What Are My Females Doing?

[wigdean]

I have a pure white female betta that seems to be acting a little differently to what I expected.

I was warned to get 3 females incase of any bickering and was told to expect a bit of chasing to begin with. But what has happened couldn't be any further from that. I noticed yesterday that the white female was "rubbing" against one of the others, and then swimming underneath it and going onto her side and bending so her mouth was touching the other bettas body. It's really strange. They were doing this for about 10 minutes.

Now this morning, you can't seperate them. It's like having a bunch of neon tetras. All 3 of them are following each other around the tank. When they do seperate, the white one tries to stay near the one it was doing the strange...thing to. They even go face to face with each other like they are kissing and stay motionless like that for a while. Absolutely no flaring or chasing or anything you'd consider to be bickering.

Is this normal behaviour for females?

I'm trying to get pictures up but my camara is really bad and you can't see them clearly.

 

[community begginer]

u got me on that one mate. couild be some sort of new breeding dance.
who knows.....
as long as they arent hurting any one or any other fish in the tank i wouldnt worry too much about it.
community

 

[modaz]

sounds like youve got 3 fish that get on really well.

 

[AmberMc]

IME, they all have their own personalities... Congratulations on not getting a big brat. I used to have a group of 3, and 2 of them were very docile- but the third I named Queenie. When she came out for a bite, the other two just hung back and watched. There was no getting in her way!

 

[Lynda B]

Consider yourself blessed. I have a few females in my sorority tank that seem to always be near each other, sometimes touching, sometimes not. I have a very serene sorority. You did well picking out your females, apparently.

 

[Bert]

My girls are always rubbing together and doing crazy stuff. I think it just means they get along well!

 

[wigdean]

In the topic about female betta tail types, it says this...

Green - Males have an extra layer of skin on there gill making it possible for them to make the big flare face, lol. When females flare their girls will flare out but that BIG extra layer that frames the face won't be there.

Can anyone clarify this? In females, is that extra layer not there AT ALL?

I swear I saw my red female flare this morning and that skin was there. It was flaring at one of the others (the other didn't move, it was more of the rubbing again and then they went off in different directions). Is there an obvious difference?

If not, I think I may have 2 females and a male...

 

[lilfishie]

females will flare but they won't have the extra skin so there flare will look much smaller. if you think you have a male then seperate it, could be a youngster, you hear many stories on here of females that turn out to be males

 

[MattD]

It is very possible that you did get a male. I've seen several Bettas that appear female but are actually male.

If they spawn this shall be quite serendipitous for you I suppose, depending on whether or not you can care for or sell the fry of course.

 

[wigdean]

I think it's definitely a male. It's the only 1 of the 3 that is flaring and it's definitely got the extra layer. He isn't causing any trouble at the minute and the females don't seem bothered at all by him flaring. They seem more interested in battling against the bubbles created by my spray bar. And when they do come together, it's just the "rubbing" I described in the first post.

I've had a look around a few websites and it looks a lot like a spade/pin tail betta. No idea how common they are though so I could be wrong.

Typical of me though. The lfs had about 50 females in a tank and I manage to pick out a male.

Looking after fry wouldn't be a problem really and I'm pretty certain one of my lfs would take them off me if it happened (I'm lucky enough to have at least 4 quite big lfs within 5 miles).