Please help! Betta appearance changed! Dying? l

Those look like breeding/submission bars females get. I have heard of males getting them too, but don't know much about it.
One of my females stripes up in response to me and my husband (maybe because we feed her?) but when we're not around, she's a solid color, even though she's in a divided tank with another female on the other side.
If they were stress stripes they'd be horizontal.

Is the light on in the room, and off in his tank, when he's stressed?
A lot of times they can see their reflection in the sides of the tank when the light's off in the room but on in their tank.

Maybe he's submitting to the other fish he thinks he's seeing.

Link to another thread about it!

It might be nothing, but I've read about the possibility that there is something wrong with the water if fish are suddenly trying to escape their tank.

I would test the water to see if maybe the cycle has been lost in the filter (Ammonia, Nitrites), or something changed in pH or if Nitrates have risen too much.

Gosh, this could be any number of things....


How often and how much water are you changing? In that size tank, you should be doing either 2 50% or 1 100% changes each week.

How warm is the room the tank is in? My Bettas aren't heated either, but my house temps are pretty consistent year round. If your Betta is cold, it will act lethargic and possibly stay in one spot, not eating much.

The stripes have me stumped....one of the forum experts on here will have to help you out with that one. I have 3 Bettas, and have never seen that with mine.

No heater? Do you live in a tropical climate? I'd say he's stressed out even though those aren't typical stress stripes. Overall he's pretty pale/unhealthy and I can see some obvious fin biting, so something is stressing him out.

Update: Apparetly he was just stressed. I changed the water 25% for 2 days and then 50% on the third. I repeated the process and eventually he is slowly regaining color

How often do you clean your tank?