Sick fish or color change?

Bettafishie21 · Mar 25, 2022

HELP! Is my betta fish OK? I had him for 1 year now and he has been doing great. This past week he started having a white scale color change on his head and quickly over this week it is now patchy on side, on his top fin etc. His tail was originally dark blue with dark red at the tips and now it mostly orangey red with alittle dark blue. His head patch is also changing color. Sometimes it looks purplish or orangy I guess depending on lighting. His behavior is normal and energetic and swims around the whole tank like usual. He is eating normally. He even flaring at me when I take to many pictures. His temperature is 78 and his water parameters are normal. Is this a mid color change after a year or something wrong?
The 2nd pic was 2 days ago and the first one is today

Colin_T · Mar 25, 2022

Hi and welcome to the forum

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

See how he goes over the next week.

Post another picture in a week's time or sooner if it gets worse.

It might be just colour change, or it could be a disease (bacterial infection). The daily water changes should help reduce diseases in the water and if it doesn't get worse over the enxt week, it is most likely just a colour change in the fish.

If the fish stops eating or does stringy white poop, post more pictures and update the thread immediately.

Bettafishie21 · Mar 25, 2022

Colin_T said:
Hi and welcome to the forum

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

See how he goes over the next week.

Post another picture in a week's time or sooner if it gets worse.

It might be just colour change, or it could be a disease (bacterial infection). The daily water changes should help reduce diseases in the water and if it doesn't get worse over the enxt week, it is most likely just a colour change in the fish.

If the fish stops eating or does stringy white poop, post more pictures and update the thread immediately.

Do you think it might be sick with something? I did a 50% water change today and the filter is about a month old. He is eating and behaving normally and exploring his plants and SpongeBob cave and still interacting with me alot like swimming up to me as soon as I call him but the quick color changing is worrying to me because he looks so bad

Colin_T · Mar 25, 2022

There are diseases (usually bacterial infections) that cause sudden colour changes like that (cream, white or grey patches). But a lot of Bettas have a marble gene that causes them to change colour too. By doing daily water changes for a week, it should help to reduce any disease organisms in the water and then it's just a matter of monitoring him. If he keeps eating and acting normally and doesn't go off his food, then it is probhably just colouration and nothing to worry about. But if he stops eating or does a stringy white poop, then it's a concern.

At this stage, just do daily water changes and gravel cleaning. Don't worry about cleaning the filter yet because it is still new. And just monitor him over the next week or two.

As long as he keeps acting normal and eating well, there's nothing to worry about.

Bettafishie21 · Mar 25, 2022

Colin_T said:
There are diseases (usually bacterial infections) that cause sudden colour changes like that (cream, white or grey patches). But a lot of Bettas have a marble gene that causes them to change colour too. By doing daily water changes for a week, it should help to reduce any disease organisms in the water and then it's just a matter of monitoring him. If he keeps eating and acting normally and doesn't go off his food, then it is probhably just colouration and nothing to worry about. But if he stops eating or does a stringy white poop, then it's a concern.

At this stage, just do daily water changes and gravel cleaning. Don't worry about cleaning the filter yet because it is still new. And just monitor him over the next week or two.

As long as he keeps acting normal and eating well, there's nothing to worry about.

OK thank you

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