OHM in females

It's been awhile since we really see OHM in females. Usually we don't really take much note on it, but recently we are started to see a number of females advertised as "OHM" when they are, sadly, nothing more than HM-line with SD form. Perhaps some of those sellers need a little whack in the head for calling their females OHM when they definitely are not....

Okay, sometimes you've just got carried over....understandable....it's very frequent for us just to call our fish "HM" for instance, despite some of them are very well be SD (not getting 180 degree yet). But at least there are so many of our fish that are full HM and OHM, we simply label them "HM" for simplicity.

It's rare in our occasions to call our fish OHM unless they really are. OHM carries its own "weight" in discussions, as far as we concerned. While HM is considered a generic term for a particular line, just like we call a betta CT, PK, etc. Well, any HM line is the line that *mostly* produced HM fry. Sure, sometimes you have SD in the spawn, but the proportion should be minimal, otherwise the whole line can't be called HM (cause it's proven to be still not stable).

On the same token, rarely you see fish labelled as Delta anymore, cause they're just too darn difficult to produce these days (unless you're miserable in crossing HM to a PK, or your HM line is just still too unstable, still need a LOT of work!).

Anyway, getting back to OHM in females. So far, it has been very difficult for us to get a good OHM females. We've got quite a number of them as OHMPK, thanks to rosetail gene mostly. There are quite a lot of HM females in our spawns, so this is a good indication that OHM females are not far off....Today, for instance, we only have 1 OHM female in stock. She has nice long tail and hopefully will grow much longer. Again, we suspect thanks to rosetail gene...

Note that the goal of getting OHM female is *not* by crossing them to DT. Crossing anything to DT achieves large caudal but not necessary producing stable ST line down the track. You may get good HM or OHM females by crossing to DT, but once you work for a couple of generations outcrossing them to ST, you'll lose the advantages delivered by DT gene, which further requires you to outcross to another DT...It's like addiction :)

So far, we have only known 2 breeders who have good ST lines. Their lines are purely ST and produce large HM/OHM finnage on both males and females. As usual, it is still a secret how they achieve the lines. Perhaps some day they'll share the secrets. We suspect it takes very careful planning and diligent outcrossing to maintain the ST lines (e.g. if you've got minimally 5 or 6 spawnings concurrently, and crossing the best ST to each other, you're deemed to achieve stable nice ST lines that you desired)....

Why would OHM female matter? It's because they contribute greatly to the outcome of your fry. OHM females will give you pretty much guarantee that most of your fry will be HM, with most males would be OHM (provided you've got decent male of course -- but decent males are very easy to find these days). That's why a good OHM female is priceless :)