# help me with betta colors?



## Alphahelix (Dec 7, 2013)

I have my tail types down now and I'm studying up on Betta colors and would like some help with mine! 

I have my guesses but someone with more experience?


Elmo, veiltail  Red with a lighter body and purple accents

Felix, Double Tail Plakat - random patches of white/black and a greenish blue body with cellophane fins

Bronco, Veiltail- solid orange with random blue?

Kaiju- crowntail - he has that cream in his fins and black speckling all in there too - also hints of green in certain lights

Rameses- veiltail dark red body and light red fins. He also has black on the tips of his tail- has had it since I got him with no deterioration of fin or spreading of the color

Glitch - half moon double tail 

Romeo - who prefers to give me the butt every pic I take 
Double tail

Thank you to whomever helps me with my betta boys


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Elmo: Red Multicolor
Felix: Marble or Blue Marble, whichever you prefer
Bronco: Multicolor
Kaiju: Black Copper
Rameses: I would need a clearer picture but for the most part I would call him a Solid Red with Butterfly Accents.
Romeo: Blue Grizzle


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## Alphahelix (Dec 7, 2013)

Thank you!

Is glitch the same as Romeo?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Oh whoops, sorry missed Glitch. But yes he's the same


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## Alphahelix (Dec 7, 2013)

Thank you so much! That helps a lot


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## Alphahelix (Dec 7, 2013)

lilnaugrim, can I pick your brain a bit?

I'm going through betta colors and I came up with different colors than you, can you please tell me what makes a betta one color or another? I'd love to learn!

Elmo: cambodian multicolor (because of the white fleshy body?)
Romeo/Glitch- would the be considered butterfly at all? Not sure what the difference is between that and grizzle
Rameses: bi-color? the body is a darker shade of red than the fins but they are the same color

Thank you so much, I believe you when you say they are certain colors I just would love to learn what makes certain colors fall into categories!


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Np! I love colors, I am an Art Major after all haha.

Elmo would not be Cambodian at all, True Cambo's have no iridescence on them although it's very hard to find true ones now. Also the fact that he's got black on his body rules that out along with the purple and blue accents in his iridescence. As with Mustard Gas now a day's, people tend to miss use the color names, MG and Cambo are the most commonly confused that I see. Mostly I think it's because people want their fish to be more "special" so they say Cambo instead of Multi-color because Multi just sounds boring. But if you want to stay true to color names, then no Elmo is not a Cambo because of the black and his purple in his fins. Also ideally you wouldn't see his scales, he would literally look like flesh on his body with bright red solid fins. 

Romeo and Glitch are not butterflies. Butterflies need to have a solid band ALL the way around their fins like this boy:
View attachment 262105


Ideally you want all the Butterfly band's to meet and look very neat and clean. Where Romeo And Glitch both have messy butterfly accents, so you can say they have butterfly accents but they are both still Grizzles. Butterfly Bands also can be any color though they are normally white or black, occasionally blue.

The definition of Grizzle literally means having dark and white hairs mixed, so it's kind of like Salt and Pepper hair where it's mostly dark colored but with accents of white thrown in. Does that make sense? So I would call Glitch a Blue Grizzle as he's mostly a light pastel blue color for his base with dark blue "grizzled" (almost like drizzled) over top. Romeo is the same with more dark blue grizzled and with some purple butterfly accents in his fins.

Grizzles came up while breeding Pastel colored Betta's, they're basically messy Pastel/Marble Betta's. What makes Grizzles different from Marble's is that usually Grizzles are only two colored Betta's with their blue iridescence like Romeo and Glitch. Marbles are more splotches of two or more different colors or literally just meaning that they change color. So there are sort of two different definitions to Marbles; one that changes color but could be different coloration technically or just for the look of splotched on colors. Like these girls here, I would call them Marbles because of their splotches of colors. They both do have Butterfly accents but because the Marble is so prevalent, I would just call them Marbles is all.
View attachment 262113

View attachment 262121


And then of course you have your changing colored Betta's.

