Question on bettas

[canyon_rayne]

Everyone is always talking about the different types of bettas and I'm totally clueless..How do you tell them apart and what is most commonlly sold is stores??

 

[Chris_JT]

from what i know they grade bettas by letters like Grade A,B,C, and D. I forget what order it goes in. The larger more heavy bodied bettas are called roundtails and are used in fighting competitions as a form of gambling.

 

[White Whale]

Pictues of your bettas would help us identify more accurately what type of betta you have.

 

[bkk_group]

if you are refering to what is the most common betta to find at your walmart or LFS that would have to be the "veil tail" (long flowing tail) betta (more often than not a "spendens"). they come in many different colours and are usually found in the 4 to 5 dollar range. as for grading bettas as chris_jt says, that usually applied to the fighting plakats (hibred bettas bred for biting and fighting). i have heard of "5 star", grade "a" etc. the fighting fish are indead "round tail" or "spade" tail as they originally developed from the wild bettas (for instance "imbellis" - itty, stop drooling ). these days breeders have developed many different "show quality" tail types such as crown-tail", delta or super delta, double-tail, fan-tail etc. the term "half-moon" can refer to different tail types as long as they show a full 180 degree span when flaring. half-moons are the rarest type to find as breeders can only expect to find 2 or 3 maybe per spawn. they are held in high regard and fetch prices in the range of 50 - 100 plus dollars on the market. interestingly enough, the IBC (international betta congress) no longer grades veil tails in competition as they have become too common. (of course they are still beautiful fish as can be witnessed by freshwatergals white betta). (i could go on and on but i'll stop now.)

 

[White Whale]

(i could go on and on but i'll stop now.)

Don't stop! Enlighten me with betta knowledge!

 

[bkk_group]

i do a lot of digging around on the net, i found this tidbit of info on a singapore site.
some history on the halfmoon phenomena

Part 1: THE STORY OF BETTA SPLENDENS:
Bettas have been bred selectively for about the last 50 years to improve the finnage. Many breeders in America and Europe set about improving the finnage through selective breeding.

The early betta were imported from Thailand, Singapore and other south east Asian countries. These fish had slightly elongated fins. That is the caudal (tail fin) were a little longer than on the plakat betta, which is short finned and had been bred by Thais to fight against each other. Huge bets were made and houses, wives and money often changed hands.

The most important breeder in the 50's was Warren Young. He bred fish with superior size and long veil tail fins. Each of the single fins, like the dorsal, caudal and anal fin were as long as the body length. These fish were called Libby Bettas after Warren's wife Libby.

In the 60's, Edward Schmidt Focke of Germany was able to breed the first Delta fish from the Thai bettas. His fish were not as long finned as the libby Bettas, but had broad fins like the modern day bettas and the tail or caudal fin was Delta shaped.

In 1967 the IBC (International Betta Congress) was formed by a group of betta breeders. The IBC aimed to breed fish with fins that were broad and symmetrical instead of long. These fish were able to swim better than those with fins that were long.

By the 80's the IBC breeders like Parris Jones, Peter Goettner and others were breeding fishes which we would call the Super-Delta (fish with round tails and lots of volume).

Part 2 : THE TRUE STORY OF THE HALFMOON:
In the early 80's, Guy Delaval and some other breeders imported these fish to France.

Guy Delaval selected bred these fish for more angle on the tail fins and in 1987 he had a few fish that had a caudal fin of 180°. At the show in France Rajiv Masillamoni saw these fishes and realised that Guy Delaval had come up with the impossible. Up until this time the angle of caudal fins were about 160° maximum and they could not swim as well or were not as symetrical as the halfmoon caudal fish.

Laurent Chenot and Rajiv Masillamoni joined in trying to preserve these fish. They tried to breed these fish, but they were too inbred and would not breed. The male did not build a bubble nest and did not even know how to wrap around the female. The female however would breed. Rajiv and Laurent did many spawns with pet shop fish and fish of various lines. A fish that came out of these crosses had a female of Delaval as mother and a black double tail male from American lines as father: This fish was called R39.

This fish was bred by Rajiv Masillamoni to all of the females of his and Laurent Chenot lines. Some Halfmoons turned up and Laurent and Rajiv continued breeding hard.

In 1991 Jeff Wilson joined us (he was an American breeder who had earlier been breeding dogs). When Jeff saw our fish he called them Halfmoons...Rajiv thought that it was an apt name.

Jeff and Rajiv would ship our good fish by plane over the Atlantic, this way we kept putting the best Halfmoons genes into fish and we were getting Halfmoons more often in the spawns...almost a few in every spawn.

In 1993 there was an IBC convention in Tampa Florida. We showed under the name CHENMASWIL and we won best of show with the Halfmoon fish. This fish was shown on the cover of Fama magazine in America and set the Halfmoon craze loose. Every breeder in America started breeding from these Halfmoons.

Author: Rajiv Masillamoni

 

[Chris_JT]

interesting stuff!!

 

[bkk_group]

(i could go on and on but i'll stop now.)

Don't stop! Enlighten me with betta knowledge!

wait, that's not sarcasm is it? i only meant this is a subject that i love to talk about and find out about. i'm no expert yet, but my thirst for betta knowledge is unquenchable (sp.?) at the moment. feel free to add your thoughts i-(to the)-t- (to the)-t-y.

 

[shrks1fan]

Good information, thanks The pair of Red Bettas I have are same spawn sibling super deltas. The line is known for throwing out occassional half moons, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I get at least 1 male and 1 female halfmoon in my first spawn.

Linda

 

[White Whale]

wait, that's not sarcasm is it? i only meant this is a subject that i love to talk about and find out about. i'm no expert yet, but my thirst for betta knowledge is unquenchable (sp.?) at the moment. feel free to add your thoughts i-(to the)-t- (to the)-t-y.

Hey, my knowledge of fish is really short n' shallow. I'm just a simple anabantoid trying to to find my way through the universe and soak up as much as I can.

 

[HeatherSweetness]

I'm obsessed with halfmoons. (As if you couldn't tell from my sig or avatar )Thanks for the info,bkk!