Not many people realize what the proper Betta Fish care is and that leads to their fish getting sick and living a VERY short life or even dying because something went wrong with their environment.

Over the years I’ve had a lot of experience working with Betta Fish and really discovering the secrets you need to know in order to keep them living healthy, feeling happy and best of all, how to make them REALLY show off their colors.

In fact, not many people know this but your Betta Fish can actually live for up to 5 years if you care for them properly. But most of the time they die MUCH earlier due to the lack of knowledge about tank conditions. They end up getting sick, and once one of the gets sick, it pollutes the whole tank and could potentially kill the rest of your fish.

If you don’t use the proper Betta Fish care and your fish DO get sick. I’ll show you exactly how to identify those symptoms and then how to treat particular illness with the right medication so your Betta Fish perk right back up in no time and remain happy and healthy.

Another cool thing we will talk about right now are the many different Betta Fish colors. They come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes and if you know what you’re doing. You’ll be able to make their colors really pop and come alive. I’ll show you a few tricks to doing that as well.

Let’s DIVE in…

How To Diagnose Your Sick Betta Fish

Below are some of the most common ways your Bettas should act and look. Be sure to take note of how your little critters are acting on a daily basis and pretty soon your eye will be trained enough to notice any of the slightest differences in their behavior.

Healthy Betta Fish Symptoms

• Eats everything you give it

• Swims around in a playful way

• Acts totally normal

• It’s colors are bright and vibrant

• The tail and fins are fully spread out

• Body is clean and sleek

• Eyes look perfectly normal

• Gills are normal

• Scales feel smooth to the touch

• Belly is totally normal

These are the characteristics below that you need to look out for. If you’re Betta has any of these symptoms then you may have a sick little Betta Fish on your hands that needs some serious attention, and needs it fast.

Sick Betta Fish Symptoms

• Does not eat AT ALL or may eat some food only to throw it up

• It’s not active, it may hide in the corner or stay laying on the bottom only to come up for air

• Might purposely run into different things in the tank trying to scratch itself

• Has a dull color, looks pale, or may even turn grey

• Tail and fins are somewhat clumped together and looked ridged

• Body may have open sores, white cotton like patches, lumps, red spots or white spots

• One or even both eyes seem to be popping out of its head

• One of both of the gills may be inflamed and not close all the way. Might look red

• Scales are raised, similar to how a cat will raise its fur when upset

• Belly either looks WAY to skinny or is completely swollen and fat

The 3 Most Common Betta Fish Diseases

Below I’ve listed the 3 most common Betta Fish diseases that I have come across in the past, how you can easily recognize them using the pictures I’ve provided and finally what medications you need to use to cure your Bettas before the disease gets the best of em… 

DISEASE: FUNGAL INFECTION

Symptoms: Your Betta may flat out stop eating, become less active and will typically develop white cotton like patches on its head or body. It may also loose much of its color and become very pale.Treatment: Do a FULL water change. Make sure you flush everything then once you fill it back up make sure you add the "Fungus Eliminator" by Jungle. These are little crystals and the dosage should average about 30 to 40 grains per 1/2 gallon. Your water should have a nice gold tint to it and please make sure to NOT over medicate. That will ensure your Betta Fish die.Next, you'll want to change the water every 3rd day and add a new dosage of the same medication. Continue doing this until all the fungus has disappeared from the tank and their bodies and they have returned to normal coloration and activity.DISEASE: ICK

Symptoms: Your Betta Fish will develop these weird little white dots all over its body as if it was sprinkled with salt or snow. Your Betta may become less vibrant and less active and may even start rubbing itself or purposely running into things in order to try and scratch itself.

Treatment: Ick is a common parasite. But because it’s a parasite its VERY contagious and its usually best practice to treat the whole tank even if only one fish is showing the symptoms. Luckily, Ick is temperature sensitive, all you have to do to get rid of it is raise the core temp of the tank to 85ºF and add one drop of Aquarisol per gallon everyday until it’s cured. It will only take a few days to cure the little guys. 

