# Wow colors!



## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

I'm new to fish in general and have virtually no experience. However I am shocked with some of the radical changes in colors I notice and how fast they can change! It seems to be an important indicator of health/happiness- yet I don't ever notice people talking about that (short of fin rot and such with clear indicators of spotty color change.)

My roommate's betta grays up with bad water and looks like a boring light blue, but when it's clean, fresh water with sufficient space it turns beautiful aqua with deep blues and rich greens.

When I got my betta, my aunt shipped him to me. He was supposed to be a red/black crowntail but when I got him he was the sickest Gray/Brown- turning very transparent. Within hours of acclimating him to the new tank he perked up. It hasn't even been 24 hours and he has deep reds and clear blue/gray colors. I imagine with more time the blue/gray will darken and the red will brighten some more.

Does anyone else have experince with such dramatic (and fast!) color changes through conditions? I also read somewhere that many marbled bettas change colors just because. How much do they change?


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## LolaQuigs (Mar 28, 2010)

I think it all depends on the individual fish, as well as what their colors are. For example my cellophane and copper bettas never change colors, regardless of how sick/healthy they are. But I definitely hear about how a pale fish colors up dramatically once moved into a better environment, so for some fish it's definitely an indicator of health and well being. As for marbles...see the guy in my avatar? At the end of his life, his head was the same color as it is in the picture, but his body was solid dark blue and his fins were dark blue with green steaks; he didn't even look like the same fish!


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## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

wow, I more often heard of bettas loosing color at the end of his life, that sounds like he gained color. That's interesting.


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## Dixie (Apr 3, 2011)

When my friend found Dixie on the betta shelf in Petco she said that she was a pale white and that she had mistaken her as an all white Crowntail. After being in a much better environment Dixie had started to gain color and be more active. Eventually my friend gave Dixie to me because she made the decision to give up owning a betta. She is now turning into a mixture of different colors. (Dixie might be a multi Crowntail...)


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## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

What colors is has the betta changed to?

I admit my first betta died and he was a red/blue crowntail- even in death it was "duller" but not nearly the color differences I've seen in my roommate or my current fish


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## DaveC (Apr 4, 2011)

Othello, my long departed betta would change from a deep midnight blue to a reddish-violet when he was upset or stressed.


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

Lulu, my black Plakat, looses color when she's stressed. she'll go from rich black, with red on her fins, to an ugly light brown with rich black stress stripes, and the red will turn a dried-blood color.

when Caroline, my cambodian girl, gets stressed, the red on her fins becomes muddy red and see-through.

the most amazing color change, though, is my HMPK dragon girl. for reasons i can't figure out, Chappy went from a beautiful cream-bodied girl with beautiful green-blue scales, to a brown pineapple with metallic blue on her fins. ._____o lost all her shiny scales, except a few on her eye, and is quite plane looking, the generic way for females to be described by non-betta-lovers.


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## LolaQuigs (Mar 28, 2010)

christina said:


> wow, I more often heard of bettas loosing color at the end of his life, that sounds like he gained color. That's interesting.


Well he died from a filter accident, so unfortunately he never got to see old age.  I wish I had taken more pictures of him, I'd love to take a side-by-side look at the difference in both color and finnage (he ended up being a halfmoon double tail), but I don't think I got any pictures of him once he was full grown.

My current female "cellophane" is showing signs of marbling, so I'm looking forward to seeing how she changes over time!


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## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

The see-through seems to be a trend as well. I noticed as my betta gets more colorful he also looks more "solid" The light doesn't filter through his body as strongly- and his fins are looking bigger and more solid, probably because the edges aren't transparent. I thought he had fin rot originally, but now I"m thinking it was just sick coloring since it's gone away so significantly after a day. (even mild Fin rot doesn't heal itself overnight does it?)

Luimeril, you seem to have a like for the female bettas. I have to admit to be in the thinking of the non-betta-lovers as them looking more boring. Do you aim to get more colorful bettas or do you just love their quirky personalities? (One of my roommates has a female and it's a personality for sure, but just a muddy boring color that she gets lost in the tan substrate and is overpowered by the green plant in the tank.)


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## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

I'm sorry to hear about the accident! I have heard such mixed reviews on filters and bettas. I think it stressed out my first betta- but my current one seems to almost enjoy the filter's flow. (It's one of the lowest flows I could find- but in a 5.5 gallon tank it is still noteable.)


