Male Or Female Betta?

[samurai_beth]

Hello. I purchased 2 female dragon bettas and had them delivered to my house. They arrived healthy and everything was fine. I put them into a tank (150 litres) together with a few other fish and everything seemed ok at first.
Then the smaller of the 2 females started nipping the other fish and the other female, and being very very aggressive. After a few hours of this I decided that she wasnt about to calm down and moved her to a small tank by herself where she has been for 2 days. Now it looks asthough she is building a bubble nest, there are small clumps of bubbles on the surface that appeared over just a few hours.
In appearence she is female, she has short fins and is a pale shiney green colour and quite small. The place I ordered them from said they were about 4 months old.
Is there any chance this could be a male? If so could it grow more fin? I have looked for the "egg spot" on the underside and cant see anything but I'm new to keeping bettas. I have also heard that some females can behave like this. I'm just really unsure and dont want to risk mixing her with anything untill I'm sure.I only purchased them as pets so I dont intend on trying to breed them. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Hunterprey]

There are also short finned male Bettas, Plakats, could be a male plakat.
If its a female its suggested to have 4 or more to spread the aggression.
If u can show a picture that would help. And yes some female could just be really agressive.

 

[samurai_beth]

Hey just trying to get a picture though she is in a circular bowl, so its impossible to take one through the glass i'll try lifting her to the surface of the water.
I watched your youtube vid, nice tank... and even cooler picture of friezer from DBZ

Hold on just charging the camera...

 

[samurai_beth]

Ok, trying to take a photo completely failed, the camera wasnt good enough so I gave up.
I found a picture of the fish in the tank, from the place I ordered them from, She looks exactly like the green ones in the picture. (Also the ventral fins appear longer)

 

[Hunterprey]

Thnx try to get a picture of it flaring, if they got that extension on their gills, beard, then it is a male plakat, females don't have those. And yeah if they don't hav that white spot sticking out on their ovipositor then chances are u got a male.

Males have an additional flap of tissue under their gills when they flare.

 

[samurai_beth]

I have seen it flare its gills before, at the other female, it did have a small amount of beard, but not much compared to most siamese fighters, though as I said, its very small, about 1.2 inches. Also if it was male I'm not sure why it would attack the female?

 

[Hunterprey]

If it has the beard then its a male, maybe just havn't fully developed yet. I've never owned a male Betta that young though Male Betta will attack other Bettas (male/female) If they are mating then they won't attack.

 

[samurai_beth]

Ohhhh.... I dont know what to do with "her" now.
I really wanted them to go in my main tank... Eep. Oh well, I guess he will have to live in a the glass bowl forever. Do you think he will grow at all? I dont really know what age they reach full size.
Thanks for helping me out, trying to find out online was nearly impossible as there was a lot of things that contridicted eachother.

 

[Hunterprey]

He will prolly still grow, I would suggest frequent water change if he's gonna stay in a bowl. 75% waterchange evry 2 or 3 days. Good Luck!

 

[Mrs. Williams]

I actually just recently came to the conclusion that one of my bettas was a male. It was sold to me as a female and looked like one also. It lived with another female betta very peacefully for 11 months. When I decided to upgrade my tank and start my sorority "she" completely changed! She was WAY more aggressive. "Her" gills extended much further than they used to. Has anyone else been fooled for this long? I feel like an idiot. LoL. And before i get in trouble with any of you, i did take him/her out and it is now by itself.

 

[Assaye]

Mrs. Williams, yours looks like a crowntail female. Females can be just as aggressive as males and maybe the change of environment and tank-mates when you started your sorority triggered the behaviour.

Beth - I believe that spawn are all dragon halfmoon plakats (HMPK). If that is true, then the males will also be short finned and it's perfectly possible for a young male to have become stranded with the females.

The females also have a gill beard but not quite such a large one as the males. All my girls flare very readily.

Try to get us a photo of the exact fish.

 

[Mrs. Williams]

Do you have a suggestion on how i can work her back into my big tank? I'm afraid to now. She actually hurt one of the others pretty badly.

 

[Assaye]

If you want females, keep them in large groups. You don't need to put her back into your other tank, though. Many females are more suitable to being kept on their own anyway.

 

[Mrs. Williams]

After giving it more thought, i decided to keep her alone anyways. Even if she did calm down enough to keep her with the others i wouldn't trust it. She fits in quite wonderfully in my daughter's room. My daughter was very excited when she saw her moved in there.

 

[Honeythorn]

He needs to be in a tank, not a bowl. Bowls are not made to keep fish in, they're made to make money from people who don't know any better. Seriously. A bowl also has ridiculously poor swimming space, a fish should not be cramped regardless of size, since yours is young he has some growing to do, and the bowl will not provide enough space and territory for him.

Heating and filtering a bowl is very difficult due to the shape, and to keep the water stable you will need to do very large water changes every couple of days. This will stress your fish and stress is a big factor in the cause of some of the more common diseases like whitespot, espescially when combined with poor water quality.

A 5 gal tank ( this will fit in a lot of places ) with a heater and sponge filter, lots of silk plants and perhaps a cave or smooth hollow ornament to hide in.

To make things cheaper you could get a 5 gal tank second hand or even free if you look in free ads, Craigslist, garage sales ect.