my female betta is the biggest one.?

Question

i currently own 4 male bettas (2 veiltail, 2 crowntail) and 3 females, 2 of them are of normal size, smaller than the males, but one that ive had for about 3 months is big. she is a red combodian (i think?) and she is bigger than all 4 of my males, 1 of my males is 2 years old. and she is bigger than him. i was looking at some pictures of plakat females and she looks like a plakat but different colors and i don't know if plakat female are normally bigger than males although i know that there are giant plakats.... link of photos: http://www.aquarist-classifieds.co.uk/php/detail.php?cat=51&de=15265 & http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=62711 (the orange plakat female) and here is a photo of mine next to one of my males.. (they are both in a small container because i wanted to show them both in the same photo, they both have a 2.5 gallon to themselves) http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k13/richie15_89/Picture068.jpg

Answer 1

That's a great looking female betta. I would classify it as a red (or maybe orange depending on the lighting). It's normal for the color to be lighter on the body than on the fins, especially in females in that color range. I wouldn't call her a Cambodian though as they have quite white bodies and your shows fairly strong pigmentation. You're first link shows a nice female Cambodian. I wouldn't call your a plakat, her fins are fairly long for that classification IMO. I would be interested in knowing the source of the fish, it looks like to be you have one from a superior line and very, very atypical of a pet shop fish (maybe the shop buys from a local IBC breeder?).

That female begs to be bred to a nice red crowntail male IMO, or possibly a halfmoon male. That's a really superior fish, it would do well in even an international level IBC show I think. Consider breeding her and startig a line on that color and size, I think you would find a ready market from other breeders as well as shops for your culls.

Answer 2

The female bettas I have seen that were full of eggs usually were big and round farther back towards their tail. Right under her gills seems too far in front to be eggs. Is she acting normal? Although I can't begin to guess what it could be without even seeing her, I wouldn't guess it to be eggs. And please DON'T just put a male in there to see. Breeding bettas is much more difficult than that. :-)

Answer 3

She is a little small for a "giant betta". Giant's are massive compared to a normal sized betta. We are talking x2 the length, and x3-4 the weight.
http://www.bettysplendens.com/articles/page.imp?articleid=1405

Females tend to be heavier than males, but she doesn't look bad. There might be trouble mating if she is too big for the male to properly wrap around. Honestly she really doesn't look like plakat female to me, but a veiltailed female. (It's hard to tell.)