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

well, when i got Lulu, i'd wanted a male. i thought she was a boy, to be honest. xD when i found out she was a female, i was pretty happy. :3 i adore females for their personalities. i dun care if they're ugly, colorful, or what. i'm aiming for a new female, but mom took the spare tank to slightly upgrade her crowntail from his bowl, and move him from the kitchen. i gotta clean out her 10 gallon, so i can take my tank back. >3>

as for Chappy, she was a surprise. o.o i'd just lost the betta in my avatar, my white HMPK, Weiss, and didn't want another. i'd bought some Red Cherry Shrimp to fill his empty 3 gallon, and when i opened the box and got the bag, these two big ol' eyes were staring at me, from the Java moss. the person gave me a fry! she was called "the little one", "my baby betta", and other cute names until she was old enough to tell the gender of. she was almost Cloud, but an HMPK breeder told me she was a Chappy instead. x3 she's gone through alot of changes since i got her, as a colorless speck. i got to watch her grow up, and squeeled with glee at every step. when her dragon scales started coming in, i was so happy, and took almost daily photos. xD


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## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

What a surprise! I kind of wanted to raise a betta from a fry, but I know of no one who breeds bettas in Utah  We have a wide choice of Petsmart and petco. I think that is a lucky coincidence!

What is a Chappy?


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

well, i'd picked out two names for my fry. Chappy Belle, if it was a girl, Cloud if it was a boy. i asked a breeder friend if i had a Cloud(boy), or a Chappy(girl), and he said i had a Chappy. xD

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1524389916212&set=a.1498800956504.2065711.1428554713

there she is, in the middle of her transition from HMPK dragon, to HMPK brown pineapple. ._.


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## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

Ah, that makes more sense. Your betta is very cute. I like the color differences of yellow and green.


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## FuulieQ (Jan 10, 2010)

My boy Freed changed from turquoise to electric blue was he aged.  
First brought home -








Couple months;








About a year;


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## christina (Mar 10, 2011)

he kind of looks like my roomies' betta  I bet hers gets greener though. (although I've heard predicting isn't very easy)

I notice the fin in the first picture. How did that happen? He seemed to have recovered quite well though.


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## FuulieQ (Jan 10, 2010)

christina said:


> he kind of looks like my roomies' betta  I bet hers gets greener though. (although I've heard predicting isn't very easy)
> 
> I notice the fin in the first picture. How did that happen? He seemed to have recovered quite well though.


I'm not quite sure how he ripped his fin, there was nothing in his container that could have done it, but it may have been water current as I had to carry him back to my dorm on foot.  He did completely heal in about a week with clean water only, but he always had a tendency to rip it occasionally and he bit it a couple of times. (see album for stubby Freed ) 

He was pretty generic, yeah, I see clones of him everywhere. But I loved him anyway, he even got little red spots after he bit his tail around the time I decided that I liked red Dalmatians.


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## Abby (Jan 13, 2011)

urgh done MENTION colour change!

lets see...
Dastans colour changed before he died
Melvin, he was METALLIC blue butterfly:








then recently lost his shiny 









Cedric was a black and purple sd/hm metallic copper butterfly...Before being attacked by benny:









After: (his colour changes from a pale metallic green to pale metallic purple)








Louie my lil ct is white with a splash on his fins of red. at first his fins were seethrough, then they went "frosted" when he settled, then they started turning aqua shimmery. they only go seethrough if hes really calm.


























hes also begining to blacken on his tail base.

Benny was a dark blue almost black with white on his fins (butterfly) then he ate his white and most of his blue off then turned a brighter blue, now i wishe hed stop eating his silly self:
























































my girls get stressed and frop their colours to that brown with thick black stripes to the point the only one i can identify apart from rayne is cinder cause shes darkest

RAYNE:

see link below:
http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=67151


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## luluo (Apr 6, 2011)

I am completely new to fish and I just got my first Betta today. He was a pretty blue and red color in the store. I transported him home, placing his cup inside a small cardboard box, hoping that the darkness would cause him less stress for the ride. We got home about 10 minutes later and he was an awful pale gray color. He started to brighten again after about 20 minutes of his cup floating in the tank. Now that he's been swimming around for about five hours his color is electrifying and more purples and greens are coming out.


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## Abby (Jan 13, 2011)

luluo said:


> I am completely new to fish and I just got my first Betta today. He was a pretty blue and red color in the store. I transported him home, placing his cup inside a small cardboard box, hoping that the darkness would cause him less stress for the ride. We got home about 10 minutes later and he was an awful pale gray color. He started to brighten again after about 20 minutes of his cup floating in the tank. Now that he's been swimming around for about five hours his color is electrifying and more purples and greens are coming out.



thats normal after being netted baged transported and what not  glad hes settling nicely


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