How to tell the age!

[JBosley]

Hey Everyone,
So I saw on another forum someone posting the age of someone else's Betta fish from a picture! I also had been looking on Aquabids and noticed some of the Betta's have smaller tails and such, and was wondering if this was due to age.

The question being, how can you tell the age of a Betta?

[RiverStoneBetta]

Tail size can be an indicator, but it really isn't a good yard stick for age at all. If you buy from a breeder, you can usually ask them and they can give you your fishes exact birthday from spawn records. If you buy from a pet store, most fish they have are anywhere from 6 months to 1 year in age, so you really can't tell.

If the fish is still brightly colored, it's a safe bet that they are still rather young. (Or have really good genes.) When a betta ages, it loses its color and takes on a duller shade. My boy Quinn was deep "purple" and red (it was probably blue, but I'm colorblind. lol) and he kept his color until he was about 3 years old. By the time he died at 5 years, he was almost brown in color.

[JBosley]

Hmm! Interesting! Well thank you, that clears up a lot. My Firefly is from a petstore and is still a bright red, my next will be from a breeder. Thanks again!

[bettalover2033]

Originally Posted by JBosley

Hey Everyone,
So I saw on another forum someone posting the age of someone else's Betta fish from a picture! I also had been looking on Aquabids and noticed some of the Betta's have smaller tails and such, and was wondering if this was due to age.

The question being, how can you tell the age of a Betta?

To answer your question, No bettas tail and fins do not have anything to do with telling the ages of them. There is actually NO way possible to tell the betta fish's age unless you have records of the Spawn itself or can ask the breeder. This mostly implies to bettas in LPS's (Local Pet Stores). On AB you will be able to ask the breeder how old the fish is and they will tell you. You see I bought my fish from a breeder and they were hatched by 8/28.

Though the short finned bettas that you see on AB is most likely a Female betta or a HMPK (HalfmoonPlakat) or PKDT(PlakatDoubletail) or PK (Plakat) plakats are what the short finned bettas are called. There are tons of tail types and the short ones have PK in them and thats what makes the short fins.

For example. If I buy a pure HMPK pair and breed them, they will produce HMPK's which have short fins and they will stay like that. They are just hatched as short finned bettas and have nothing to do with age.

I hope I answered your question. Enjoy the Forum!

[JBosley]

Well thanks! Gosh you people are so knowledgeable, I love i! Haha, you answered perfectly.

[bettalover2033]

Yes. That is actually what I learned in months of research. Believe it or not that is actually the basics. Tail types was never hard for me to learn. Or remember. There is also a thread on this site that has all the tail types and I think their color as well.

This is the thread:

http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=29868

Also their abbreviations.

[MorganC2010]

I don't know if this is a legit way to tell but when I first got all 3 of my Bettas they all had entirely blue eyes or a noticable amount of blue. It is getting near to my 1 year anniversary of getting tiberius and the blue is completely gone. My youngest,Vladimir, still has just a tiny bit left. But like I said I don't know if that's any indicater or my fish are just weird lol

[bettalover2033]

Originally Posted by MorganC2010

I don't know if this is a legit way to tell but when I first got all 3 of my Bettas they all had entirely blue eyes or a noticable amount of blue. It is getting near to my 1 year anniversary of getting tiberius and the blue is completely gone. My youngest,Vladimir, still has just a tiny bit left. But like I said I don't know if that's any indicater or my fish are just weird lol

Well this isn't an indicator of age. At least it hasn't been prevent but I do highly doubt it. Also don't think youR fish are weird because fish have different colored eyes in many different lightings and they often don't look exactly the same color as they did in "normal" lighting. Or room lighting.