[SammiDraco]

Hey everyone!
So I have a couple questions about the marbling gene. First, I believe I've read that the gene doesn't typically affect red bettas. Is this true?
Second, I read something about the red-loss gene and how it's related to the marble gene but is different, but I couldn't find a ton of info on it. What does that consist of?
Third, I also read that typically bettas with this gene don't have any iridescence. Is that true too?

The reason why I'm curious is because I've noticed over the past couple weeks that my red VT Neo has been changing a bit. First he was just getting some real nice neon purple iridescence, with a single gold iridescent flake on either side of his face. All of this started to develop probably about two or three weeks after bringing him home and giving him a proper diet. But within the past two weeks or so I noticed the scales on his body are starting to turn black, almost like they're outlined in black. His fins haven't changed and his face is still red. It's just the scales on his body. I'm confident it's nothing to be worried about, no disease or fungus or infection. He seems totally happy and healthy. He got a couple bad tears in his tail fin a little while ago from some crummy decor, and since I've taken it out and done what I could to help him heal, his injuries have since been healing very well and quickly. So I don't believe there's anything wrong, but I'm wondering what is happening and if it could have anything to do with my questions I asked. What do you guys have to say?

 

[MABetta]

Have you looked on this site under, I believe, the breeding section. I was reading something on genetics there and glossed over the red info. Otherwise if Indjo doesn’t see this post, message him directly....I am sure he can help with these questions👍

 

[SammiDraco]

Have you looked on this site under, I believe, the breeding section. I was reading something on genetics there and glossed over the red info. Otherwise if Indjo doesn’t see this post, message him directly....I am sure he can help with these questions👍

Okay will do, thanks!

 

[BettaloverSara]

Can you post a pic?

 

[MABetta]

Okay will do, thanks!

Click on breeding information, second one down

 

[SammiDraco]

Click on breeding information, second one down

Cool, found it. Thanks!

 

[SammiDraco]

Can you post a pic?

Yep I will tomorrow. It's late and he's sleeping right now. I'd feel bad waking him up. I'll reply again tomorrow with some hopefully decent pictures.

 

[nwdwn23]

So I have a couple questions about the marbling
Third, I also read that typically bettas with this gene don't have any iridescence. Is that true too?

I can only speak from my experience but my betta girl is marbling a lot and her scales are very iridescent!

 

[SammiDraco]

Can you post a pic?

Okay, picture time! Hopefully they're good enough. The first and third picture have a bit clearer shots of the black in his scales. The second just kind of shows his iridescence a bit better. That's kind of hard for me to catch on camera.

And yeah his tail fin is in bad shape. He tore it up pretty good a little while ago from the previous decor I had in his tank. I've since replaced them with safer decor and tried some safe methods to help the healing process. There's already a good amount of new growth and I'm not seeing any signs of infection, but it'll take a little while before his beautiful tail grows back to normal. Also his dorsal fin isn't perfect either. That had a bad crimp at the end of it when I first brought him home. The crimp has since fallen off but it's growing back more and more every day.

 

[indjo]

I'm not sure why someone is saying marble doesn't effect red bettas. Logically speaking, if this were true, then there shouldn't be any red, orange, nor yellow koi (all of which are from the red layer). To my knowledge marble can affect any color layer (irids, red, and black) - as can be seen on multi colored mutated marbles.

I've heard red loss is said to be similar to marble in the sense that it changes red to colorless. That's it - it doesn't color up again. There isn't much information on red loss - or I haven't read much about it. But, IMO, they work differently to marbkes. Red loss makes red colorless (only affects red), while marble jumps - from one color to colorless, then recolor (affects all colors).

By mutated marble, I mean the colors jump to different color/s and create a certain pattern that is normally uncommon in regular colors. Or the gene causes uncommon color gene combos and produces certain pattern.

I think you might be misunderstanding what those people are saying. During the marble process, when colors become colorless or cellophane, USUALLY fish will not show red nor irids . . . Though not always. However, ALL colors are affected by marble genes.

*** Please rephrase your question if it turns out that I am the one misuderstanding the question.

 

[MABetta]

Beautiful fish BTW

 

[SammiDraco]

I'm not sure why someone is saying marble doesn't effect red bettas. Logically speaking, if this were true, then there shouldn't be any red, orange, nor yellow koi (all of which are from the red layer). To my knowledge marble can affect any color layer (irids, red, and black) - as can be seen on multi colored mutated marbles.

I've heard red loss is said to be similar to marble in the sense that it changes red to colorless. That's it - it doesn't color up again. There isn't much information on red loss - or I haven't read much about it. But, IMO, they work differently to marbkes. Red loss makes red colorless (only affects red), while marble jumps - from one color to colorless, then recolor (affects all colors).

By mutated marble, I mean the colors jump to different color/s and create a certain pattern that is normally uncommon in regular colors. Or the gene causes uncommon color gene combos and produces certain pattern.

I think you might be misunderstanding what those people are saying. During the marble process, when colors become colorless or cellophane, USUALLY fish will not show red nor irids . . . Though not always. However, ALL colors are affected by marble genes.

*** Please rephrase your question if it turns out that I am the one misuderstanding the question.

Thanks for the info. It was a little confusing because a lot of the information out there isn't very detailed, and some of it I'm sure is outright incorrect. I did read on another site that marbling happens in all colors except red, and on another site it mentioned that there will not be any iridescence if the marble gene is present. (I'm not sure what these sites were... I'd have to spend some time digging them up to find them again.) That's why I usually consult the people here for any questions I might have, because doing my own research a lot of times leads to misinformation. Either that or just a lack of detail. As far as the red-loss is concerned, I literally knew nothing about it at all, and it was a bit difficult finding any clear info on it, so your information was definitely helpful there.

