fishtroy

Have now been doing some research on betta colours to try and identify my babies past and present. Would like opinons on these three that I am a little stuck on. I'm sorry the pictures aren't better, I had to scan them and in that process they lose some colour

Ok Questionable colour fishy No 1:

AGAMEMNON Throughout the sites I did not find much mention of the colour purple. Agamemnon was what was appeared to be a few different shades of purple, plum and lilac. Does this fit into a category? Pic below:


Questionable colour Fishy No 2:

PHILOCTETES When talking about colour there seems to be debate about the colour green and what determines a green fighter fish. This is a close up of Philoctetes, does his colour qualify as green?


& Questionable Fishy colour No 3:

HECTOR This little guy was one of my favourites (not that I'm supposed to say that). He was sold as a Crown but due to his fin shape I have my doubts and I have no idea what to call his colour. Pic:


Thanks for your opinions!

Red1313

AGAMEMNON
I'd say he looks like a marble based on his body coloring... has he ever changed colors?
PHILOCTETES
Green with heavy irridecence...
(can I ask why you're not sure on this guy exactly?)
HECTOR
(masked?)Red cambodian again with irridencence

fishtroy

Ok,
AGAMEMNON
Never changed colour, I bought him like this and he stayed like this. I'd call him purple but I don't know what others would call him.
PHILOCTETES
Not sure about him as his head is the funny shade of grey/brown colour & the tips of his fins. There seems to be differing opinions in what makes a fighter truly green so I was wondering if this was enough to disqualify him from the green category. The green also only showed up under certain lights. Otherwise he looked the dull grey brown.
HECTOR
So irredecence, is that like that metallic thing?

Thanx for your input Red!

fishtroy

Was also wondering, what colour would everyone classify as the rarest colour to find in a fighter fish, is their like a holy grail of colours or does it come down to personal opinions?

peacemaker92

Hi fishtroy.

I don't know much about bettas' colors but all I can say they're all beautiful! Hope you will eventually find out their true colors and classify them. Good luck!

aquarist48

Hello FishTroy. You have some beauties there! I'm sure once some of our Betta breeders sign on and see your thread they will help you out as well.
Take care!
Ken

Red1313

Since you're boy hasn't changed color on you it's more likely that he's a multi-color instead of a marble. PHILOCTETES - If the green only appears under certain lighting then it's sounds mostly like irridecence (see below).
You may have seen these already but here are 3 good links on betta color (written for breeders however so a bit of a focus on genetics).
Betta-territory color's article
BettySplendens color archive
Bettas by Jim Sonnier (Colors/Genetics)

Irridecence vs Metallic

Here is my boy Coolie. If you compare the two pictures you can see that he doesn't appear quite the same color. In the first picture you're seeing his irridencence. It's the top most layer of color in betta's and gives them the shimmery effect.
Metallic is a different gene that effects the same layer and was introduced into the betta hobby by outcrossing Betta Splenden with wild betta species (speciffically betta imbellis, smaragdina and mahachai due to their naturally higher degree of irridecence).
"This logically brings us to the next question: as these hybrids are not new in our hobby, why did it take such a long time to develop the copper and metallic bettas as we know them today? It is not easy to answer this question but probably the betta community earlier was not really interested or ready to breed these varieties and they did not recognize their potential. Around 2002-2003, the Asian breeders offered the first copper imbellis types on aquabid. These fish were created by selective breeding and stood at the base of the worldwide copper and metallic fever as we know it today.

By outcrossing these fish to longfinned lines it did not take long untill the first copper imbellis deltas arose in the betta-scene. Outcrossing these fish to iridescent (turquoise, steel blue and royal blue) halfmoons produced the first metallic blues [10]. The offspring of these types of crosses still contained a lot of red wash. Continuous selection for both color and finnage finally LED to longfinned halfmoon metallics without red wash.

Outcrossing copper phenotypes to pure iridescent turquoise, steel blue and royal blue fish added another new trait into our hobby: the mask feature. Normal iridescent bettas are characterized by their typical black heads. Outcrossing to copper bettas led to an increase color spread into the face and head area of the fish. By now it is known that the metallic and mask trait are caused by seperate genes and can work independently." *quoted from article below*

What the specific differences are between the two genes I can't properly explain. However the IBC's Magazine "Flare" had a really good article written up about it (This article was published in Flare (Journal of the IBC) - May/June 2008, Volume 41, No. 6. )

Here's a really good page to see to compare the appearence of Irridecence, Metallic, and Dragon type betta coloring.

Hope that was somewhat helpful,

fishtroy

Thank-you Red! I'm trying to get a grasp on it all, I must admit some of the genetics go straight over my head. I'm getting now that irridecence is like what I call highlighting - when under certain lights different colours & sheens are highlighted on the fish.
Very confusing!
So if your fish has irridecence of a colour, is it classified as that colour or the colour that the fish is when the irridecence is not shown? eg Philoctetes looked a dull grey brown colour with only a hint of green most of the time, but when lights were placed on him he looked the vibrant green that is shown in the picture.
Does his irridecence make him green, or would he have had to be green coloured 24/7?

Red1313

hmm... For that you may be interested in the IBC color standards. It used to be on their website but they seem to have re-done it and I'm not sure where it went. I'll see if I can find it for you.

fishtroy

Thanks a lot, I know I'm a pain but I'm trying to learn. I am resisting the urge to go to a local aquarium that has bettas of all colour and types. When I finally do I want to be able to tell the colour and get the most unique fish I can.

Red1313

hehe
No worries

fishtroy

Actually going to aquarium today! This will be interesting, I am going there with the best of intentions to find a unique betta that fits into a type category but somehow I know myself and there is the high possibility I am going to come out of there having rescued (they are all in death cups) the one that has no special colour or type but looked at me sadly! Of course I will let everyone know about my new betta baby!