Distribution of giant genes

Many people are wondering how the giant genes really distributed in bettas. Would crossing *any* giants produce a giant? Continuing from the baking lessons, let's explore one theory that may answer this.

First of all, let us put some assumptions. Many agree that giant "gene" is probably made up of multiple genes and no one knows for certain how or what these genes are - if they knew, that wouldn't much fun, would it?. Furthermore, let's take the definition of giant size as mentioned in the baking lessons to be applicable here - different breeders have different definitions of giant size.

For illustration purposes, let us consider 2 scenarios here.

Crossing 100% giant male to 100% giant female

It is known that if you have a pair of 100% giant - e.g. if HMPK then they are 3+ inches in length, if HM then they are close to the infamous 7" - then you will only get small proportion to be true giant in your F1. This proportion varies greatly between lines, but majority of breeders agree that it is between 3% to 10% of your spawn. What it means, if you have a spawn of 100 fry from a 3+" giant pair, chances you will only get 3 to 10 fry turning up to be 3+". So, you can see why it's so troublesome to work on giants.

The rest of the spawn, usually is a mixture of half-giant (50% giant), 75% giant, and even 25% giants which are just slightly larger than your typical bettas.

Now suppose that you like to continue the line to F2 and F3. What you need to do is:

• pray that you've done enough spawning such that you have your chance bigger than the dimmed 3%-10% ! Cross the parents 2x, 3x, heck 10x if necessary, get as much juice out of them and see if you hit the jackpot on getting 1 or 2 of their fry to be 100% giant
• have a good eye to identify which one of those buggers fit into 100% giant size. Remember, you need to choose them when they are young, and chances are they are not even big enough to be categorized as 100% giants. Most 100% giants are identifiable when they are about 4 to 6 months old - the longer time you wait, the more certain you are
• have lots of spare tanks for the buggers, at least to last for 6 months, otherwise you don't know which one of them is your lucky winner
  

So, with the finite resources, spaces, and tanks you've got, most probably and seems to be certainty that the ones you've chosen to start your F2 won't be the magical 100% giant. Can you see why this is so much fun? :)

Crossing 100% giant male to standard betta

So, suppose you like to cross your 3" giant HMPK to a standard HMPK for instance. On F1 you will find that majority of your fry would be standard HMPK size, 25% giant size, and upto half-giant. This means, the biggest of your spawn can only be about 2.3" in length max. What you are further forgetting is that the statistics is still the same, there is only 3% to 10% of the fry to be half-giant. The rest is nothing more than 25% giant in size. Remember that the fry only inherit half of the genes from each of their parents !

Now, suppose that you choose very carefully and believe that one of the F1 to be half-giant, fingers crossed, then you cross it to the parent 3" giant. F2 statistics is not improving greatly. You still will only get about 3%-10% of the F2 to be 75% giants. The rest are merely half-giant and 25% giants. So, fingers crossed again, if you have a large spawn of 100+ fish, then you may see those 75% giants, otherwise you better off betting on lotto and hope to win cause majority of your fry would be just half-giants.

Lessons learnt?

It's a tough and hard to work on giants at the moment, even in Thailand. They are well-known to be capable of mass-producing bettas and yet there are only sporadic introduction of giants available. Perhaps in the next 3-5 years time we will see giants everywhere, just like we are seeing HMs and HMPKs everywhere today. In the meantime, the fun is on us to produce and experiment on different techniques to produce the "nice" giant line. Remember, everyone is pretty much on par and on the same level of playing field here ;) You may very well, with enough luck and diligent, produce the holy grail of giants :)