Female blowing bubble nest?

[jonc711]

Hi AQ members,

Recently, my female betta splendens has started to blow bubblenests. I find it really weird as I thought only males blow bubblenests? Some more is that the bubble nest more sturdy than my males? ._.

[stormhawk]

It is likely that your female is a male that is faking the "egg spot" at the vent. Some young male Bettas will do this to prevent being hurt by more dominant males.

[jonc711]

Hmm... But I have seen the betta showing the horizontal lines before. And it looks like bloated with eggs???

[Shi Xuan]

Males do exhibit the horizontal lines when stressed, besides females, especially when it's not the most dominant individual. Some males do fake an ovipositor, for that reason. This is similar in behavior for some fishes, which looks like females but are actually sleeper males.

In any case, if you are still unsure of the gender, place a mirror in front of your "male" and observe it from the top. Females tend to have a smaller gill cover span when they flare and they don't open as wide as the males generally do.

[oddstamp]

It is possible for betta splendens female to blow bubblenest. Though it's extremely rare that a female's bubblenest is more strudy than those built by a male (unless you have a subdominant docile male).
Last time when keeping splenden fighters i had a few highly aggressive/dominant splenden females that would build their own bubblenest. They even cared for the fries like the way males would (the male would have his big bubblenest of fries, and at the other corner the female would have a smaller batch of fries).

By placing a dominant aggressive female with a effeminate male one can increase the chances of a female building a bubblenest.

[Shi Xuan]

Hi oddstamp,

What you mentioned of your female reminds me of a similar article written by Victoria Parnell;
http://bettysplendens.com/articles/p...?articleid=889

It's a good read because everything was explained in details of the potential for female betta to care for fry.

[jonc711]

Lol all these opinions make me confused... I guess the reasons that I identify it as a female is that it is fat and have tiny ventrals (it has gill covers which are quite average size). Might the bubble nest be because I put it next to a old male which doesn't bother blowing much bubble nests?

[Shi Xuan]

I have never had a female blow a bubblenest as elaborate as males, although they do. Try placing the female's jar beside the old male for a few days. If she's receptive, you should see that there's some vertical barring on the female's body unless it's a Cambodian body colored female, which is a term for light body color.

Give it some time, the male should start blowing a bubblenest when the female is within his vicinity. For some reasons, some males won't blow a nest unless the female is present. I even had "gay" males that build a nest only when the female is popped into his tank after I ran out of patience with the "Jarring method" the last time I bred fancy betta.

[Shi Xuan]

I have never had a female blow a bubblenest as elaborate as males, although they do.

Just to explain myself clearly, females do blow bubblenest but it's seldom encountered. This is similar to some cases where females can look deceptively male-like and tend to be large in size.

Anyway, I hope you've got a female instead of a male though.

[stormhawk]

Lol all these opinions make me confused... I guess the reasons that I identify it as a female is that it is fat and have tiny ventrals (it has gill covers which are quite average size). Might the bubble nest be because I put it next to a old male which doesn't bother blowing much bubble nests?

Fat is not necessarily an indicator of the sex of the female. Simple way is to use the candling method, or shine a bright light through the belly region. If you can make out the yellowish ovaries then your fish is a female. If not, the tiny ventrals are no indicator of the sex. Remember how we used to find female Bettas cheaply at LFS? Among those females are young subdominant males which act like females. I know, because the "females" that I had, spawned together one day. I kept them in a small group in a 1 ft tank just for fun and they ended up spawning with no "true" male around.

[jonc711]

Maybe I will try to take a picture of the betta instead. Just to clarify, the "fat" i was talking about is that bulge at the stomach area...

[stormhawk]

I understand what you mean, but I used to also have fat males that kept gorging themselves on food. Try the candling/torchlight method and you can easily sex the fish in question.

[square_87]

for me,whenever my female blows bubblenest,it is also an indicator that she is ready for breeding.

[jonc711]

@stormhawk: I know what u mean now >< my other male seems to be gorging itself until it looks like it's full of "eggs". I shall do the light test later (and for my male as well)

@square_87: wow, I have never heard of this theory before. Thanks for your helpful advice anyway!