# Does anyone else have this reoccuring problem or is it just me?



## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

I've bought 3 female betta's in the past 4 months and 2 have turned out to be immature males which matture in my care, and commonly when I'm trying to get them to spawn with a male and end up beating the hell outta my male. They both had a lil white dot under their tummies behind the 2 fins that hang down when I bought them but they disappeared. Is this really common or am I just buying fish from half wits that can't sex their stock?

Also I think the latest fish I bought as a femal and turned out to me a male is a plakat. I have maily veil tails and one cambodian red (whatever that is) but this one when it flares looks like the pictures of plakats I've seen. I'll attach a picture and any comments would be appreciated.


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## Mr Aquarium (Jan 18, 2005)

I'm not Betta expert, But where do you get your betta's from?

My g/f buys from LFSs and Walmart, because Walmart is about the only place around to get females, and She has had good luck with it,. I keep a male and female in my 75g and the 15g guppy tanks and they never bother each other to often......
If I am correct, Are you not spose to keep the male/females seperated with a divider or something when spawning?
I think I have read it like this,
The male makes the bubble nest, then the female lays the eggs, you take the female out and let the male get to the eggs to put them in the bubble nest, then I think you remove him when they hatch out.......
Just do a search ont he web for betta breeding, breeding bettas or how ever, in someplace like dogpile.com or google, you will get plenty of info on it and probley find some sexing info as well.


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## Lexus (Jan 19, 2005)

Its been a reoccurring problem lately with stores mislabeling their stock...


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## adio_kid452 (Apr 1, 2005)

Ive had that problem too. immature males bein in a tank marked female.Just be sure to ask the person at your LFS. (Id recomend not buyin from petsmart or petco or wallmart,stores like that,the people usually dont know much.. Hope that healps :king:


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## anasfire23 (Jan 19, 2005)

Well I'm in australia and we don't have any of those stores here. I bought mine from an aquarium shop so seeing as they specialise in fish I thought they of all people should be able to sex their stock. And you are right about the spawning. You don't keep them seperated when they are spawning. But it doesn't hurt to keep her in a half soda bottle floating in the tank to get him more interested. I keep a male and a female in a 5ga tank, not for breeding, just coz I don't have any spare tanks at the moment. I did have what I thoguht were my 2 females in the 5ga tanks but when I realized one was a male I obviously put him into his own tank. Funny thing is I managed to get a pair to spawn with the male (moonlighting as female) in the tank aswel, I figured that if I put 2 females in I'd be more likely to get one of them to spawn. Little did I know that I had 2 males and 1 female in the tank and still got a successful spawn.


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## Tanuke (Jan 23, 2005)

Having bred and raised bettas for years now, I can say that it's not always easy to tell what gender some fish are--becuase some fish seem to mature a whole lot slower than others, sometimes the runts don't even know which gender they are supposed to be for a long, long, long time. I also suspect, and this is not scientific, that some juvvie male bettas will suppress their male features and emulate females to avoid being harrassed in a grow out tank when teenage males are sorting out dominance. I've also had a few males who, although they have slightly longer fins then the females, act like females, prefer to hang around with the girls, don't do any of the male things. I've always gotten a few males in my time who seemed to prefer flaring and staring at other males, completely ignore (or even chase away completely) any female you put with them. And plakats--unless a male plakat is noticably aggressive, I cannot tell the females from males. All I can say is good luck. Eventually, you'll get it right.


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