My brief history in the bettas world

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I am a businessman and retired telecommunications engineer from TELERJ - Telecomunicações Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). I've bred bettas as a hobby since I was 18 years old, and in 1978 I started studying their genetics.

I started in the hobby like everyone else: I won one, it died. I bought another one, lasted a few days longer and died. I tried to cross them, failed. When I finally managed to set the environment right for the betta couple, I also had failure in the first attempts: they did not mate, there was a fight, there was death, and so on.

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Surely you've been going through or have gone through this.

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And, after these basic steps have been overcome, new challenges arise: developing healthy and beautiful bettas, with repeatability of their aesthetic beauty over generations.

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When you study genetics, a new horizon opens up in breeding, where you start to apply selective breeding techniques.
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Design your bettas! Learn how to identify matrices to achieve your goal! Doing it and reaching the goal is really the height you can reach in the world of bettas as a hobby or professional activity.
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In this context, several needs emerge, where works must be climbed by the creator, such as:

• learn basic handling (provide this living being with a healthy environment and treat it with dignity throughout its life);

• learn reproductive handling (understand and apply actions that promote mating and longevity of bettas);

• learn all the concepts involved in betta genetics (DNA, gene, chromosome, phenotype, genotype, theoretical color layers, genetic traits and their genotypes, colors, color distribution, shapes, lineage, reverse engineering, and so on, up to finally what I call The Art of Designing Bettas);

• apply techniques for selective breeding in your greenhouse;

• learn to judge bettas;

• knowing how to reconcile knowledge of genetics in judgments,

• develop technical exposures of specialized bettas for breeders, judgment criteria grounded in genetic knowledge, as I mentioned.

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Welcome to the Betta Project - A DNA Experience!
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Under this brand, together with my friend Guilherme Fenselau David, I founded this project that aims to disseminate knowledge, techniques and the philosophy of cultivation, selective breeding and exhibitions of bettas with superior genetics.
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I attribute this last quality to pedigree bettas, which are bettas whose aesthetic beauty is replicated over generations (F1, F2, F3, ...).
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"Bettas with genetics" obviously all are. But I call bettas with superior genetics those specimens where the repetition of the characteristics of the specimen occurs in successive generations, in the same way that occurs in other animals, which is called a lineage.
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I'm sure this project will be able to help many breeders around the world and our idea is precisely the development of beautiful, healthy and replicable bettas.
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We present courses and materials on the most diverse subjects in the world of bettas for you to learn this philosophy, techniques and absorb information that will help you on this journey! Good studies!