The Sire is a steel blue blue HMPK with a nice bodyshape, a smooth D-shaped caudal, a broad based dorsal which is nicely directed forward. Although his overall balance (body:finnage ratio) is slightly off, I really like his appearance and see some valuable traits I want to see in my line. The dame is royal blue HMPK with a good, strong bodyshape, a smooth mouth-to-dorsal topline and amazing finnage. She became Best of Show Female at the Virtual Bettas4all Show (August 2020).

This cross if very special to me as it is the 300th spawn in my Betta Territory!

With this cross I hope to fix the strong bodies, the smooth topline and the balanced finnage. The offspring (F1) likely will be royal blue and steel blue based HMPK with a chance black lace, red wash and marble to pop up.

12/09/20: The pair spawned.
13/09/20: The fry hatched.
15/09/20: Removed the Sire, the fry have entered the free-swimming stage. 
26/09/20: The fry is now 2 weeks old and feeding well on BBS. There are several DTPKs in this spawn. The fry have been moved from the original spawning tank, to a clean grow-out.

17/12/20: The fry is now 14 weeks old. As expected all fish are steel blue or royal blue based. Some fish have a black lace underlayer and fish show a marble influence. The doubletails show a good equal distribution of the caudal lobes.

17/01/21: 18 weeks old!