OHM without DT gene

It has been known that DT improves the tail spread in bettas. However, recent development in HM has produced a large number of bettas with very large caudal without the aid of DT gene. This is apparent when the fish is crossed and all fry came out ST after a number of generations (despite both male/female are very large HM/OHM caudal fish). Another alternative would be to cross the fish to a known DT-carrier, if the fry produced DT, then you know there is DT gene in the questioned fish.

There is nothing wrong with DT gene at all, but sometimes it is quite annoying to get DT in your spawn when you're aiming for ST. If they are balanced DT then usually this is okay, but when they are imbalance, hmmm.....you grew disappointment.....

Recent crosses that we've done with very large caudal bettas have produced nice (and large) caudal fry ST. This is very much encouraging. It indicates how much persistent and selective breeding has produced a much stabilized betta quality (for better or worst).

Now, if you were to question how would you know whether a particular fish carry DT or not?? That's quite difficult to answer apart from asking the breeder directly. There are also some noticeable indication such as wide-base dorsal on the fish (note that large dorsal alone is NOT indication of DT, lots of ST fish have large dorsal), a bent/collapsed caudal usually in the middle of caudal (this is usually the place where the DT gene starts to split the caudal; again note that sometimes bettas torn their finnage in the middle of the caudal, hence it could be just indication of healed torn), excessively wide caudal-base with slight bent in the middle (indication of DT gene that didn't come out to fruition). Other than these indicators, you'd be safe to ask the breeder directly on it. Most breeders are quite happy to let you know the fact, though some may not have a clue about the history of the fish to start with (hmm.....perhaps they are reseller? or they've got too many spawns?)

A very nice OHM would be the one that has very balance caudal rays branchings, uniformly spread, uniform length, and finally accompanied with large dorsal and anal.