Hi there... I know this is my first post but I'm a lurker and made an account just to reply to this.
First things first, that male is gorgeouuuus, and definitely something thats good to breed.
But the only reason I am commenting now is to kind of warn you.. I hate to be a downer, but that female is the last thing I would breed to that male. She is very pretty and a steal for 5 dollars, but she is not a good match for this male for some very good reasons.
For one, your male is a gorgeous HM with nice straight caudal edges and multiple ray branching. Multiple ray branching is what allows a longfin betta to not have a droopy tail, like a veiltail. If you look at the bones/rays in their caudal fins, a veiltail's rays only split into 2, maybe a couple 4 here and there. However, an HM's rays will always split into 4 or more, which is what allows it to hold up its fins the way it does.
The problem with the female is that she only has 2 rays. Essentially, she is a veiltail female and will be a major setback to the quality of this spawn. She lacks the rays, has the genes to produce veiltails and not HMS, and has rounded caudal edges instead of that nice sharp D. Breeding her to your awesome male will set you back to VTs and maybe roundtails instead of halfmoons. If you are ok with these kinds of results, breed away, (or not, since you are having second thoughts!), but I just want to warn you so that your money and time does not go to waste in producing lesser desired fish that don't have the same quality as their dad.
What you need to look for is at least 4 ray branching and sharp edges.
This article is a great helper to discerning female tail types. The second fish pictured in that article (The steel blue HM female at the top) is the kind of finnage you should be looking for. Multiple ray branching and sharp caudal edges.
I just went on aquabid to find you two females I would pair him with:
Female 1
- multiple ray branching and nice sharp D shaped caudal. Finnage is short, neat, and even. Long body complements the male's slightly shorter kind of body.
Female 2
- multiple rays, sharp D caudal, nice tight, even finnage. Good body length.
Just to compare, here is an example of a fish I would not choose based on finnage (and also my personal preferences), even though she is an Hm female/has multiple ray branching:
Female
- skinny dorsal fin. Caudal is ok, multiple rays but is more feathery than neat and tight. Anal fin is not straight enough along the bottom edge, and it is much too long which makes it not even with the other fins; also, this would enhance the male's already long anal fin.
The standard for HMs is to create a balanced fish with a perfect ovular/circular shape in the fins, like
this. If you look at his fins as if they were just one fin, you could trace a semi-circle around him, starting from the front of his dorsal, circling alll the way around to the beginning of his anal fin, with no breaks in the line and no fins being too long and sticking out. Just mentioning this because when you try to match a pair, you need to think about form and how each fish complements the other.
I hope I don't sound condescending or made it too long and boring... I just want to give some advice and help with your betta-learning, since you are investing money and time into this hobby! Good luck!