I've also found some fairly vague info on the beginning stages of marbling, which made me wonder if that's what was going on with Neo. I've seen posts where owners were concerned about black outlining that appeared on their bettas' scales (these bettas were not red or variants of) and some of the responses suggested the beginning stages of marbling. Since I noticed this on Neo, and a lot of the info I found wasn't very conclusive, I figured I'd ask.

 

[BettaloverSara]

He looks fine to me. His body may get quite dark. I know very little about betta genetics and marbling in general but I know it can happen to both reds and those with iridescence.

 

[indjo]

To be honest, I try to stay clear of marbles - simply because they are unpredictable (when or how they change). But through the years, I've had one or two and in more recent years, while trying to understand how Super Black works, it turned out they were marble related.

So I can say that I've seen red (dark blackish red) turn cellophane, then back to dark red. I have also seen my irids turn cello, then back to irids - red and irid marbles may show a tint of black or irid (during cello ohase) before coloring back up . . . These are regular/non mutated marbles.

To my knowledge hidden black genes may pop up at a later age. Red may become "black edged scale" (bes) irids may show darker shade (especially on fins). This may also occur on combo genetic colors like yellow/orange or opaque white. . . .this is not, to my knowledge, caused by marble genes. Some say it has to do with sunlight and food . . . Not too sure about this, because my white that was mostly hidden from direct sunlight also showed some black at later age.

 

[imaal]

I'm not sure why someone is saying marble doesn't effect red bettas.

My eyebrows went up on that one too. I've avoided marbles until recently but I have a red marble looking back at me as I write this. And the pages of this forum are loaded with pictures of red marbles.

Initially, when marble was teased out of the gene pool by Orville Gulley in his prison cell in Indiana, the first marbles were all black and white. He sent them to Walt Maurus (among other things, author of a widely read book on bettas), and within a few generations all colors were being 'marbleized'. Perhaps whoever put this odd statement on the internet was basing it on those early reports about marbles when they were only black and white.

 

[SammiDraco]

To be honest, I try to stay clear of marbles - simply because they are unpredictable (when or how they change). But through the years, I've had one or two and in more recent years, while trying to understand how Super Black works, it turned out they were marble related.

So I can say that I've seen red (dark blackish red) turn cellophane, then back to dark red. I have also seen my irids turn cello, then back to irids - red and irid marbles may show a tint of black or irid (during cello ohase) before coloring back up . . . These are regular/non mutated marbles.

To my knowledge hidden black genes may pop up at a later age. Red may become "black edged scale" (bes) irids may show darker shade (especially on fins). This may also occur on combo genetic colors like yellow/orange or opaque white. . . .this is not, to my knowledge, caused by marble genes. Some say it has to do with sunlight and food . . . Not too sure about this, because my white that was mostly hidden from direct sunlight also showed some black at later age.

Ah okay, interesting. I really have no idea how old Neo is, but he doesn't appear to be a senior at least. He does get a lot of good food (frozen daphnia, bloodworms, and brine shrimp, as well as refrigerated mosquito larvae, and a weekly few bites of a pea just because he really loves peas) and over the past few weeks I've been putting him in the sunlight. He generally hates his lamp and seems to enjoy the sun. If that is at least one cause of the black edged scales, it would make sense in my case. I don't believe there are any cellophane changes in him. He does have a little light red transparency at the bottom edge of his anal fin but that just looks like a lot of new growth to me. There are no tears or jagged edges, and it doesn't look thin or weak so I'm pretty sure that's all it is. He was quite a bit smaller in general when I first brought him home, and it seems he's growing into his new environment now. Anyway, I have a much better understanding of color changes and the different causes, and I'm pretty sure I understand what's going on with Neo now. Thank you!

 

[SammiDraco]

He looks fine to me. His body may get quite dark. I know very little about betta genetics and marbling in general but I know it can happen to both reds and those with iridescence.

Okay thanks. I am curious to see how dark he gets. He is a neat little dude.

 

[SammiDraco]

My eyebrows went up on that one too. I've avoided marbles until recently but I have a red marble looking back at me as I write this. And the pages of this forum are loaded with pictures of red marbles.

Initially, when marble was teased out of the gene pool by Orville Gulley in his prison cell in Indiana, the first marbles were all black and white. He sent them to Walt Maurus (among other things, author of a widely read book on bettas), and within a few generations all colors were being 'marbleized'. Perhaps whoever put this odd statement on the internet was basing it on those early reports about marbles when they were only black and white.

Yeah who knows what that person was thinking of when they put that up. I can't remember what the key words were exactly in my search, but it was one of the first handful to pop up in the Google results. I've learned to take Google results with a grain of salt, but I also didn't initially see any totally red bettas marble into something else when I continued looking, so it made me wonder. Thanks for your input!

 

[imaal]

Have you seen any more color change? I ask because after reading your description again, it doesn't sound like marbling but rather just maturing.

 

[Feanor]

I agree with imaal.
If you look at this spawn for exemple you could see how both - dark bodied and light bodied - fry darken as they mature:
BT021218

The iridiscence is something that show betta breeders like to eliminate as far as possible when breeding solid coloured Reds (I find it very pretty though). So it‘s not unusual that he shows some to a degree.

He is such a beautiful Veiltail and I hope his fins will grow back. But he‘s beautiful anyway!