RY Trad 112512 Thanksgiving

Foundation light-bodied, clean, and INTENSE yellow show HMPK male by Pichet (Interfish, Thailand).

Darkbodied, intense red show HMPK female by Sieg Illig.

I searched and searched for the perfect pair to launch the red and yellow PK line. At the beginning, I did not anticipate that this would turn in a traditional PK line, since both parents were show HMPKs. The plethora of forms and colors in the offspring was a COMPLETE surprise, since Sieg told me that he hasn't had any other color than red for the past 6 generations! His last outcross was a pineapple 6 generations ago! (Incidentally, also from Interfish, Thailand). I was expecting all red offspring in the F1, and would have to recover the yellow in the F2...but instead I got a fairly Mendelian spread of both light and dark bodied reds and yellows! About half the offspring were leaning towards traditional PKs, while the other half were more show HMPK. What a riot of colors and forms to play with!

Some cute baby pictures...

And the same babies after about 2 months of jarring!

Definitely my favorite male out of this spawn, and made me want to pursue traditional PKs. Won BOV at Convention! Father of both F2 spawns.

Beautiful lightbodied, INTENSE red with a couple of odd yellow spots that kept him out of the placings.

Daddy's favorite. Dark-bodied red with some iridescence in the caudal, but very aggressive deportment.

Some other bettas from this spawn...

Lovely lightbodied, intense yellow, but died early due to unknown causes :/

Whale! HUGE female that won 1st in the traditional PK females at convention!

Slightly smaller darkbodied sister with straight outer rays and reduced branching in the caudal. Reduced black scaling and iridescence. Mother of F2 Spawn 040613.

Lightbodied, cambodian-based red show HMPK female. Won RBOV and BOV at two shows.

Extremely intense lightbodied red female. Mother of F2 spawn 072013.

Pineapple male, BOV at the GSB show and did well in the pairs classes with pineapple sister. Died of dropsy after convention :( On the cover of the May/June 2013 FLARE!

I loved this spawn! All of them were such good quality with very little disqualifying faults. The light yellows took much longer to mature than their pineapple and red counterparts.

I decided to pursue the traditional form in the following spawns, and to work on keeping the intensity of the light-bodied yellows by crossing with pineapples and reds.