Male Betta Reacting to Bright Colors?

I recently had an odd experience with my male betta, he was extremely hesitant to come up to the front which is odd for feeding time, and when I slowly moved my hand to place the digital thermometer back on the glass he became extremely frantic/frightened and hid for a solid 2 minutes and refused food. I left him alone and 15 minutes later, (and a shirt change) he was acting calmer, more like himself and ate. The only thing that was different from any other time I fed him, was that I was wearing a bright lime green shirt. I want to mention this is a betta who readily eats after WCs and isn't afraid of my hands, so the only stress factor I can think of was the bright color of my shirt. Anyone else's bettas react to brightly colored clothing?

 

I recently had an odd experience with my male betta, he was extremely hesitant to come up to the front which is odd for feeding time, and when I slowly moved my hand to place the digital thermometer back on the glass he became extremely frantic/frightened and hid for a solid 2 minutes and refused food. I left him alone and 15 minutes later, (and a shirt change) he was acting calmer, more like himself and ate. The only thing that was different from any other time I fed him, was that I was wearing a bright lime green shirt. I want to mention this is a betta who readily eats after WCs and isn't afraid of my hands, so the only stress factor I can think of was the bright color of my shirt. Anyone else's bettas react to brightly colored clothing?

Not sure. The brightest color i ever wear is black. I have seen them react to bright colors on my phone before. And yeah, i guess because i am quite bright white without a shirt that is when i have noticed they will flare at me sometimes.

 

Not sure. The brightest color i ever wear is black. I have seen them react to bright colors on my phone before. And yeah, i guess because i am quite bright white without a shirt that is when i have noticed they will flare at me sometimes.

The only time I've seen him react differently to me was when I wore a bright red shirt with the room lights off, and then this instance with the lime green shirt. I know they can see colors very well, they have receptors which are particularly sensitive to red, green and blue. I feel silly for even starting this thread, but I hoped others could possibly learn about bettas and their reactions to certain colors.

 

LOL I am also very bright white and Irish, I don't think it it's skin colour related.

 

I had one that would flare at my orange highlighter when I sat it down next to his tank. And he did not like red, either!

 

That's really interesting! I have a betta that has acted similarly in the past. On the desk where his old tank was, I would often put bright objects, such as bright colored hand sanitizer, art, clothes, things like that. My betta would flare at them often, until I realized what is wrong and removed the bright things. I believe that most likely your betta thought that the bright shirt was another betta. Like the bright colors may have triggered some instinct to fight. What color is your betta? they sometimes flare at things similar to them....for example mine is dark red and a royal blue color, and the hand sanitizer he was so intent on killing was a purple hue. There is not much you can do about this in my opinion....I think you did the best you could.
I hope this helps!
-Willowfish