However, if you DO NOT have a tank that is bigger than 5 gallons and your Betta Fish resides in some kind of desktop tank, DO NOT try to heat the tank. These smalls tanks make it incredibly difficult to regulate temperature and if you don’t do it right, you could end up boiling your poor Betta…

Instead, just use the Aquarisol adding one drop per gallon of your tank each day until the little parasites are gone.

DISEASE: POPEYE

Symptoms: Pretty obvious here, usually one but sometimes both of the Bettas eye will seem to pop out of your fishes head, thus giving the disease its name, Popeye. After the first week, your Betta Fishes eye will start looking so gross that you may not even want to look at that nasty thing anymore. But please, we have a STRONG “No Flush” policy here on this website and I don’t want you to give up on your Betta because we can fix him. However, I will say that in some rare cases Popeye is triggered by Tuberculous, which is a virus that ALWAYS kills its host. In which case you won’t be able to help much, but we’ll assume that is not the case with your fish.

Treatment: Popeye usually only happens when you don’t clean your tank. Keep a clean tank and your Betta will always be fine. However, if you do catch the Popeye soon enough you will be able to save your Betta. In some rare cases, it may loose an eye, but if you’re on it early enough, you should be fine. The very first thing that you should do is a FULL water change. Keep it VERY clean, giving it a fresh change no more than 3 days after the last. After you’ve got that done, you’ll need some Ampicillin, a common antibiotic. You will typically find this medication in capsule form that is meant to treat much larger tanks, usually 10 gallons and above, so what you’ll need to do is open up the capsule and sprinkle just the right amount of powder into the tank. Be sure not to over medicate your fish and you’ll be fine. Continue the the treatment for about one week after all the symptoms have gone away, JUST to be sure.

Your Next Steps To Betta Fish Care

First off, I hope this post really helped you out. It was my intention to create a resource where you can come to get all the info you need about keeping your Betta Fish as healthy as possible. I really do wish you the best and I welcome any comments that you’d like to leave on his page with your thoughts or opinions. And you need to get a hold of me, leaving a comment is a create way to do that too, I read every single one.

If you’d like to take your Betta Fish care to the next level then obviously you need to start learning everything you can about them. One of the best ways to do that is to either watch YouTube videos or read about them on forums or sites like WikiPedia.

However, at least with me, that stuff got kind of boring after awhile because I kept coming across the same rehashed information. I wanted something new, something fresh, something that would REALLY teach me the stuff I knew the pet stores were not telling me…

So after many hours of searching and sifting through all kinds of other boring stuff out there online, I found this one website online that seemed to tell me exactly what I needed to know.

Not only did this website show me how to keep my Betta Fish in the best condition possible but it also taught me how to breed them successfully. And that is something I’ve ALWAYS wanted to learn how to do because if you get really good at it, you can start creating your OWN breeds of Betta fish by crossing different colors with different tail and fin types to create a truly unique breed.

Heck, you could even name it after you!

Anyways, if you want to check out the site I’m talking about, then just click the button below and you’ll be taken there immediately.

Click Here For The Betta Fish Secrets

Because of their vast range of colors and tail shapes the Fighter Fish has become known as “The Jewel Of The Orient”. They are truly a magnificent sight to behold with all of their shinning glory and make quite the center piece of have in your home.

The Betta Fish or Siamese Fighter Fish comes in many different colors, some that have been created through generations of selective breeding…

Green

Green is the least fixed single color and varies in shade from fish to fish and line to line.  Most Green Betta Splendens have a bluish green hue but less so than a Turquoise variant.  It is often difficult to distinguish these two hues because they really do look quite similar and also depends on the angle you look at them.

Make sure you go after the dark green Fighter Fish, they a prime choices.  This and the turquoise hues derive from the same alleles (BlBl). But the much sought after, dark, forest green is very rare. If you happen to come by one then I highly recommend you pick it up right away.

