I recently bought a female Betta and left here in my guppy tank to fatten up before attempting to mate her with my male. After a few days, I noticed that the fins of my guppies are quite torn, and "she" is starting to colour up a bit. Not only that she has quite visible horizontal bars.

Is she a he?

I've just put them in a tank with a see through divider in it and she now has vertical bars. What does that mean?

A female will get vertical bars if she is in the presence of a male, and is ready to spawn.It sounds like a female to me

good luck silver

The thing is, she's quite young compared to my male, and quite average too. Not underfed thin or fat with eggs, just average. I temporarily took the divider out and the male just went berserk. He just chased the female around but not really nipping or anything. I've now put the divider back just to make sure they don't kill each other during the night.

good idea and maybe he will build a bubble nest u never no

Actually, he was in the tank before the female, and has already built a huge nest. I'm just concerned that the "she" may be a "he".

I'll try to get a picture of her later. But her vertical bars are light colored, compared to the rest of her body. Weird.

man i dnt wana knw bwt it if there both guyz lol but hopefully thea not so u can lots of lil bubbas swimming rwnd then earn some muny of em

would say thats shes definately a female

I reckon that it might be a female too, but what surprised me was when I found the guppy with the torn tail. I thought female bettas were peaceful fish.

when i had my 1s both my female and male were peaceful

Both male and female bettas are peaceful fish, just not two males together - then theres trouble. However guppies are known to be a pain in the neck and if they wind the bettas up they will retaliate. Are we talking a male guppy or female.

It's a male. I know that male bettas tend to attack anything that might be prettier than them, so I assumed that if the female betta attacked the guppy it might be a male.

Day 2 since they have been in a tank with a divider, and the male is still quite aggressive. The "female" seems quite calm and not responding to any of the males flares.

Normal behavior?

Also, I just noticed the male's bubble nest doubled in size.

Beating up the mrs is part of the process when breeding Siamese Fighters. Good idea to make sure she has somewhere to hide but she will get beaten up. If she has the bars etc it sounds like she is keen anyway.

Female fighters may be considered peaceful, but guppies are kind of slow and retarded, makes them easy to snack on. Tails are tasty apparently.

And it's definately a female you have there.

Thats having me scratching my head though. When seperated, the "female" actually colors up and suspiciously looks like a young male. I just caught "her" flaring at my male.

I bought "her" about 2-3 weeks ago from Redwoods, and was thinking of keeping "her" for a few more weeks to confirm that it is indeed a she. If it turns out to be a he, do you think I could trade it back for a real female?

As the female becomes closer to being ready for breeding she will flare at the male, it may be time to put her in with him. Put her in the tank inside a container for a little bit. When she is flaring at him release her - she will either follow him straight to the bubble nest or she may just swim around a bit. As long as neither fish is being torn to shreds just leave them be. The female may get a few bits out of her fins but nothing major.

If you pop her in now and release her later this evening you may find they spawn early morning - leave a low powered light on so they can just see each other. Once they have spawned remove her and about 24-36 hours after the eggs hatch (use a magnifying glass) remove the male as well. If you don't have a ready supply of bbs I'd put it on now. Microworms are good as well for the first few days and also liquifry for egg laying fish.

You will find that once the female has bred she will never go back to being as light in colour as she was before.

Good luck

Some pictures:

This was taken with the aid of a small table lamp. Seems like a he under the light.

Yeah, like Spidersweb said, it's definitely a female you have there, no doubt. The bars in her colouring change once she's ready to spawn. Keep them seperated til the "first egg" shows - this is actually the female's egg tube thing. Once that shows and the male is all excited and flaring at her you can remove the divider. There will be chasing, but make sure there is a hiding place of two for the lady fish. Eventually he will entice her to the nest, she will become submissive and swim head down about 30 degrees or so then they'll get it together under the nest. Once eggs are seen in the nest and he's busy collecting the falling ones, remove her from the tank or he'll get aggressive trying to defend the eggs from her approaches. Once the fry are hatched and free swimming, remove him or segregate him or he'll be having fry for breakfast, especially when they start to develop male/female characteristics.

Good luck with the breeding!!

I would say it's a she looking at the short finnage .

Cool stuff, it's fairly certain that it's a she then. I just removed the divider and saw her adopting the "head-down" pose with her tail all clamped. And the male seems to have no idea what to do after that. :roll:

Yeah, that sounds about right. Typical bloke betta, all flaring and fins, no action.

Mine spent a day gathering eggs and keeping them in his bubble nest in a frenzy of activity then just forgot about them and let them all drop to the floor where there they were promptly eaten.

When the female is ready to breed the ovipositer will be visable. Just keep an eye on them because if the female is not ready and does not co operate she will get beaten up.

I think the female isn't ready yet, and her fins are getting a little torn so I tossed her into the community tank to fatten up a little. The first thing she did when released was to chase the neons in there.