How to tell plakat?

[ikermalli]

I know that all chain pet stores (pet not specifically fish) have female bettas and plakats mixed together. They always name some wrong. Next Saturday I am getting a new tank and dividing it. I want to know how to be able to tell a plakat from a female. Any tips? Also what is the anal fin?

[Ichthius]

I can't really answer your question about telling the difference between females and plakats, but here's something on the anal fin.

It's the single fin near the anal vent, not the paired pelvic fins or the caudal, tail, fin.

Fish anatomy:
http://www.fishlore.com/Pictures/FishAnatomy.gif

[ikermalli]

thanks for that! I found out how to tell, usually the ventral fin is longer, and also the anal fin is longer than the start of the tail and females have little white tube on the bottom that eggs come out of i found it on UB

[anasfire23]

I've been sold plakat/wild short finned bettas as female before and tried to spawn them wondering why they were fighting with the male...like literally locking jaws and trying to rip each other apart haha. Some pet stores get short finned males and just assume that they were left separate from the bulk female bag by mistake or that the breeder didn't think there was enough room for them...or something stupid like that so they add them to the tank with the females and sell unsuspecting people short finned males as females. These days I look really closely and make sure I can see an ovipositor before I buy the fish. If you really want to get a plakat I'd suggest buying one from aquabid, some of them go for fairly cheap and send them within the continental US for like $5 per fish ( I don't' know if Canada is classed as continental US but it's the same freaking continent so I don't see why not!)

for eg http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/aucti...swt&1193461245
He's only $10 but I don't know how much postage would be. Aquabid would be your best bet for a pure blood plakat though otherwise you run the risk of getting a female VT

[ikermalli]

I would love to get one of those, but all I can do is admire. Do you have a site as to what bettas you sell? Will shipping from you cost a lot?

[anasfire23]

Shipping from us would cost HEAPS!! Australia is a long, long way away. Our transhipper won't even import them from the US, she says it's way too far for them to travel! We don't have a website as such just yet as we don't have any mature spawns to sell. The last time I bred bettas was the end of 06, I didn't bother throughout winter as I didn't have adequate heating options for jarred fry so I waited for the weather to heat up. Misfit has a friend who is good with web design so he's going to ask him what he can do for us when the time comes. As the fry get bigger I'll make more of an effort to take photo's, I tried to today to show their white spot but it's impossible to get a pic of them when they are in clear water let alone green stained water from their medication! We don't have plakats either Ikermalli.. I'm pushing Misfit to let me get some in to breed but he hates them. I think they look awesome and a chick from an aussie forum is breeding CTPK's at the moment... I want some of her fry!

[ikermalli]

I still cannot tell plakats from females, because when I look at the females in the petsmart near to me they all have ventral fins that are the same size except some have long ones but with that little white thing at the bottom

[anasfire23]

Well all females have the white thing at the bottom, males don't...well they're not supposed to anyway. Some juvenile males can have a white anal spot until it darkens and that's why they are mistaken for females sometimes. Honestly I don't see why you can't get any from aquabid, there are heaps of American sellers ( I know you are in Canada but hey send them to Europe too so Canada is heaps closer) and it won't cost that much to get them to you. You said you saved up for your tank, save up for a plakat then get one within your budget! You can get cheap fish from Aquabid, we paid only $US22 for 3 HM's a few weeks ago...what's going to kill us is the $25 PER FISH import fee!

[ikermalli]

LOL, I can get them but they only accept pay pal, my dad has an American Express card will that work? But my dad isnt too big on ordering stuff. Also fees to ship are quite expensive ontop of getting the fish, about 12.75 and since I can't pay that means trouble if I ask

[anasfire23]

Get ur dad to open a paypal account and activate his card with it that way u can pay for them and save ur money to pay your dad back.. or even do extra ch-ores ( stars the word out spelt properly) for him to pay for it. honestly $12.95 to have a Betta shipped to you is nothing! Ours are (as I said earlier) $25 PER fish and we have 3 coming in!

[ikermalli]

true, my dad isn't a big enthusiast though, I will talk to him, or I might be close to a breeder when I get my new tank

[anasfire23]

Ikermalli, thought you might like to see a picture of a halfmoon Plakat bred right here in Australia. I'm trying to work it out with their breeder to buy 2 females and a male so I can breed them myself. One of this one's spawn bro's won best Australian bred fish at the recent Betta show we went to.

Enjoy

[shade2dope]

wow thats all i have to say wow if you get your hands on them then your are the very lucky

[khachdatinh]

If the questions is how to tell Plakat females from Veil Tail females then its pretty simple. When you look at the tail of a Veil tail female, it looks like a fan (chinese type of fan) which is sort of round and pointy at the middle. Plakat females tail however, is like you cut off the tail vertically down. So plakat female tail is shorter and looks like the tail has been cut vertically straight down. I do have difficulty telling Half-moon plakat female from Plakat female tails though. Just one is a bit longer one is shorter i guess.

[ikermalli]

All the ones at my local petsmart are like cut verticaly straight down....

[khachdatinh]

In that case, i think they are probably either half-moon or plakat (short-tailed) At my petsmart, they only have veil tails. about 2 weeks ago they introduced crowtails at $6.99 a piece. I'm not a fan of crowtail but they look pretty nice when flaring.

If you purchase them as pets, its really doesn't matter. Just get from petsmart but if you like to breed them, I think its better to order a pair from a breeder and ask him/her the color/tails percentage of the offsprings. Theres never a 100% half-moon or 100% double tail but most of the time they can predict the outcome of the pair they will sell to you. A breeder told me one time that a pair hes giving me will give 25% half-moon and it turns out 100% veil tail mixed. So yeah some breeders have big mouth.

I would like to aquire some giant bettas in the future. I heard they can grow up to 6 inches! 3x the normal bettas :-0

[ikermalli]

Whoa! That would be sooo cool! 6 INCHES! I hope I am going to petsmart tomorrow I really want that gold female

[neilfishguy]

what is palkat?just a fin variation?

[anasfire23]

yes... well actually the plakats are the original Bettas.. all of them started out that way and the longer versions like veil, Halfmoon delta etc were bred in...well that's how I understand it from what I've read.
khachdatinh>>Veil is the most dominant tail type in regards to genetics. If you have a veil female or male in the mix with any other long type of tail you will get veils with maybe very slight pronunciations of the other type. Eg I bred a male CT with a female VT and got all VT's with slight crowntailing. A HM with a VT will give you all VT's but perhaps their tails will not be as long or something.

Below is a pic of one of the giants at the Betta Show we went to...he was a big boy.. Photo courtesy of Beano from the Ausaqua forum.

[khachdatinh]

It's kinda funny though. We got our Veil tails from Plakats and it turns out Veil tail is more dominant instead. I was actually tested it myself. on April 07 I put a male Plakat with a female Veil tail and offsprings are 100% Veil tail. I picked out 3 pairs and culled the rest. This winter i'll try to put these offspring together and see what i got out of them. Veil or Short. My guess is 50% veild 50% short. that plakat is a Giant lol oh i like the old man sitting there.