ok ive got a f2 spawn on my full masked gunmetal steel line ive been running for awile it has never once showed a speck of red in any of the fry why in the f2 am i seeing full steel bodied males blooming into a red butterfly on the fins? father was a male no red wash any where and so was the mother and so have been the last 200 or so fry lol also im seeing about 5 that show no irrid type pigment of any color not even in the fins could these be copper ive never had em throw copper before so i dont know what it looks liek on a 5 week old fry?? the only other color ive seen this family throw is a metallic full masked green so where is the red coming in uhhhg this is ruining my show plans for these lil fellows :huhwhat?

This is the perfect example of what happens when you don't know 3 or 4 generations of the background of the fish. By just going by what they look like you never know what you will get in a few generations. I've gotten really bad colored yellows before from a melano cross that someone used red to cross to instead of steel blue. As it turns out the "red" he used also carried NR1 so in a few generation the right combination of genes came together to produce yellows in my black line. All you can do is keep picking the ones that best fit your goal and breed them. This happens with so many "pairs" from the auction sites because you don't normally know the backgound.


RC

that is for sure RC ! dang blammit well ill have to pick and choose on this one hopefully i got a few males in there that meet the criteria im looking for sad thing is the lineage that goes back a few generations will never be known. :bettafish

To improve your line you only really need one pair that are better then the last generation and get them to spawn so there is always hope.


RC

RC,
I really have to thank you. After reading your posts and having questions answered my "gottahaveits" are gone. I go through aquabid going "no no no no no no" even if the colour is "ohhhhhhh pretty!" ;-) It is amazing what having a goal does to impulse buying.

Trust me I think everyone has done the same thing. I know the very first IBC auction I went to I came home with about 20 fish I didn't really need and 4 I did. I soon had 300 males jarred up and did 150 Water changes every day so I learned my lesson from that. I did end up in 6th place in the IBC show circuit that year after only showing for the 2nd half of the season so it wasn't all bad, but it was more work then I'm willing to do anymore.


RC

I have an oportunity(spelling) to get fish from Dallas,TX. Do you know anyone down there with nice fish? I'm fairly certain(95%) that I'm not going to get fish unless you know someone outstanding!