betta colors

betta colors

more colors than you ever imagined! :)

Once upon a time bettas were all brownish uneventful little fishies... But those days are looong gone! The original wild bettas were mainly unimpressive with shades of grayish greenish brown, and the iridescent colors (blue and green) which we love so much on bettas, were limited to only a few spots here and there. Now bettas come in almost every color you can possibly imagine! And even some you can't!! :) Because of the intensive genetic manipulation bettas have been subjected to, many many betta colors have been created. In fact, too many to cover them all on this page.

So many betta colors, so little time and space :)! Bettas are in technicolor ;), every imaginable color combo, even in two colors (bi-colors), and bettas displaying intricate patterns such as the beautiful butterflies or the marbles or even the piebalds.

The International Betta Congress has it's own classifications, but for now I will not cover that and will simply go over the main current betta color variations, sorted in a way that makes sense to me, and hopefully will make sense to you too :).

u Solid colors

These are bettas that are one color, meaning the body and the fins are the same color. ideally solid color bettas should not have any other colors present (also called "impurities". However, in the real world (yeah, come back from lala land please LOL) most bettas have impurities, it is just that some show them more than others. ideally you want to get stock as clean as possible. I proud myself in offering a large amount of very pure colored fish here. These are hard to produce and hard to find. bettas with heavier impurities I consider culls and will not sell. For example, a blue bettas should have no red in the fins. An opaque bettas should not have red washes (although that is a very common problem and very clean opaques are very hard to produce and find). A reed bettas should not have green or blue iridescence on its body. Etc etc... And so forth and so on. So what are the main solid colors choices?

	cellophane: basically has no color. Fins are translucent and body is flesh. The flesh color is due to the fact that one can see the tissues and organs which are flesh colored. The skin itself does not have any pigments.
	white opaque: this color was created by Dr. Gene Lucas, who played around with several genes until the first solid white betta came to be. Most opaques tend to have impurities and very clean opaques, like the male on the left (Holy Grail) are very hard to produce.
	yellow: also known as "non-red" all yellows also carry one of the three iridescent color (steel, royal or green).
	orange: this strain was first created by Gilbert Limhengco and is one of the latest new solid colors. Oranges are a bit more red than what an orange would look like, maybe more like a dark tangerine color.
	red: normal reds have some black pigment on the body giving them more of a bicolor look, with a reddish/blackish body and red fins. However most breeders now work with extended red which are intense red from head to tail, including the pectoral fins :). These are prettier and many carry cambodian genes.
	steel blue: this is one of the three iridescent colors. The blue is lighter and more "cold" looking, like a grayish blue.
	royal blue: this is the second of the three iridescent colors. Royal blue is much darker and has almost a purple feel to it. Best see under a flashlight.
	green: this is the third of the three iridescent colors. Green is near impossible to detect without a flashlight. Many green bettas might look black or royal blue at first, but under a light their iridescent green is revealed.
	turquoise: everybody is always arguing about this color so let us just say that turquoise is a color between blue and green, some claim it is not green, while others claim it is nothing but green.
	copper: the latest iridescent color variation! these bettas were obtained by crossing with specific wild strains that showed some gold. Now they come in a light gold, deep copper, deep red copper and even purplish copper hues. these are truly gorgeous fish. Note that their true colors only come out when the light shines on them!
	black: there are currently thtee different black strains: Melano blacks, fertile blacks (also referred to as black lace - I call them Black Crystal) and the black coppers (I call them Black Crusaders).

u bi-colors

A bicolor betta has two solid colors. The body will be one solid color while the fins will be another. There are quite a few variations but the most common are:

	cambodian: the body is flesh and the fins are usually red (traditional cambodian) or sometimes blue or green (see below)
	green or blue cambodians: the body is whitish and the fins are green or blue.
	chocolate: the body is dark, usually black but sometimes dark blue or dark green (Emerald dawn strain) and the fins are yellow or golden orange.

u bettas with patterns

Patterned bettas are bettas with several color displayed in an organized manner (a pattern). Bettas with a bunch of random colors (which most pet store bettas are) are not patterned bettas and are called multicolors. You will not find multicolor bettas on my stock page, ever. I am however very very fund of bettas with cool looking patterns :) and pride myself on offering a large variety of them. Note that good patterns (even patterns) are VERY hard to produce and these fish remain rare and very desirable. hence if you look at my stock page and read the evaluation comments and the lot is tagged "very good pattern" then GRAB IT! there are basically two main type of patterns: Butterfly patterns and marbles. Note that all patterns do come from marble genes, or come from the expression of these genes. let's cover the main two and also glance at a third one I thought we should also mention.

	butterfly (BF): The body is solid color while the fins are divided in two separate color bans. half of the fin is one color and the other half another color. For example the black/white BF betta to the left has fins that are 50% black and 50% white (a very rare combination) and comes from my Dreamcatcher strain. The ideal BF has a 50.50 split, but remain very rare. A split of 30/70 to 70/30 is acceptable. Less than 20% is referred to as a "ban" and less than 5% is oftentimes referred to as a "tip" (for example a white tip). On very rare occasion a betts will have a tri-ban pattern, meaning the fins are 3 colors. these are very pretty and very rare and of course pricey and sought after. Our betta strain "Tutti Fruitti" is such a 3 ban BF type strain.
	marble: The body and fins have blotches of color over a flesh or any other light color solid background. For example, black blotches over flesh color or over white. The photo to the left is that of a red marble from my apache strain. Not all marbles have blotches on both body and fins. Many may have botches on body but then clear fins, or solid body and then blotchy fins etc...
	piebald: The betta has a flesh face, regardless of his body color. To the left, a steel blue piebald from my blue apache strain. I find this trait very pretty.

u The multicolor betta

As I said I do not breed, carry or sell multicolors. However, on occasion, when crossing two recessive strains together, you will get a generation of nice multicolors. These will be genotypes and carry a lot of great other genes. Not to be confused with the "mutt" pet store multicolor betta. The multicolor betta has random washes of colors and iridescence with no pattern, rhyme or reason ;).

Well kids, that covers most of it............................... OR DOES IT? hehehehehehehehehehe. Please visit our stock for sale page to see what other exciting colors we have to offer this week. Make sure to use our gret Sushi bar menu to see many of them!