# Is my betta a koi?



## nicodemus44 (Oct 20, 2017)

Unsure if my betta is considered a koi betta or a normal marble betta... And yes I'll move it to a bigger tank 

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## KaderTheAnt (Jan 19, 2017)

You can consider it a koi since what it means to be a koi is vaguely described. Pretty girl though

Btw, kois are actually just a variant of the marble gene so technically it’s both


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## nicodemus44 (Oct 20, 2017)

KaderTheAnt said:


> You can consider it a koi since what it means to be a koi is vaguely described. Pretty girl though
> 
> Btw, kois are actually just a variant of the marble gene so technically it’s both
> 
> ...


Hahaha thanks, I'm also unsure about it's gender . I'd make a horrible father :'(

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## KaderTheAnt (Jan 19, 2017)

I was just basing gender off of the body shapebut you’re not the only one. I had a betta I believed was a boy. After 4 months he ended up being a he


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## RickyTan (Jan 26, 2017)

All kois are marbles, not all marbles are kois, but yours is a koi.


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## ThatFishThough (Jan 15, 2016)

Also, your fish is a male. I can't see ovaries behind the stomach. Beautiful, nonetheless!


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

I personally wouldn't call him a Koi but rather a Fancy Marble.


Reason?
He has dragonscales at the moment. They are thick scales that are white, thick blue scales are called Metallic. Though, on AquaBid and eBay, they often will interchange them unfortunately.
A Koi should have a fleshtoned body with the color splotches on top. They will then marble out (change their color) to typically become solid with black and blue spotches on top still as they are not stable in their coloration. So a flesh toned bodied fish with red, blue, black, and some white splashes will turn into a red solid fish with black and blue splotches. The white will be overtaken by the blue as it is dominant.


Your boy, being a Fancy Marble has the white dragonscales. He has splotchy color but it isn't going to last too long either. He will eventually turn blue/black with red underneath his thicker scales 


So the main difference is just that he has thick scales and a koi should not. Even though they are still of the same family of genes.


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## nicodemus44 (Oct 20, 2017)

lilnaugrim said:


> I personally wouldn't call him a Koi but rather a Fancy Marble.
> 
> 
> Reason?
> ...


What about the fins? Will they remain the same or change colour as well? 

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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

nicodemus44 said:


> What about the fins? Will they remain the same or change colour as well?
> 
> Sent from my F3216 using Tapatalk


 

Nope, whole fish will change color ^_^ That's the beauty (and sometimes downfall) of marble fish. Butterflies, Koi, and Fancy/Marble are all part of the marble coloration that will outwardly change. Piebald and Solid can also be part of it but it's a hit or miss as to whether they may fully change or not.


Your fish will end up looking something like this, not exact, but close:










And then from here those white scales will also turn blue leaving you with a mostly blue and some red fish.


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## KaderTheAnt (Jan 19, 2017)

@nicodemus44 I apologize! I should’ve know it’s a fancy marble (I’ve been looking for one of these for a while actually)


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## nicodemus44 (Oct 20, 2017)

KaderTheAnt said:


> @nicodemus44 I apologize! I should’ve know it’s a fancy marble (I’ve been looking for one of these for a while actually)
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Hey man no problem hahaha

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## angeliza (Sep 5, 2015)

Dragon koi-boi. 

Many koi and fancy bettas, (Both are types of marble bettas), have dragon scaling nowadays.


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## ThatFishThough (Jan 15, 2016)

My Samurai Koi had dragon scales... so he wasn't actually a Koi?!  he turned out to be this color, and was turning blue before he passed.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

KaderTheAnt said:


> @*nicodemus44* I apologize! I should’ve know it’s a fancy marble (I’ve been looking for one of these for a while actually)
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



No worries, no worries!
Better to try and fail than to not try at all! I understand why he could look like a koi ^_^



ThatFishThough said:


> My Samurai Koi had dragon scales... so he wasn't actually a Koi?!  he turned out to be this color, and was turning blue before he passed.


Samurai isn't really a technical coloration but more about the scale position. Samurai should have DS along the top of the boy like your boy here. He may have started off as a Koi if he was fleshtoned with splotches of red, black, and white scales. Kois can have some DS but not more than half coverage typically. Usually they only show up in splotches on the fish and eventually turn blue because that's what happens to white when it's on a marbled fish.


If you want to get technical, IBC doesn't recognize any of this except "Marble" as a whole and everything underneath (except the four main: Solid, Piebald, Marble, and Butterfly) is only fancy names that the Thailand sellers made up to hook you. These terms typically can become actual colorations if they stick to it but we've seen what they do with names and they never quite adhere to them. Now a days, everything with a hint of yellow in its fins is now dubbed a Mustard Gas (yes, other issues lie with that but that's neither here nor there). Fish that have one splotch on them are labeled Koi when they should just be Marble or Fancy Marble if having dragonscales. Multicolors are labeled as "___" Flag or some other strange name. I've seen Warrior also come in place of Samurai. So, it's all semantics in the end. I ID something according to the most popular term that is used widespread. Koi is fairly recognized by all communities now but there are still specifics in which defines a Koi over a Marble or Fancy Marble.


