Factors influencing giant genes

> I have a pair of giants that live in an outdoor pond.
> A few months while checking on them, I noticed a single fry swimming around with them.
> She is now 4 months old but never grew any bigger than a normal sized betta.
> What kind of ratio of giant to normal sizes do you get in your giant spawns?
> If I breed her with one of my HMPK boys, I should get some half giants, right?


The percentage of giants produced in any spawn to some extent is still governed by the .


Let us try to list some of the very apparent factors that we believe to contribute to production of more giants (for those who are interested in the more politically (or scientifically) correct discussion can close their browser now). The size of the giant depends on a number of things:

1. stability of the gene - this is very similar to HM, crossing 2 HMs won't get 100% HM. some giants have much more stable genes than others. Read the distribution of giant genes link that we've posted awhile back. New giant blood typically only gives about 10% giants (even if both parents are big). Half-giant, apart from the apparent size, also refers to the percentage of giants that only produce about 5% giant offspring in its F1 (when crossed to another giant), at which point its F2 and subsequent FXs will increase its giant-ness percentage.
2. food - starving giant fry will produce stunts and therefore won't be any bigger than typical HMPK, though good giant gene will ensure that even if their size isn't any bigger, their scales and finnage would still be "thicker". If they're still young, you can feed them a lot and you should see their body mass to increase dramatically
3. rosetail gene - rosetail will make the body somewhat smaller than what it would otherwise be. In giants, a 3.5" giant (not showing rosetail but known to come with rosetail trait) will typically only have 2.5" to 3" siblings. unfortunately rosetail is heavily used in production of HM and HMPK to improve their form, and therefore quite difficult to avoid (any HM/HMPK giants that you buy will carry rosetail gene one way or another, even if their current form look like an SD). Extreme rosetail on the other hand has been a controversy for some time with some would pay a leg and an arm to get while others would avoid it like a plague.

Your outdoor adventure is probably due to combination of the above. If you cross her back to the parent and feed any of the offspring properly then you'll get nice giants out of them (ignoring their form or colour etc).

Crossing her with standard HMPK will reduce the percentage of giant-ness. Will you get half-giant? probably. Most probably is that you'll get lots of "slightly-bigger" HMPK (25% giants) rather than half-giant. It should take about F3 in order to recover some satisfactory giants once they're crossed to standard HMPK, that's assuming F2 and F3 will always choose the largest of the spawn.


Good luck on the spawning...