Inbreeding?

[dman]

Is it safe to breed to sibling bettas together? I always wondered why diagrams or inbreeding examples are always, the offspring to the father or offspring to the mother.

[MrVampire181]

It's 100% safe as long as you outcross after five or six generations.

[dman]

Thank you for the info :D

[MaisyDawgThirteen]

Mr. V - By outcross you mean breeding to a un-related fish? Sorry, I'm a total n00b. lol

[Megalechis]

Many breeders actually sell a brother and sister together for you to carry on the traits! So long as it's not excessive (ie. Only planning on breeding siblings forever.) it's usually fine.

There are some breeders who merely don't like such a close relationship, as we're taught as we grow up that incest is morally wrong. (In fact, the entire genetics unit my Biology teacher would sigh whenever we were forced to do a Punnett Square for related individuals.) However, it's one of the best ways to carry on desired traits into the next generation, and most breeds and desired variations of dosmeticated animal are brought in by some variation of breeding with siblings and parents.

[Sena Hansler]

Yes that is what Mr Vampire means. What "inbreeding" is, is line breeding to create the color, finnage or look you want if the fry and their parent have it. You'll need to introduce new blood to the line, to avoid deformities :)

[MrVampire181]

Brother-sister crosses often wash out traits. What you want is a brother-sister pair, then take their offspring, and breed back to them. Then again with the third generation. Now you have two lines to use for outcrosses to last a bit longer.

[jeffegg2]

Originally Posted by dman

Is it safe to breed to sibling bettas together? I always wondered why diagrams or inbreeding examples are always, the offspring to the father or offspring to the mother.

Safe? Well no. It is never "safe" to breed siblings together. Why? because it amplifies the possibility of bad traits coming out. It also amplifies the good traits as well, so it makes breeding for a trait easier. Therefore you have a much better chance to breed for what you are looking for. It's why breeders often inbreed.

It was inbreeding in the early half moon lines that led many lines to fail due to sterility. There are many lines now to choose from thankfully...

Best of luck,
Jeff.

[Pitluvs]

We plan to breed our male HM to another unrelated female HM, and then cross back the offspring to the original male and his spawn sister and then continue with sibling spawns. I have no idea how many times my male's lines have been inbred, so we'll do this way to be safe. Introduce new blood right from the first spawn. But we have a sibling female as a backup. From what I've learned, it's perfectly fine as long as it's not done for too many generations :)

[vilmarisv]

That's a good plan Pitluvs. Saves you from dealing with unexpected deformities.
The spawn I'm working on is very similar. The pair has a few generations in between that have been outcrossed. I plan to either redo the spawn and breed to dad or breed one of the juvies I have growing with dad.
I have 2 that I think are going to be melanos so hopefully one will be a female and I'll be able to breed back to dad who is a multi with melano geno and get 50% melanos! Dreaming here :D