Marbled Betta progression?

[rmarkham]

Hi,

I was doing some reading on marbled betta fish, and saw that you can start out with a "normal" looking fish, and when the gene takes over, you'll have a totally different, totally awesome fish!

This is where I got this info
http://bettysplendens.com/articles/p...articleid=1114

Does anyone have a progression of their own they'd like to share?
Or does anyone have a progression showing color development and change with age, I find this very fascinating.

Thanks!

[NyaNyanNaa]

When I first got my betta, Ghost, he had a pastel body with transparent fins with little blue.

Now his blue is HUGE. His fins are getting longer and red dots have started to appear on his double tails and his beard.

[rmarkham]

Awesome! Do you have any pictures?

[NyaNyanNaa]

No sadly. I've been trying to get a hold of one though.

[rmarkham]

Bummer! Sounds really awesome though. I have geckos and as they get older certain patterns can become more pronounced, dalmatian spots can arise etc.. I had no idea Bettas could do this!

My first Betta Magikarp has changed a lot, but I assumed that was because he was in rough shape when I got him and his colors finally got to come out.

When I got him at Petco Jan of this year:


and Now


I'm excited to see if my newest has any changed as he grows :)

[NyaNyanNaa]

Wow! That really is a change. He's beautiful by the way (:

[rmarkham]

Thanks :) He's so feisty! He NEVER EVER sits still.. the first few days I had him he just floated at the top of his tank.. and all of a sudden he was the king of the place. The bottom shot is the only full body picture I have of him.. I caught him sleeping at the front of the tank when I turned on the lights in the morning.. I sprinted to get my camera and didn't regret it. My new guy, Mr. Squiggles loves the camera and doesn't mind me taking his picture.

[DragonFish]

I've had a few marbles over the years. The change is always so interesting to watch, sometimes in the end they don't look anything like the fish you brought home! xD

My very first marble and third betta ever, Smore:




Axis, who didn't marble up too drastically but still had a nice little change:



Ciel's progression:






The marbles I have currently haven't changed too much on me yet, but Dice has started marbling up a little. I look forward to seeing how he changes.





The Doctor and Undertaker are my other two marbley boys, but they're fairly new, so no noticeable change as of yet. xD I can't wait to see how they change.
Sorry to kinda....spam your thread with pictures. xD;

[rmarkham]

That's awesome! Is there a way to predict if a betta will marble? Are there definite traits that would be present?

I can't believe the amount of change you had, very cool stuff!


Does this guy have potential?

[DragonFish]

Haha, thank you! xD

Its generally pretty easy to tell if bettas are marbles or not....as you can see in most of my 'before' pictures, marbles generally have little splotches or spots of random color here and there. The 'butterfly' coloring, which you can see a little of in Axis's before picture, also often goes along with marbling.....many will even loose the butterfly as they change.

However, sometimes you get surprise marbles. I once had a boy that was a nice dark Orchid-ish color with a tad bit of a red wash(Actually.....quite a lot like your HMPK boy there, though Batman was a little darker)who suddenly started marbling on me and turning lighter. xD I freaked out at first thinking there was something wrong with him, he'd never given me any sort of indication that he might be a marble.

So you can generally tell which ones'll marble and which won't when you pick them up, but really with pet store bettas, not being able to know their genetic background and all, its really totally impossible to say for certain.