Phenotypes And Genotypes

[athao04]

After reading about this on Bettatalk, I have some questions that have come to mind. How would someone find out the geno types in a betta? I am very very very interested in breeding, but I want to start producing quality spawns off the bat, not spawns that no one will be interested.

How would you purify the geno's in a pair? Would this be done just by breeding generation after generation of the nicest pairs? I would love to be able to narrow down certain traits, although this will take ALOT of time.

Thanks. Im sure Ill come up with more questions later. lol.

 

[OohFeeshy]

You can only really find out the genotypes by looking at what the parents and grandparents looked like and assuming things from there. But there's still an element of pot luck in it.

 

[lisie]

Well, something's genotype is just its genetic makeup, so there's really two ways to know a betta's genotype. The first is obviously through observing the genes expressed (or the phenotype) of the betta... and the other is the "hidden" recessives that it carries. Really, the only way to know what recessives that the betta carries is to know its lineage, or by breeding it... and even then you might not know, depending on what the genotype is of the fish you breed it to (like if you breed a fish that carries, but doesn't express, the doubletail gene to a fish that doesn't have it at all, resulting in the fry neither expressing nor carrying the gene). However, using the doubletail gene as an example again, sometimes a fish can have a broad dorsal that indicates that it carries the gene, or at least has it somewhere in its lineage.