Reds

Solid red Betta Fish have non iridescent color and must have that color spread over the entire body, evenly for it to count. What you really want to get is a clean read, without iridescent colors and absolutely no fading.

However reds can come in many different hues ranging from a bright and beautiful fire engine red to shades of deep crimson and even reddish brown colors. yet, color will always vary between breeds, usually most red Betta Fish end up showing some iridescence or show a little bit of other colors creeping in.

If there is any opaque overlay is will distract from the bright red and will tend to show more pinks and muted reds.s.

Of all the red Fighter Fish out there, a brilliant cherry red is by far the most desired, with no iridescence or opaque color to take away from the solid red. Usually the red loss occurs as they age, being bright red as fries but as they grow, it gradually lessens, getting more dull with time.

Royal Blue & Corn Flower Blue

The consistent, solid royal blue is the choice form: the genotype Blbl or blBl gives adeep, rich royal blue in the green/steel blue/royal blue complex.  The most common form has a dark head and royal blue body and fins.  The ideal color lacks reds and greens.

Corn-flower blues are the same genotype as royal blues but with a dark head and corn-flower blue body.

Royal blues with red factors may appear violet or purple when young and will lose it if the red-loss factor is present and so produce royal blues.  Red loss occurs also occurs in Steel Blue, Turquoise, and Green.

Black

A true black Fighter Fish has a deep, dark and mysterious shade of black to it, all the way around. However, it is often times more of a smokey black and you will even see black Betta Fish with transparent, smokey looking fins.

Black is one of the most difficult colours to achieve, as the melano gene produces infertile Black females. Several crosses with other colours have tried to alleviate this problem, e.g. Melano x Celophane or yellows.

Getting a true black Fighter Fish can prove to be very difficult though, because the black or Melano gene products infertile black female Betta Fish. And even attempting several crosses with other species has not really solved the problem.

Steel Blue

Steel Blue Betta Fish are created by crossing the allele combination blbl, this creates a metallic iridescent glow when compared to the Royal Blue Betta Fish.

Steel Blue, Green, Royal Blue, Green and Turquoise Betta’s have an interesting genetic inheritance pattern based on the Bl / bl alleles that show incomplete dominance and determine iridescence.

Many Fighter Fish, such as the Royal Blue, Turquoise, Steel Blue, Royal Blue and Green all show and interesting incomplete dominance and determined iridescence based on the genetic inheritance pattern Bl /bl.

Examples Of Betta Fish Genetic Crossings:
Steel Blue x Steel Blue gives 100% Steel Blue off-spring;
Green x Green gives 100% Green;
Green x Steel Blue gives all Royal Blue;
Royal Blue x Royal Blue gives 50% Royal, 25% Steel, 25% Green;
Green x Royal Blue gives 50% Royal, 50% Green.
Steel Blue x Royal Blue gives 50% Royal, 50% Steel Blue
Turquoise is a variation of the “green” coloring (BlBl alleles).

Turquoise

A variant of the green, with a distinct blue hue.  Consistent color across the fish is rare. The choice color contains tones of blue rather than any Green or Yellow shades, to distinguish them from the common green.

Fish with colors close to turquoise are often found in Royal Blue and Steel Blue spawns.

The ideal is a dark shade of turquoise.

Opaques aka Pastels

You’ll know a Opaque or Pastel Fighter Fish when you see once because it will have this sort of milky white overlay that seems to dilute any of the underlying colors to more of a pastel type of shade, this usually includes the eyes in most cases.

What’s really cool to know is that there is an opaque or pastel from of each of the main color types. All that the breeder needs to do in order to trigger this type of color is make sure the Op allele is present and you’ll have yourself an awesome looking pastel Betta Fish.

Pastels can be almost any pastel color.

Yellow

Brilliant lemon yellows or even a butter yellow are the best yellow colors produced so far, although some breeders claim to have produced a golden yellow.  Colors that tend to be either a very pale yellow or a yellow-brown tinted are inferior colors.

