The Sire is so-called 'Alien hybrid'. It is speculated that this strain has been created by crossing several wild Betta strains possibly involving Betta splendens, Betta mahachaiensis, Betta smaragdina and Betta stiktos. I am very impressed by the size, his color, the form of his finnage and the pattern of the black markings in the finnage of this particular male. The dame is a heterozygous metallic steel blue HMPK with a nice bodyshape, smooth topline and balanced finnage. She is heterozygous for the metallic and cambodian trait and in addition there also is a chance she is carrying melano as their mother was a proven melano carrier.
With this cross I hope to fix the strong bodies, the smooth topline, the color including the characteristic black markings and to get towards HMPK finnage. The offspring (F1) will be royal and steel blue based in combination with metallic. There is a chance some offspring will marble.

25/04/20: The pair spawned. There are many eggs in the nest.
26/04/20: The fry hatched, looks like a big spawn! The sire is taking excellent care.
28/04/20: The fry were hanging strongly between the bubbles in the nest (see movie & pictures below). I removed the Sire when the fry entered the free-swimming stage later on the same day. 

01/05/20: The fry are now 6 days old and feeding well on newly hatched baby brine shrimp.

11/05/20: The fry is now 2 weeks old feeding well on newly hatched BBS and developing nicely!! Absolutely love the detail on these two pictures!

24/05/20: At 4 weeks of age, the swimbladders have started to stretch in the majority of the fry. Some fry already show some slight iridescence on the body.

31/05/20: 5 weeks old! The iridescent color and markings on the body and finnage are starting to develop nicely!

14/06/20: 7 weeks old! I think to observe four different colors: non-metallic royal blue, heterozygous metallic royal blue, non-metallic steel blue and heterozygous metallic steel blue.

27/06/20: 9 weeks old! The fry has been moved to a larger grow-out tank.

19/07/20: 12 weeks old!

26/09/20: 22 weeks old! Unfortunatley there only seem to be three males in the entire spawn. I have selected a few fish for their form to work further with. To be honest I am surprised by the form of these fish considering the fact that this F1 between an Alien hybrid x HMPK. I absolutely love their color!