Bettas in action

After giving my last two bettas Butterfly and dim sum away, I had to a chance to take care of them, because the new owner needs to be away for a week... I took my liberty to move them ALL to my desk.. Now I have 3 little lives around me while I am working.. They are just irresistibly cute!! They always come up the surface for food and flare like crazy when they see each other (except tiny dim sum).


Deaddy pooping...

little dim sum

My beloved Butterfly

fishie getting crazy

Another look at Deaddy

Deaddy again

Deaddy from top

dim sum from top

Butterfly top view

Butterfly side view

Two guys getting absolutely feisty

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Here's the funny thing. When I got Dim Sum and Deaddy, Petsmart labeled them as female. So I thought, oh great, I got a couple males that I could probably mate with them, or just put two females in one bowl to save me some troubles.

Everything went fine. It took me the usual 30 minutes to pick out two tiny babies that I liked and whom liked me. =) (Compatibility is very important to me.) Brought them home.. And started some reading on mating bettas.. While the whole time, I noticed that they were pretty mild tempered, didn't flare or mind each other in separate bowls. And I found the little white dot under their bellies. Good, they are females.

So I had to introduce them first to make them familiarized themselves with each other. I wondered if they would like each other enough to have babies, if they are as picky as humans.. I thought too much about bettas as always once again. ;p

I put Deaddy in a tiny bowl right next to Butterfly's bowl. uh oh.. o_O They started flaring like crazy!! Butterfly got so excited that it almost jumped out of water! Although Deaddy was so small in comparison to Butterfly, but it had no fear what-so-ever. It kept hitting the wall trying to attack Butterfly. I got so freaked out that I had to separate them immediately. Lucky I didn't put them together in the same tank, I thought.. Probably Dim Sum would be a better fit, I said to myself.

Dim Sum didn't mind having Butterfly dashing and flaring at the beginning. But I at least learned that Butterfly might be too old and feisty for mating.. *sigh. I left their bowls close to each other for 5 more minutes. When I was back, I realized, Dim Sum was trying hard to flare!! Omg! What kind of bettas did I just get?!!

Strange thing is Dim Sum and Deaddy only flare at Butterfly. They had no special reaction towards each other or their own reflections. I don't know. Probably they are not females after all..

So my conclusion after all these is:
- Butterfly is a good warrior, but probably too old and fastidious as a husband or a father
- Dim Sum and Deaddy may not be females. I couldn't tell. Physically they look like females enough to me. But I am thinking they might have some sexual identity crisis. In front of a strong and powerful male, somehow their male side was revealed, waken; they thought they were males as well. In front of a female, they thought the other one was a female, and probably they thought of themselves as males or females. *sigh.. truly confusing fishies..