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Thought it was a She

1K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  Abby 
#1 ·
I'm just going to say it cause at this point in time I am so confused. Okay here it goes. I have three bettas right now. One in an isolation tank, and two in a divided 10 gallon. Here's the thing. I just got one of my bettas the other week and just put her in a tank with the other. She then displayed breeding stripes and turned colors very fast. That's not the thing though. My other 'female' looked like she wanted to breed too... I had a betta sorority a few years ago and the original girl was in it and never did anything like this. Since then her fins have grown and she is very big. But her fins aren't long enough to right away say "yup, that's a male" I am so confused.

Could it be my new girl is just confused like I am, or could it be the original is really a male. I used to be 99% certain she was a she, but now I'm more like 50%. I took my new girl out of the tank since they were both constantly flaring and I decided that I would not risk anything happening like it did last time I had both genders in the same tank.
 
#3 · (Edited)



That's the best I have. I actually had recent pictures on my iTouch. I was surprised. 'She' does have the white dot so I know it could be a female. She's just gotten bigger and bigger which is probably due to overfeeding when I'm not there. I can guarantee that's as big as her fins are going to grow though. I've had her for more than a year. I want to say maybe 2 years but I can't be certain. I'm not great with time. Like I said I used to be certain, but now I'm so confused. When I got her, her fins were normal sized.

It's like the fins are too long to be females, but too short to be a males. Or at least obviously. But like I said, my new female got breeding stripes when I put her in the divided tank.
 
#5 ·
Okay, but that doesn't explain why my other betta had breeding stripes. Is she just a confused young lady? Every time I put the two where they can see each other she gets breeding stripes and turns colors very quickly. Then they both flare. I'm just thinking my new one is confused, and my old one just wants to eat her... She used to be the dominate one in my sorority, so she never had to flare at the other girls when they were with her. And when the tank was divided into three after a death she still looked like a girl sorta and I never though about it until another death occurred.
 
#6 ·
I think she's just confused. Do they look similar in appearance? I have two girls that look like identical twins and one of them usually gets breeding bars when I try them together in a divided tank or sorority. Plus, I swear they do it just to mess with our minds.
 
#12 ·
Well it (I'm just going to use the term it for now) is completely full grown. I'm looking up betta anatomy so I can be more specific so please excuse mistakes I might make in the next paragraph.

The pelvic fins are pretty short. But a slight bit longer than my females. And the flare isn't as large as the typical males. And the beard isn't visible. Also, I had it in with females for awhile and it was fine. Lastly, I never had this whole breeding stripe issue with any of the other females that have been in the same tank. I'm looking up how to determine the gender and it's like mine has things from both. But I am starting to see that it being male is very likely.
 
#13 ·
Sorry for the double post.

Okay so I'm just going to say 'she' is really a he now. I don't know what it is but everytime I look at him I notice that his fins are longer and longer.

One last thing. Is it safe to put a male and female in the same divided tank? I of course already have but I didn't know he was a he since he just came out of the sorority with some damaged fins, then I feel like by then he decided the other girls were his new BFFs. But now with this new betta they want to breed it seems like and I don't want little fishies swimming around if one of them happens to hop over to the other side.
 
#14 ·
You can but there are drawbacks. The girls can get very eggy and if they're desperate enough to spawn will jump the divider. One of mine did and now her tail is a mess. And she found out she wasn't ready for a serious relationship after all. :roll: But the other girl I replaced my jumper with is doing fine.
 
#15 ·
yes they can live side by side, it looks like a boy with the long fins.

show the fish in question a mirror if it flares and gets showy prob a man then ;)

i currently have a 6 bay divided up like this:

|2bayscharz|Ailie|Bronxie|2bays Marshal|

meaning one boy taking up two bays
then two girls one per bay then another boy taking up two bays
 
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