Short-tail males?

[cation]

What are short-tail males? My primary lfs got some, they were told they were females but they started fighting like males (flaring, I guess). I was going to get one the other day when I thought they were females, but they told me they were males...

 

[cation]

After doing a bit of research, I'm wondering if they weren't Imbellis. Are there short tail splendis?

 

[wuvmybetta]

Those are usually plakats I love plakats, bkk is our resident plakat expert

*stop saying plakat up there!*

Anyway, I have a couple of them and they're precious!

Could also have been a young imbellis

 

[cation]

Aha! Well, now that I have a bit more betta room, I may have to go get one. Their fins were pretty ripped up though - when they thought they were girls, they all went in together . Don't know if I'm good enough yet to try to get those fins grown back - they were at least 1/2 gone...

 

[bkk_group]

you would be lucky indeed if they were imbellis they are pretty hard to find (itty, back me up). short tail bettas are indeed a special breed, their history is pretty amazing, without them you wouldn't have your crown-tails, half moons, veil-tails and on and on. in the wild, bettas are short tailed. when you see one at your LFS they are most always splendens. my hope is that one day plakat (pla-fish, kat-biting in thai) will acheive the same amount of fame as the fancier strains when it comes to showing fish in competition. from what i have been hearing lately this could indeed be happening as more people are coming round. some people don't like to hear about the history of plakat as they were first bred for fighting in south asian countrys like thailand and vietnam. wild bettas like imbellis, smaragdina, malachai and splendens were bred and crossbred for strength and stamina and fighting ability. later (it is speculated) chinese breeders developed the first fancy strain, the veil-tail which is so predominant today.

 

[cation]

Very cool info! I may go back and see if they're still there, I'm just worried I'd have a dead fish on my hands soon. Can they come back from the fin breakage do you think? Do you treat them the same as Splendens?

 

[White Whale]

Pure imbellis are not sold in chain petstores. Because of the demand for long-finned splendens, the original short-finned imbellis (non-crossed) are becoming quite rare due to all the cross-breeding. What you see sold on some sites as imbellis is more like an imbellis cross-breed with splendens.

The ones you saw at the store, what color were they?

 

[White Whale]

Can they come back from the fin breakage do you think? Do you treat them the same as Splendens?

When it comes down to it, they are basically the same species. The only difference is the color of their gills and their fighting characteristics in pure form. Splendens will posture very little and then attack. Imbellis is more posture than fight - hence, the 'Peaceful Betta'. However, when forced to fight it is a much faster and unpredictable attacker. Shortfin or longfin, BettaFix and BettaMax should work well.

 

[bkk_group]

Very cool info! I may go back and see if they're still there, I'm just worried I'd have a dead fish on my hands soon. Can they come back from the fin breakage do you think? Do you treat them the same as Splendens?

the last time we bred our bettas the female double-tail suffered a huge "shark" bite out of her tail fin by the male. it looked pretty bad but it all grew back, now except for some discolouration where the new fin has grown back everything looks like new.

 

[wuvmybetta]

the last time we bred our bettas the female double-tail suffered a huge "shark" bite out of her tail fin by the male. it looked pretty bad but it all grew back, now except for some discolouration where the new fin has grown back everything looks like new.

Same here, my little female has huge chunk missing from her tail, it's coming back nicely though with bettamax and clean water

 

[bkk_group]

the last time we bred our bettas the female double-tail suffered a huge "shark" bite out of her tail fin by the male. it looked pretty bad but it all grew back, now except for some discolouration where the new fin has grown back everything looks like new.

Same here, my little female has huge chunk missing from her tail, it's coming back nicely though with bettamax and clean water

we used a piece of indian almond leaf in the recovery tank and it worked great.

 

[wuvmybetta]

I still haven't been able to get ahold of tht! Mainly because...I fogot about it and when I remember it's almost midnight and the health food stores closed

Maybe I'll tie a string around my finger...unless of course, I forget what the strings for

 

[bkk_group]

I still haven't been able to get ahold of tht! Mainly because...I fogot about it and when I remember it's almost midnight and the health food stores closed

Maybe I'll tie a string around my finger...unless of course, I forget what the strings for

yah, i wish my indian almond leaf post hadn't vanished in the great shuffle. maybe it's time for a new post.

 

[bittersweet]

wow this post became actually very informative. I have learned alot about bettas just in this short time. I was always wondering what plakats were and such. very cool info everyone!

 

[cation]

The ones you saw at the store, what color were they?

The ones in the store just looked kinda muddy. some of their tanks are a bit on the underlit side - my fish always look different when they're homw and settled in. The one I got today is still kinda stressed, but right now he's a bronze/gold irridescent mix, with 3 horizontal darker lines




Thanks for all the great info, guys and gals!