Betta colors??

[lionfish1991]

I have recently purchased a male betta when at the lfs he was dark black with shiny silver but in my tank hes a dark grey and blue color. my lights are
2x 18watt t5's. Hes been in the tank for a week and still hasnt colored up what could be causing this?

 

[rsanz]

Different lighting must be the culprit. That, and he was most likely discolored at the store due to the stress of being in that little tupperware piece of crap "bowl" they keep him in to sell.

 

[lionfish1991]

He had really nice coloring at the lfs

 

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

His colour is called "Steel". The lights in the tank are picking up his real colours now. As long as he is eating and acting normally he is fine. True Melano (solid black) is not something you are going to find easily at an LFS, if at all.

 

[lionfish1991]

He was a show quality one and after some reasearch i found he was a black orchid i think.

 

[NinjaPirate]

Black Orchid is just a trade name for a black fish that shows significant blue and/or red irridesance (sp). I have yet to see an actual show quality "black orchid" as most of said-labled fish are just a natural occurance of breeding a melano line. True black, melano females are infertile, so you have you breed a melano male with either a steel or a royal blue female generally, which leaves you with a dusting of blue. Breeding a melano with a red would leave you with a dusting of red. Both are faults for a melano.

They're still very pretty fish. Anywho, The color difference is probably due to the fish itself. IME Melano (black) bettas tend to grey alot harder than other fish. That is to say when they're stressed they'll lose almost all of their color. It may take your fish a couple of weeks to get used to his new surroundings and reach his true color.