple" (red/blue) butterfly HM and a pastel/yellow HM Fem. I got:
yellow
yellow butterfly
"purple" butterfly
Mustard gas
turquoise butterfly
turquoise multicolor
cellophane (which later marbled into a red marble)
steel blue
cambodian