Change in eye colour?

[banana3685]

Housing
What size is your tank? 10g
What temperature is your tank? 75-80 F (my thermometer is a little hard to read / my heater has problems keeping up sometimes =.=)
Does your tank have a filter? Yes
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? Yes
Is your tank heated? Yes
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? 3 albino corys & a guppy

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? Betta pellets (except he never eats these) & shrimp pellets (so cute to watch him carry it away!)
How often do you feed your betta fish? 1/day

Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? Weekly
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? 50%
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Prime, anti-fungal because I'm paranoid

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters? No/n/a

Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? I have a Crowntail betta and his eyes are a very very dark colour -- so dark that you can't really see the pupil (?). They are pretty much just a big black dot. A few days ago, his eye colour changed so you could make out the details of his eyes. They were a blue-blackish colour; now they've changed back to the usual black dot.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed? He is swimming around still, but sometimes lays on the bottom of the tank. This could be due to the water temperature, but my heater gets wonky sometimes. I've been monitoring the water temperature a lot. He likes to rest on the bottom in a rock cave, hang out in a plastic plant, and "lay" down on and lean on other ornaments.
When did you start noticing the symptoms? A few days again.
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? No idea how. Like I said before, I put in the allocated dose of anti-fungal treatment because I'm paranoid about fin rot/fungus. I had a fish given to me (by someone who DID NOT take care of it) die from a bad fungal infection. Also my aquarium-enthusiast boyfriend has had problems with IP and I've seen how fragile fish can be sometimes.... sooo I like to do preemptive treatment. (He told me to keep the temperature low since the medication can take oxygen out of the water if the temperature is high. I aim to keep my tank at about 80 F).
Does your fish have any history of being ill? No. My Remus is a hardy little Crowntail. I've hallucinated fin rot (due to paranoia?) but I am very certain that his lethargy is due to water temperature and my wacky heater.
How old is your fish (approximately)? 4 months


Basically, I am just wondering about his eye colour changing. Like I said before, he has the type of eyes that are a gigantic black dot, except a few days ago the colour lightened (?) and I could make out the details of his eyes. Normally, it looks all BAMF and like it's just a big dot. He's very adorable & I would really hate to be hurting him somehow or that he's sick.
(TL;DR story: I had a lot of problems keeping gerbils over this past summer because the pet store that I got them from had inbreeding so they had all sorts of genetic diseases -- like one was paralyzed, one was too young to be sold, etc -- and now I am very scared of my pets dying/me causing a death. So all of this might be just me freaking out).

Thanks for any help!! :)

PS if it's helpful, I can post pictures. I am having trouble finding my USB cord at the moment... I have pictures of his normal eyes/strangely-changed eyes.

[banana3685]

Just a note on the tank mates... I know this isn't really the appropriate forum to post on, but if someone thinks I have too many in one tank, I have a 2.5g bowl that I use for water changes so someone can be moved there. I also have extra substrate and decorations.

[UglyMuffin777]

Cosmo used to do that. He had kind of a black skin covering over his eye and sometimes it would go clear and show the bright blue iris underneath. Then it would go black again. This normally happened back and forth over night, in which case, I think your betta will be fine :)

[Pataflafla]

I have a red crowntail, Iorek, that does this as well when he's sleeping. I also have a marble female that does this when she's just waking up or gets stressed. After a few minutes of being awake or realizing that the ghost shrimp are slow and easy to get away from, their eyes go back to normal (Sabino, the female, has mixed eye color so they're always partially light blue).

I think your boy might just be stressed from getting up too early or because he is nervous when he wakes up.

Do you immediately turn on your aquarium light when you wake up or do you just have a room light? I've found that letting in sunlight from outside in the morning, then the room light, and lastly the aquarium light minimizes stress from suddenly waking in my fish.

EDIT: As for tank mates, guppies like to be in bigger groups, and corys like to be in groups of 4 or more. You could get more guppies and move your crown tail into the 2.5 gal for a permanent home as an idea.

[tsukiowns]

and your stocking is fine IMO

[Myates]

One thing I would recommend; bettas do better with smaller meals throughout the day. If you can't, at least feed 2x a day. Unsure how big shrimp pellets are, but if they are like betta pellets, then I would go with what is recommended for bettas with pellets, 4-6 total a day, fed in 2-4 feedings. One large feeding a day has a potential to bloat them, not to mention they love their food.. and feeding once a day, kinda like if you ate once a day.. by dinner time, you'd be hungry.
If you are only feeding 1 pellet a day then that is very small amount. I would use garlic juice to get him to eat normal pellets since they have a balance of nutrition that is needed, unsure about shrimp. It may have good protein, but there are other nutrients needed that a lot of freeze dried and similar products don't have. Under feeding is just as dangerous as over feeding, and he may be doing fine now, but usually such things catch up at some point.

Also, using medications on a regular basis that is not for treatment purposes can harm him, such as the fungus medication. Clean water is the best preventative, meds aren't.

Just my thoughts.

[banana3685]

@Uglymuffin: Good to know it's not just me!!
@Pataflafla: I am awake when it's light out and turn on the light if they're up. Normally they are. If they sleep in, I leave the light off. :) Regarding the guppy, I forgot to mention that it's temporary housing. My boyfriend got 2 pregnant guppies and I'm just housing a mom so she doesn't eat the cute little fries. Unfortunately the lfs only had 3 corys in stock when I last went, but I will check next time I get out there. I read online that 3 corys were okay, but since then I've heard groups of four or more. :\
@tsukiowns: Thank you :)
@Myates: The shrimp pellets I use are pretty big. They were *supposed* to be for the corys but my betta decided he liked them better haha. They're about two-times the size of a betta eye if that helps at all. I was hoping that I could stop wasting medication... I just don't want my fish to get fungal infections, but since I do the weekly water changes it should be fine right?

[Myates]

Yep, clean water with regular changes will help decrease the chances of fungus growing significantly. It's the best preventative for just about everything.
Are the pellets too big for him to eat? Is he just carrying them off and dropping them at some point?

[Pataflafla]

Your schedule sounds like it's fine. And corys are technically ok in groups of 3, but they prefer 4 or more. Good to hear it's just temporary housing for the guppy.

I don't think your fish will get a fungal infection unless one is introduced, and you can prevent that by putting any new fish in quarantine for at least a week. that time frame will let you see if the new one is sick, determine what it had, and then treat as well.

Though it just sounds like your boy is reluctant to wake up. He may just be a sleepy head betta.

[banana3685]

Originally Posted by Myates

Yep, clean water with regular changes will help decrease the chances of fungus growing significantly. It's the best preventative for just about everything.
Are the pellets too big for him to eat? Is he just carrying them off and dropping them at some point?

He bites pieces off and I've made sure that he is able to eat it. I see him chew/swallow (??) it, so I know he's eating.