Thought it was a She

[Noko]

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.

[Lion Mom]

If possible, please post a picture of the fish in question. Hopefully, we can help you once we see her/him. :)

[Noko]

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.

[Sakura8]

Very long fins, a very lovely and pretty girl. But if you see her white egg spot, she's a she. Some females do have longer fins. I don't know if bettas can have hormonal issues but maybe your girl does and that's why her fins are longer than normal.

[Noko]

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.

[Sakura8]

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.

[Tisia]

egg spot doesn't always mean female, some males actually have them as well
sometimes the vertical stripes are a submission thing. one of my males would actually switch back and forth from horizontal to vertical stripes when I was doing 100% changes on his qt

[Sakura8]

So, the egg spot is like my male cats having nipples. Great, now we may never know what gender some of our fish are.

[fishman12]

I think "he" is a boy.

[Sakura8]

Yeah, now that Tisia told us eggspots don't always mean it's a girl, I think I have to agree.