Yellow results from a gene that transforms red so sometimes the presence of red is also visible.

Golden yellow Fighter Fish, with golden iridescence, are rare. In some Betta Fish, like the yellow/apricot strain, only the operculum is iridescent gold.

A lutino form exists, in which the eyes are yellow, too.

Apricot And Peach

These are yellow pastels of varying intensities.

Apricot yellows have a distinct pale orange tint to the yellow.

Some yellow Bettas show a faint orange tint to the fins and are called Apricot.

To continue the fruity colours, “Pineapple” Bettas are yellows with a
distinct black outline to the scales, giving a net-like or pineapple
appearance.  Pineapple Bettas are pattern form, not a colour type.

Albino

Rare.  A characteristic of any true Albino fish is that the body lacks all pigmentation, including the eyes which appear red.

Like Cellophane, these are completely colourless fish and may appear pinkish white or solid white if the opaque factor is present. True albino Bettas have red eyes, with no pigmentation and may show a little bit of color if they are very translucent due to their organs wand what not.

If you ever have the chance to come up on an Albino then I highly recommend you do because they are VERY hard to find and even harder to breed. Take a big time advantage and jump at the opportunity to get one.

White

Some White Fighter Fish may be completely solid in color and are a true beautiful dense white because of the opaque factor in their pigments. You’ll be able to tell the sure fire difference between a white and an albino every time because albinos will always have red eyes and true whites will always have black ones.

The image to the right shows a truly perfect white Betta Fish, yet it may still have some weird coloration with blues and black due to the way the light is hitting the Fighter Fish in the photo.

Just always remember that whites of this type have black eyes and true albinos have red eyes. Don’t be fooled.

Chocolate

Chocolate Betta splendens look brown to the eye, but are actually a black and yellow mix and are one of my favorite colors you’ll find on the Fighter Fish.

While the Chocolates are not are rare as the dark forest green Betta or the Albino Fighter Fish, it’s still a pretty tough one to come by sometimes, usually because most people just don’t have the chocolate color ones around.

If you want to help improve the color of the Chocolate Fighter Fish you can actually breed it with a yellow one to try and increase the vibrancy of both the yellow and the chocolate fry.

Orange

Orange Fighter Fish are actually a new strain of Betta Splendens, and for some reason each breeder seems to think about the shade of orange a little bit differently. I have never really seen a true orange Betta Fish, except in pictures. Most of the ones I see are more like a light reddish orange or more of a deep Halloween type orange color that tends to be more yellowish red and orange.

But none the less, all forms of the Orange Fighter Fish still look really really cool and I would most definitively keep one of them in my fish tank without question. They are yet another hard strain to come by, so if you find a true orange one, make sure you do everything you can to get it.

But the real question is… How “orange” is orange?

In my opinion, true orange is the spectrum right in between red and yellow. I always think of Halloween and pumpkins when talking about orange so maybe my view is a little slanted, but then again, maybe it’s right on target, what do you think?

Lavender

A lavender Betta is genetically a Cambodian Betta Splendens with extended Red and a layer of light iridescent blue-green.

Truly Purple Betta Splendens are also very new and rare and it appears that the color results from blending red and blue, just like you would get from blending some water colors together. Nature always works the same way.

The Royal Blue strain throws purple or violet fry that appear violet at their first show of color and darken to royal blues within a few months, as the red fades (due to the red-loss factor, L) as the fish mature .

Truly violet colored Betta Fish are rare. So again, if you find one for sale or a breeder with one. Do what you can to get some off spring. It will be WELL worth it.

So there you have it, those are virtually all the different color combination you will find. Keep in mind these are the basic main color combos out there, many breeders will cross black with yellow for example to make really cool looking Fighter Fish that are totally unique. They are always coming out with new strains and new colors.

