Betta linebred types-- Worth the hype?
A look into individual betta lines and their inherited problems.
Let’s face the honest truth here— bettas are inbred. All of them. It is the responsibility of ethical betta breeders to try and keep the degree of inbreeding as low as possible, but the reality is that these super fancy betta lines such as metallics or blue-rim marbles had a lot of sibling crosses early on in the development of their lines. To be clear, this is how betta lines are formed. This is how platinums or cellophane or Koi marbles are created. This goes for tail types as well— the betta gene pool contains a lot of family circles. To think clearly about this, you must first remove the urge to plaster human disgust across the act of linebreeding or inbreeding bettas to create or stick to a certain type. This is just how animal breeding works. Bettas do not assign conscious weight or consideration to family members and that pretty fancy male doesn’t care that the eggy female is his direct sister. This is becoming an issue in wild types as well, but let’s try to stick to the topic at hand here before I run off on a tangent about the deeper ethics of betta breeding and calculating inbreeding coefficients.
There are many types of betta lines. Like with tail types, these bettas all share common traits and characteristics that mark them as a part of their line. This post will discuss a few of the more common ones to see in the American pet trade and discuss problems common to them. Let’s get started!
Metallics.
Metallic bettas have a gene that encodes a lovely shimmer to their scales. This can make them look metallic as their name suggests. They can come in any tail type though I’ve yet to see them as crowntails myself. Thye are commonly gray or coppery-based bettas.
Issues: Tumors. Lots of them. Scale tumors, body tumors, and cauliflower tumors. Almost every metallic betta will develop them if they live long enough. Sadly this exaggerated tumor growth plagues several of the lines I’m going to describe. It is growing more and more common to see a betta being sold with tumors already on it.
Sausage, a Metallic betta with a very large tumor.
Platinum bettas
Characterized by a shining, pure-white monocolor, these ghostly, ethereal water spirits are often riddled with tumors that present along the fins and body. They also experience a slew of eye issues just like Dumbo bettas are prone to. I’ve had three that didn’t have eyes at all due to eye regression.
Snowfire, a platinum crowntail that died from tumors.
Blue-Rim bettas (also more rarely, black, red, and gold-rim bettas)
With clean, striking color patterns, the Blue-Rims have exploded in popularity recently. These white plakats show electric or navy tones in a perfect rim around the edges of their fins while young, and the body will eventually marble in that same shade in a weeks-long color shift that is unique and wonderful to witness first-hand.
Issues: These are by far the very worst for getting tumors. It keeps being a problem. Most don’t live long because of it.
Carlisle, a red-rim betta with scale tumors all over his body.
Dragonscales
With a variety of possible tailtypes, this rarer betta line can sometimes be hard to distinguish, especially with retail sellers mislabeling bettas how they do. Dragonscale bettas are characterized by thick, pearly, armor-like scaling. Even better, dragonscale genes have been introduced into other lines to create fun mixes like dragonscale Blue-Rims and the like, which complicated things and lets comorbidities pile up.
Issues: Again, tumors. Bad ones. Are you seeing the pattern here? Dragonscales are also prone to getting diamond-eye, a condition where body pigment grows across the lens of the eye and causes a filter over the field of vision. Bad cases can cause blindness.
Silver, a Samurai Dragonscale with diamond eye. Note this thickness of his pearly scales.
Samurai/Mamba bettas.
These striking all-black bettas are characterized by a sleek, speedy look. Generally plakats, this line shows pearly silver scaling along the top line. I’m guilty of Black Mamba bettas being my favorite of the betta lines. I have three right now. One’s even a dragonscale on top of everything else. And yes, he has both scale tumors and bad diamond-eye.
Issues: See above sentence.
Ghost, a Samurai with diamond-eye and scale tumors.
Solid red Veiltails.
While this betta line doesn’t have a name of it’s own, I have noticed an issue that crops up repetitively with them. These bettas are veiltails with solid red coloration and they are prone to developing internal fluid cysts that can grow to massive sizes.
The reason why tumors are so common in these lines might be because the gene pool is just so small and constricted, or it might be because the lines that really show this kind of overabundance are the lines that prioritize one trait to the detriment of all others. Selection over the years was pressured into creating bettas for profit, and that type of breeding created bettas without care for their overall longevity or general health. We see this pressure in other ways as well, much like with the reduced lifespan of bettas in general, the short lives of Giants, and the eye issues of both Dumbo’s and Platinums. Breeders bred bettas for beauty, and we all know that often beauty is short-lived and painful.
This post is not meant to scare you away from owning certain lines of bettas— it’s simply to make you an informed pet parent who knows what to look out for. For certain problematic lines, an ethical breeder is the best way to go. My 1st Black Mamba lived to nearly 4 years old and never had a single problem, and he came from a breeder. You can own these lines without experiencing issues with them. I just want you to be aware of patterns I’ve seen repeated across the betta population uncountable times.
Morse, a platinum betta without eyes.
Honorable mention: All blue-base bettas with darker heads. This one will be it’s own post, because Lunar Disease is a complicated thing.
Love your articles as always!