How Many Of You

[kubora666]

i bought 3 females for my male, 2 of these females turned into very brightly coloured short finned males. one was a female.
apparently its because the short finned males look so much like females when they are young, i dno, was just wondering if this has happened to any of you guys?

 

[Netty]

It's happened to lots of us, unfortunately you're not alone. It is very difficult to tell them apart when they are young!!!

We bought 8 females and 3 turned out to be male Plakats.

This is one of them now....quite a handsome brute and the only one we kept. We sold one and took one back to the lfs.

This is Diesel when we got him

And this is him now

 

[MaddieJ]

Meet Bubbles, the 'female' in the background with the arrow pointing to 'her'. This is a pic I took for the forum many moons ago.

'She' soon turned into 'He'. He was quite an ugly duckling for a while.

 

[wilsonnw8]

yes it happens a lot pet stores just dont understand there is more than one variety of betta so sell Plakats as females when they come in. Granted they are hard to tell from females at first but if they knew their stuff we wouldnt have the problem! both my females from pet stores turned out to be males. Really the only thing you can do is buy from breeders who know what they spawned so know that there isnt a rogue plakat in there!

 

[kubora666]

i didnt realise it was such a common problem. well the lfs i got them from received them as females.
when my brother ordered a saltwater anglerfish they gave him a kind of goby =S
suppliers make mistakes

 

[ibbledibble]

i just wanted to ask, you said "i bought 3 females for my male"
are you planning to keep them in a separate tank? or are you keeping them in the same tank as the male? because if so, this is not generally recommended as there can be huge amounts of aggression even between males and females.

if this is something you already know, then sorry.

 

[kubora666]

oh dont worry they are all in different tanks. once i found out they were males and they began to act aggresively i moved them all

 

[NottsFishy]

Yep it happened to me recently thought i got a girl found out after posting pics up on here that she was a he lol
My first plakat too lol

 

[LauraFrog]

I have loads of plakats, I make a habit of rescuing them because I've seen the results when some poor idiot decides his betta would like a girlfriend and chucks a plakat in a half gallon bowl with the veiltail. (I've also seen the results when the same idiot chucks a FEMALE in that bowl.) I wish people would get a clue, they are so ignorant about bettas!

 

[Syphoniera]

Don't know if this counts, but my last male betta purchase turned out to be a girl.
Of course I'm A) not breeding and B) absolutely charmed with her so this is a good thing for me.
And, no doubt, when I finally start my sorority, half or more of my girls will turn out to be be males and I'll have to move my bed out of the room to make space for more tanks, which I actually wouldn't mind doing anyway...
Things often work out nicely in the end, don't they, at least when more tanks/fish are the result?