Stay on the lookout for more new posts about color combinations as I will update every time I find out about a new one…

So, first things first, there is much debate on which size of a tank you should actually keep your Betta Fish in. From my experience you should have no less than a 3 gallon tank to give them maximum amount of movement and space to grow and move around.

Remember, a happy Fighter Fish is one that has lots of space to move around and frolic in all its fish-like glee.

biOrb Aquarium Kit with Light Fixture

Now this is a cool little Fighter Fish Tank you could use if your limited on space or maybe its your first run trying to keep the little guys alive.

It’s a 4 gallon tank so its just a little more than the minimum recommended amount to keep them in, which is 3. It’s really got everything your Fighter Fish needs to grow up nice and healthy. It’s got the nice light fixture to let your fish see at night and a tube running up the middle to deliver fresh oxygen because the Betta Fish need a ton of it.

And since the Fighter Fish are top dwellers, meaning that they feed on the top of the water. They need to have some space before the top of the fish tank so they can eat their food and actually breathe from the top.

It’s kind of weird but the Fighter Fish have this special organ that lets them breath from the surface. In fact, if they don’t have access to the surface, they will die underwater. Kind of weird, I know but its important to remember when caring for your Fighter Fish.

biOrb Life Aquarium 16 Gallon

This is the Fighter Fish Tank that you’ll want if your an intermediate Betta Fish owner. This one is for you if you want to have multiple fish in your home but don’t want to take up a lot of space.

This Betta Fish aquarium is made from straight acrylic so you know its super strong and will with stand a few bumps and bruises. What I like most about the biOrb though is its super sleek design that compliments virtually any room of the house.

It’s also got an intelligent LED lighting system that provides an automatic 24 hour light cycle. This is really cool because it even encorporates a natural sunrise, sunset and blue moonlight so your Betta Fish will feel right at home. A happy fish is a healthy fish.

But the best part about the biOrb Aquarium is that they all come with their own unique and technologically advanced 5 stage filtration system that helps to keep your water cleaner for longer. This is something that really makes all the biOrb products stand out from the heard.

75 Gallon Acrylic Fish Tank Aquarium

Now this is the fish tank you’ll want to use if you’re more experienced with Fighter Fish because it’s going to give them the maximum amount of room to move around.

Its a fact that if you give your Fighter Fish more space to move around, it will actually grow much larger than it would if it were in a measly little 4 gallon tank. I dunno about you but I would want the biggest tank possible so I can have multiple Betta Fish in my tank (assuming they don’t kill each other) so they can all hangout together.

Now I know this one is a little pricey but if you serious about really doing it right. This is the tank you want. This Fighter Fish Tank is a complete system, meaning its got a 24″ florescent light fixture and comes with your first two bulbs. It will hold either a T8 Bulb or a T12.

This sucker is made out of acrylic which means the glass is 17 times stronger than your average fish tank. And it comes with a built in filtration system so it makes cleaning the tank extremely easy.

So there you have it, I wanted to select a tank for each different price range so you can have your choice of what you think will work best for you. Just remember that I would not recommend going below the 6 gallon tank, even though your Fighter Fish can survive and even thrive in a smaller tank, I believe they will be the happiest in the largest tank possible.

If you can afford it, I obviously recommend the big 75 gallon tank, but if that’s way out of your range then the 16 gallon one should be a perfect fit for virtually any room in the house. Be sure to let me know which tank you choose to go with in the comments section below, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on what you think the BEST Betta Fish Tank is…

To fully understand what the perfect Fighter Fish Diet is you first have to understand where the Fighter Fish is originally from. These awesome fish have received the nick name “The Jewel Of The Orient”, their native home is originates from Thailand but they can also be found in their natural habitat in and around Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and parts of China.

They like to hang out around small, shallow ponds and even some slow moving streams. While there is some debate about which is actually the best possible habitat for your Fighter Fish, one thing that is often over looked is the actual water temperature. In their home countries the average water temperature is about 80ºF, so that is their ideally perfect water temp.