Koi: Flesh toned base, small color splotches over the body. Does not have lots of dragon scaling on the fish but may have some splotched where the color splotches are.
Marble: Any color but has larger splotches of color. Also refers to the ability of these colors to change (fish does not control this)
Fancy Marble: same as marble but has thick scales either DS or Metallic scales which are the thick blue/copper scales. DS is only white.


So in long, TFT, your boy may have been a Koi at one point in his life but now, based on his color, he'd simply be a Samurai or Samurai marble if you wished. 


I can post pics if anyone is still confused on the differences.


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## BettaBeau (May 14, 2014)

Here are pics of my Kenda, from when I got him and now.


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## fleetfish (Jun 29, 2010)

Oh well ... since everyone's showing their marble PKs ... 

I'm positive Kilo is going to turn black eventually. He had a spawn sibling beside him at the store that was so much darker than him but still had the red splotches. I'd love him to stay as he is with the red base and the black spots but I know marbles tend to shift from under our noses.


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## Tardigrade (Apr 17, 2017)

Is there anything wrong with fancy names? For some reason, I find them quite entertaining. Especially looking through AQ names. I never found out what exactly is mustard gas. It seems very elusive. For pet owners, I can't see why fancy names might be trouble.


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## ThatFishThough (Jan 15, 2016)

Mustard Gas is an actual color. Just ask @russelTheShihTzu....

It was first bred by someone (can't remember off the top of my head) but it is a patented color (dark body, yellow fins, with a even black band around the edges, no color bleeding from body to fins) so we can't technically call our fish that.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Tardigrade said:


> Is there anything wrong with fancy names? For some reason, I find them quite entertaining. Especially looking through AQ names. I never found out what exactly is mustard gas. It seems very elusive. For pet owners, I can't see why fancy names might be trouble.



Nothing wrong with them, they just aren't "official" colors or color patterns. They're just fancy names that some seller made up to make their fish look cooler. Some of them catch on and some don't. I don't mind fancy colors but for me personally, if someone else is going to use that name, it should be the same type of fish whether it's color based or pattern based. For example, a "Devil" should be a black bodied fish with red fins and black outlining on the fins as well. A "Mustard Gas" is a blue bodied fish, yellow fins, and a blue or black outlining band on the fins. A lot of sellers use "MG" for any thing with yellow in it's fin which is incorrect. A lot of people though are purists or have their own preferances and will call them by their basic pattern type. Like an MG cold be called a Bi-color (having two colors only. Typically refers to one color on body and one color on fins though, it usually doesn't include the Butterfly banding like the MG coloration does), so could a Devil since it'd only be black and red but people do their own thing.


The other problem is when stores like PetCo make up their own names when that coloration already has a name. For example, a lot of their Paradise and Bumblebee Betta's are actually bi-colors and Mustard Gas's. Their "White Opal" Bettas are really just Platinums and Pastel's and Whites, they just lump them together. Same with their fin types. Rose Petal is not a fin type, it's Rosetail which yes, it's all similar and whatnot but the tail types have been solidified and has not changed in years. They have new ones like the Rosetail, Feathertail, and Apache tail are all relatively new. Even Halfmoons are "new" in the overall sense of how long we've been keeping Betta's. But again, big stores will change things like this for whatever reason, some of it is lawful stuff and other is just plain silly. 



ThatFishThough said:


> Mustard Gas is an actual color. Just ask @R*uss*elTheShihTzu ....
> 
> It was first bred by someone (can't remember off the top of my head) but it is a patented color (dark body, yellow fins, with a even black band around the edges, no color bleeding from body to fins) so we can't technically call our fish that.


Jude Als is the creator. And I found out that he didn't patent it, he only trademarked the name itself. Trademarks only last for 10 years (which has been passed) but because it's still in use, it's still technically trademarked even though he doesn't actively seek out people to create lawsuits and such for using the name.
But also since it's technically "out" of trademark, we CAN use the name.


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## Tardigrade (Apr 17, 2017)

Thank you for explaining everything I would think to ask about! I definitely can see there would be a problem with rose petal because the name looks like rosetail. And calling something other than common name. It is confusing. 

This thread makes me want to get a marble betta btw. Big surprise that I saw some marbles at petsmart. There is hardly a variety of bettas in my area so it was shocking. My husband hates koi bettas for some reason though.


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## nicodemus44 (Oct 20, 2017)

This is him now 









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## LouisG (Jul 7, 2018)

Looks like one to me.


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## PyxelPanda (Apr 11, 2017)

I'd say so... It looks like a Halfmoon. Beautiful fish!


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## annolyn (Jul 12, 2018)

He's super cute! All the bettas in this thread are  I also just learned more in the past few minutes about marbles than I have in the past six months. And that's what I came here for! Thank you!


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## Siny Goldy Betta Fish (Mar 3, 2018)

It looks like a Kio or a young Halfmoon!  He's pretty, though!


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