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How To Line Breed By: Chris Yew Submitted: 9/28/2004 With careful selection of breeders, top fish like this one can be produced more consistently. (V.Parnell) I'm sure most of us have heard of selective breeding or line breeding, but how well do we understand by this terms... My initial thinking is just simply choosing the best male and female fish from a spawn, and breed them (brother x sister) again or breed them with their parents. Until I read the article from Chuck Wolff in Hal's Betta Club Forum, I realised that it's much more to just that. To start off with Line Breeding, we must ensure that we must have the time (prepared to spent about 2 to 3 years), space (enough breeding tanks, etc) and of course patience. By Line Breeding, you will appreciate why a new strain or a good fish is never 'cheap'! You may use Line Breeding to develop a new strain or improve on an existing strain. The fact about Line Breeding is that it will intensify the good characteristics as well as the bad characteristics. So it is recommended to have at least 3 or 4 closely related lines of whatever strain you are trying to have or improve on. Before you start, you have to decide whether you wish to breed for form and finnage first or breed for colour first. Whichever you choose, set yourself a goal and hold on to it rigidly. Sad to say, in order to achieve your goal, you have to cull ruthlessly and dispose of any fry that does not meet your criteria (selective breeding). Now you must have at least 2 good male (related like brothers) and 2 good female (related like sisters) bettas to strart with; Let's name the bettas as: Parents ; Male - Y Brother to Y - Yb Female - X Sister to X - Xs 1st Line; Parents : Y x X à F1 (spawn consists of female - F1a and male – F1b) Line 1A : Father Y x Daughter F1a à F2 (spawn consists of female - F2a and male - F2c) Father Y x Granddaughter F2a à F3 (spawn consists of female – F3a and male F3c) Line 1B : Mother X x Son F1b à F2 (spawn consists of male - F2b and female - F2d) Mother X x Grandson F2b à F3 (spawn consists of male – F3b and female – F3d) Line 1C : F3c (Male from Line 1A, F3) x F3d (Female from Line 1B, F3) à F4 Line 1D : F3b (Male from Line 1B, F3) x F3a (Female from Line 1A, F3) à F4 2nd Line; Parents : Yb x Xs à F1 (spawn consists of female - F1e and male – F1f) Line 2A : Father Yb x Daughter F1e à F2 (spawn consists of female - F2e and male - F2g) Father Yb x Granddaughter F2e à F3 (spawn consists of female – F3e and male – F3g) Line 2B : Mother Xs x Son F1f à F2 (spawn consists of male - F2f and female - F2h) Mother Xs x Grandson F2f à F3 (spawn consists of male – F3f and female – F3h) Line 2C : F3g (Male from Line 2A, F3) x F3h (Female from Line 2B, F3) à F4 Line 2D : F3f (Male from Line 2B, F3) x F3e (Female from Line 2A, F3) à F4 3rd Line; Before starting your 3rd Line, you have to check your F4 spawns from both Line 1 and Line 2 whether they are achieving your goal. In your F4 spawns, you should see an improvement and uniformity in finnage and form / or colour over your original stock. If you are pleased with your F4 spawns, you may proceed on with your 3rd Line by crossing your F4 from Line 1 and Line 2, while keeping your Line 1 and Line 2 going. By now you should have achieved quality bettas in your F4 spawns that far surpass your original stock, and these are basically homozygous genetically for the desired traits that you want. Thus Line Breeding will help you to develop your own strain. Source: Bettas Onli

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HEJSAN FROM SWEDEN EVERYONE! Everything in Sweden is going well, although I'm still busy learning the language and coping with a newborn, so it will be a bit before I'm as active as I'd like with the fish. This is a Facebook update! I have created a new BettySplendens Facebook page that will be used exclusively for betta-related networking. On the 16th of August I will be going through and deleting most of the people on my personal Facebook page who are not actual friends or family (many of you have become friends through the course of the hobby, and of course will not be deleted). If for any reason you wish to remain on my personal page, please let me know by emailing bettysplendens@yahoo.com, or FB email. Otherwise, go to the new BettySplendens Facebook page and click the 'like' button for more betta-related news and updates :).

Tack så mycket (that's ''Thank you very much'' in Svenskie-land ;))! ~Victoria~

Slight change of plans! I have decided that, instead of reinventing the wheel, I'm going to create a personal FB page and use the old one purely for betta stuff. So if you're on the original page (now called BettySplendens Bettas), please stay put! :P

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