As the water starts to cool the Fighter Fish will get increasingly more agitated, which can really lead them to live up to their name. Fighter Fish have been known to fight to the death just because the other Betta Fish looked at them the wrong way. So be sure to keep their water temperature right at 80ºF and you’ll be fine. That’s why you shouldn’t keep them in a small bowl, because you cannot regulate the heat control very well. I highly recommend getting a top of the line Fighter Fish Aquarium.

The Secret Fighter Fish Diet

Back in Thailand, you would find the Betta Fish feeding on all kinds of cool fish food like insects and insect larva. In a perfect world that’s all they would eat. But if need be they will adapt to eating the dry flake foods found at your local pet store or even freeze dried food if that’s all ya got.

However, the BEST food you can ever feed your Betta Fish is live insects. They will love that stuff and will eat it all day. Their digestive system are geared towards primarily consuming meat so when you can, give them the good stuff.

The healthier, more live food you give your Fighter Fish the more their colors will pop and the happier they will be.

They actually have a upward turned mouth made specifically for eating any unlucky bugs that happen to fall in the water. What you wanna try to do as a Fighter Fish owner is replicate their natural habitat as much as possible. By feeding them live bugs, you can do this and they’ll love you for it.

Some of the best things you can feed these little guys are Brine shrimp, Daphnia, plankton, tubifex, glassworms, and beef heart. Those are all great things to feed your Fighter Fish, you can find them either frozen or freeze dried. Either one will do nicely. But if you have flake food, you’ll need to suppletment with either freeze dried, frozen or preferably live food.

Some of my favorites are the freeze dried blood worms. Betta Fish go bonkers for these nasty little worms and will be sure to really brighten up their colors too.

Go ahead and leave a comment below to tell me what your favorite Fighter Fish Diet is…

Most breeders feel that a 10 gallon tank or bigger works great, just make sure its bare bottom so the Fighter Fish can make their little bubble nests with ease. You definitively want to avoid using any kind of pebbles in the tank when breeding as the eggs may end up falling through them and dying.

If you really wanna get some great offspring then you’ll need to precondition your Betta Fish for breeding by feeding them a ton of live food. The water should have a PH of exactly 7 and have a temperature no colder than 80ºF, you can got a few degrees hotter if you would live too.

Whats going to happen next is the male will blow an elaborate bubble nest, they look really cool. At this point you’ll need to create a little hiding place for the female as the males can get kinda aggressive when its time to mate. It’s actually not that uncommon for the female to loose a few scales or have a few nips taken out of her tail.

Just make sure that after the breeding session is over that you remove the female from the tank because the male Fighter Fish have been known to kill the female Betta while he is tending to the bubble nest.

When the pair is ready to spawn their colors will become extremely vibrant and the male Betta Fish will start to circle the female under the bubble nest. Then the male will wrap himself around the female after she has been flipped to her back. As she excretes the eggs they will become fertilized by the male and will begin to float to the bottom on the tank.

Next the male will gently scoop up the eggs and spit them into the bubble nest where they can finally hatch over the course of the next few days. From this point on the male Betta Fish will tend to the young and the female most definitively needs to be removed from the tank because this is when the male is most aggressive.

In the next few days the male Fighter Fish will continue to watch over the nest making sure to spit back in any eggs that fall out of the bubble nest, but in the next 2 or 3 days the eggs will hatch and the young fry will be swimming around the tank with Daddy. At this point, you’ve gotta remove the male fish because he might eat the young, and there goes your whole spawn.

Now that you’ve got an open tank, the fry should be fed a few times daily preferably with baby brine shrimp as they contain the best nutrients for the young broods. For the nest you should use some kind of Tetra mix as it does great for the bubble nests and resembles the Fighter Fish’s natural habitat. And take care about not over feeding the fry because if you do it will pollute the water.

If you follow all these basics tips you should be able to pull of a breeding successfully even if its your first time attempting it. I wish you the absolute best and if you have any questions or other breeding techniques then please leave me a comment below.