Dean slater interview

What inspired you? inspitration came from my teacher Walt Maurus... I created the frist red, white and blue bettas..they were then sent overseas by my teacher the original name I gave to them was Bicenntenial Bettas but this name somehow got changed to Mascot...Walt also created the worlds first Gold bettas and this was before we had the metallic bettas...my goal is to teach as many people about betta genetics and try to bring back dome of the older strains and  have online shows that promote strain purity, the betta world has suffered greatly because of the satndards some shows have put on them, while on one hand promoting saving the fish on the other hand making sure only a limitied amount of genes are able to be shown thus crushing the gene pool...let me give you an example...in the category they have for black...only the blackest fish should win...there are 4 strains of blck and the only one of those that show the intense black that they want is the Superblack...so..people tend not to breed the other blacks because they can not compete with the superblack...like Black Lace or Black orchid that always shows blue...the melano has suffered for years because of breeding to steel, this was a mistake..Melano should be bred to red or yellow to carry that gene..instead of a fish that is mostly iridecsent. there are many misconceptions I am trying to get people on the right track and getting the overseas breeders involved as well . What are your aims?  I think genetics have also suffered because of misinformation.what are your plans for the future?  The breeding of multi colored fish has also diminished the gene pool as breeders multi colored fish are useless...this is also a big strain on the betta world...and pure strains are geetting harder to find...like Blue without metallic or marble genes the problem is when a new thing comes along people want to breed it into everything thus losing the pure strains/