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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Betta Splendens genetics

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05 Jul 2010 13:31 #1 by Jaffacakehead (John McPartland)
Hi can anyone recommend a book or website with genetic information on breeding Betta Splendens?

I've got some quite interesting results from breeding different colours before but I am struggling to understand how it actually works.

I'd like to be able to predict the characteristics of the resultant fry instead of just adopting a try it and see strategy.

What I'm trying at the moment is crossing a white, marbled, double tailed, cello finned male with a metallic green crowntailed female.

Dissappointingly the resulting spawn was only about twenty fry which are now five days old so I have no idea of tail type or colour yet.

I am assuming that the green metallic colour will be dominant or perhaps some throwback to blue. I also assume most of the young will be single tailed although the double tail gene may increase the size of their fins.

This is all assuming the fry survive.

If the resulting fish have a desirable characteristic is it good practice to breed one of the young back to one of the parents or breed two siblings to fix the gene and produce this characteristic consistantly? I think this is how line breeding works but its probably a lot more complicated than that.

I definitely need to do more research.....

Thanks

Jaffacakehead.

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05 Jul 2010 14:01 #2 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
Unfortunately, I'm tied up with a great deal of stuff at the moment, else I'd do an article for you.

I'll just do a brief bit here....unless I find some time later.

I would look-up (as a starter) Dr Myron Gordon's great work (although he did much stuff on platies, he was also involved with much of the pioneering work on siamese fighters).

The idea of simple medelian genetics needs to be put to one side a bit with siamese fighter colouration as it is not a simple matter of dominant over recessive....

if you find anything on siamese fighters, then look out for the following....

the article MUST emphasiise the important of the different layers of skin cells and the order of them cells.

If the article doesn't emphasise that, then drop the article and find a good one instead. !!

You'll also need to understand which are dominant genes....but that alone is of little use because of the skin layers. (I'm being a bit cryptic there...as that will be nice homework for anyone doing betta genetics)

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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05 Jul 2010 14:39 #3 by JohnH (John)
There you go, well replied Ian.
As I do not even understand the principle of Fish genetics I will mention that there is a very good little book in the Barron's series of Pet Owners Manuals called - surprisingly - "Bettas - A Complete Pet Owner's Manual" which includes a section on Betta Genetics.
That may be a handy place to start.
John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


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It's a long way to Tipperary.

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05 Jul 2010 14:58 #4 by JohnH (John)
Sorry,
I forgot to mention that the author is Robert J. Goldstein and the ISBN is
0-7641-1653-3
I think it's still available, try Amazon.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


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05 Jul 2010 15:09 #5 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
JohnH wrote:

Sorry,
I forgot to mention that the author is Robert J. Goldstein and the ISBN is
0-7641-1653-3
I think it's still available, try Amazon.

John


And what an author he was......I did my cichlid teething with his literature (eg Cichlids of the World).

(I think he was a pathologist...and nicley outspoken, so a good author) :)

I haven't seen that book; I bet it is a good un.

ian

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05 Jul 2010 17:26 - 05 Jul 2010 17:27 #6 by JohnH (John)
You're right Ian, it's really a great little book and a mine of information for me.
Especially relevant are the sections devoted to 'Other' Bettas.
All in all an excellent small book which I often wish was a 'less small' book!

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



It's a long way to Tipperary.
Last edit: 05 Jul 2010 17:27 by JohnH (John). Reason: omitted a word

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05 Jul 2010 19:50 #7 by Jaffacakehead (John McPartland)
Thanks very much Ian and John. I'll definitely get those books and start studying.

Its even more complicated than I thought which is intriguing. Should be fun trying to get my head around it all.

By the way I'll post some pictures of the fry once they develop a bit further. If they are anything like the father they'll be pretty spectacular fish. It does seem to take ages for their fins to develop though. I'll be force feeding them and doing water changes three times a day to get them growing.

Thanks again
Jaffacakehead.

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05 Jul 2010 20:11 #8 by Jaffacakehead (John McPartland)
I've just checked out Amazon and those books and others by the same authors are available. That Robert J Goldstein guy seems to be a really prolific author. There's loads of other titles he's written that I'm ordering also like Diseases of Aquarium Fishes and Angelfish (Complete Pet Owner's Manual).

Thanks guys.

Jaffacakehead.

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05 Jul 2010 20:35 #9 by JohnH (John)
Yes,
I have the Angelfish one as well and that's excellent in the same sort of way.
I don't know the Fish Diseases book but judging from the other two - plus Ian's recommendation of the man I would say that's another excellent book too.
John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


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06 Jul 2010 10:33 #10 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
Not wishing to tread too far into the classic book pathway, but there are a great load of superb classic books. Many modern books are almost copy-n-pastes of the old books with a few adjustments to allow for the fact that we now use electric submerged heaters rather than have 100 candles under a slated-bottom tank :).

Jaffacakehead, I'll track down 1930s and 1950s papers on siamese fighter genetics (I have them on PDF file somewhere) for you. There is very little change in the understanding from then to now. Excellent reading....and from the authors of the original siamese fighter genetics works to boot.

Tell us what you come up with, or any quickie questions....

ian

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07 Jul 2010 12:26 #11 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
To save me writing....here's some links to great papers.

www.thaiscience.info/journals/Article/Th...20scientifically.pdf

Excellent recent overview of Siamese fighters; if you brush over the heavier science, you’ll find that this is an easy read paper….and you’ll notice that much reference has been made to some of the classical papers that I would have used…..and I’ve found links to some of those below (free PDF downloadable to boot).

Have fun. Some really good reading here, and look at how much was know even back in the days of slate-bottomed tanks heated by 100 candles (not cinnamon scented though !!)

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1209881/pdf/289.pdf

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1224306/pdf/573.pdf

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200522/pdf/554.pdf

and something on gene interaction in guppies (they used the old name in those days)
www.genetics.org/cgi/reprint/32/6/535

www.genetics.org/cgi/reprint/29/6/584

And here’s an interesting one for anyone wanting to breed Siamese…….and still may wish females to have a fancy for the newly coloured offspring (ie no point in breeding a great colour strain if the females don’t actually take a fancy to the male’s new blue and pink-polka-dotted body colour. !!!)


Ian

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07 Jul 2010 16:29 #12 by Jaffacakehead (John McPartland)
Wonderful stuff Ian. These are exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.
Really fascinating reading.

I love the way they processed the fish to examine the different pigments

"The brain was pithed and then the fish was held in boiling water for 15 to 20 seconds. The scales were removed and ground with sand and acetone" LOL :laugh: All in the interest of science I suppose.

Seriously though I really appreciate you finding this info for me. Its going to be a steep learning curve for me as I have only a secondary school knowlege of genetics ie earlobes and eye colour.

This is the kind of thing I get obsessive about though. I'll be dreaming about melanaphores and chromataphores until I get a grasp on it. Then I'll get down to business and start trying to breed particular strains of bettas.

Thanks again

Jaffacakehead.

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08 Jul 2010 10:03 #13 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
If there are any science bits that need explaining then ask.

I recommended those old papers as they are very good, and I find that old scientific papers are readable by non-scientists to quite a large extend. A great starting point (and in my opinion as a scientist, many of the now famous olde worlde scientists became famous and great because they were able to express their science to any audience in a poetic meaningful manner)

They wrote in english in them days......so many modern papers would really stump anyone who is new to the subject.

ian

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