Bi-colors are _generally_ a Betta with two different colors completely like orange and blue; blue body and orange fins. It usually has to be clean for it to be considered so. Like you can't have a Betta with a white body and red fins but has little bits of black in the body, that would then just be classed as a Multi or Marble if it changes or has larger splotches. (Multi's are more like tie-dye and Marbles are splotches, forgot I didn't explain Multis well)
Here is a messy Butterfly that you could technically call as Bicolor as well since it is a solid red all the way around as well as on the fins. However if his fins were a solid red and his body then a more fleshy red, that would not be a Bicolor, could be a Tricolor but I would just call him a Butterfly since the white Butterfly is more prevalent again.
http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y472/betta3311/BiRedHM_zpse7b93edc.jpg

This is NOT a Bicolor but a Blue Betta with a red wash. Another color type that is mistaken.
http://media.independent.com/img/cr....jpg?6626f76dcd72edc2e28f46812c7026450162bdb2

This one is also not a Bicolor (I googled Bicolor and he came up lol), he would be a Salamander because of the way his color fades.
http://www.bettaterritory.nl/Bettas4allstandard-Bicolor2.jpg

"False" mustard Gas's are one of the best examples of truer Bicolors. With a Black or Blue body and orange/yellow fins. Like these two, nice and clean!
http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmjqjzw6eP1qe2rwfo1_400.jpg
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/bd/40/ec/bd40ec9ca111d528e9def591bed6e3aa.jpg

You'll almost always have iridescence in the tail like in my avatar picture, he's a Mustard Gas but it's hard to tell in that particular picture because of his icy blue irid over his tail. So sometimes you have to just count iridescence out of the picture and just look at the under color of the fish and the real scale colors is all. So yes Ramses could be considered a messy Bicolor with the black edging on his tail, a very minor Butterfly accent that I almost wouldn't even call butterfly accent since it's not all the way around his tail like on Glitch and Romeo where they at least have it almost evenly around the fins.

Let me know if I missed something or you need more explaining ^_^


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## Alphahelix (Dec 7, 2013)

Thank you SO much! I do a lot of dog coat genetics, but I'm out of my depth (harhar) when it comes to fish! Where did you study these patterns/traits?

Also what exactly do you mean by iridescence?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

lol, love the pun! Mostly it was from just researching online, asking around the forum on which colors my Betta's were and all that jazz. There used to be an amazing website up called BettySplendens.com but alas, she has no longer paid for her website to stay up so it's unfortunately out of service. But that was a great place to learn about genetics in Betta's and much more! 

Iridescence is a light blue sheen over the top of the coat of the fish. Colors work in layer's like this: Blue is the top layer (so blue fish have the most layer's out of all of them), then red, black and yellow. This is why yellow fish tend to be more see-through, they have the least amount of layer's of pigment in their scales. I will quote a nice passage from another website:

"The color of Betta splendens is based on the color pigmentation in different types of cells [1]. There are basically four types of color layers in a betta with each its own kind of color cells. These different color cells are present in different layers within the skin. Please note that the following description of the different color layers accounts for the body only. As the finnage is much thinner the make up of the color layers probably is entirely different there. The latter still needs to be studied.

In wild Betta splendens these color layers are: 
1. iridescent layer (top layer) 
2. Red layer 
3. black layer 
4. Yellow layer (bottom layer) 
In our domestic brightly colored betas the distribution of these layers is a bit different from the wildtype Betta splendens"

And it continues on Iridescence:

"	
Iridescent colors: Turquoise, Steel and Royal blue 
Turquoise, steel and royal blue are called the three iridescent colors. Iridescent colors make up the top layer of the betta and are caused by cells called iridocytes. These cells form a dense color layer which can cover all other colors. Originally, on wild Betta splendens the normal iridescent color is turquoise/green. This normal iridescence (represented by genotype sisi is limited to ray-like projections into the fins and several iridescent dots along the body of the fish.

Selective breeding gave rise to a mutated iridescence gene which lead to spread iridescence (represented by genotype SiSi). The Si gene is responsible for the increase in density and distribution of the iridescent color so that it covers the entire body and fins of the betta (with exception of the head). The spread iridescent gene is dominant to the normal (wildtype) iridescent gene."

Here is a great site on genetics! Although I still don't agree with their Cambo pictures, otherwise the information is all very great! http://www.bettaterritory.nl/BT-AABcolorgenetics.htm


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## Alphahelix (Dec 7, 2013)

You are amazing! Thank you so much.

I'm a bio major with a desire to pursue genetics so this is just fascinating to me!


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Awesome! Glad I could help out :-D


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