Bettas are one of the most famous tropical freshwater fish that every aquarist loves keeping as their pet. Their beautiful colour and long flowing fins attract everyone walking by them. However, betta fish can lose colour when living in inadequate conditions and for various other reasons.
There are many ways we can improve and enhance our betta colour and prevent them from losing their colour. So, How to enhance betta fish colour? Let us find out.
Ensure all these things to enhance your betta fish colour:
- Provide your betta fish with clean water conditions.
- Ensure adequate and stable water parameters.
- Feed high-quality protein food regularly.
- Provide a stress-free environment.
- Provide them with ideal living conditions by adding plants and hiding spots.
- Provide your betta with ample space to live and swim comfortably.
- Avoid overfeeding your betta fish.Â
This article will discuss six ways to enhance betta fish colour and why betta fish lose their colour. So, let us get into it.
Contents
How can I enhance my betta fish colour?
Bettas are very famous for their beautiful colour and long-flowing fins.
We can improve and enhance our betta fish colour by ensuring multiple things.
The necessary thing to ensure when you want to enhance the betta colour is that your betta fish is healthy and happy.
Providing your betta fish with ideal living conditions will help you keep your betta fish healthy, which will help them enhance their colour.
Feeding your betta fish regularly with a high-quality diet will improve their colour.
Also, it is necessary to provide our betta fish with a stress-free environment to prevent stress, as stress will make your betta fish vulnerable to various issues, and also they will become pale.
Let us discuss in detail the ways to enhance our betta fish colour.
Also read: Why Is My Betta Fish Turning Black?
6 ways to enhance betta fish colour
Following all these things will help you enhance your betta fish colour:
- Provide your betta fish with ideal water conditions.
- Ensure adequate and stable water parameters.
- Feed your betta fish with a high-quality diet.
- Ensure dim lighting in your betta tank.
- Add plenty of live aquatic plants to your betta tank.
- Provide your betta fish with a stress-free environment.
Ideal water conditions
It is necessary to provide our betta fish with ideal living conditions to improve and enhance their colour.
Betta fish need to be healthy and stress-free to improve and enhance their colour.
Providing your betta fish with their ideal water conditions will help you enhance their colour.
Now to ensure ideal water conditions, make sure of these things:
- Perform a weekly water change of 25-30%.
- Make sure to treat the tap water using the water conditioner to dechlorinate it.
- Add a good filtration system to keep the water clean and safe from harmful toxins like ammonia and nitrite.
- Add plenty of live aquatic plants to help you keep the water oxygenated and clean.
Water change and adding a filter are necessary as, with time, wastes get to build up in the aquarium, which results in a spike of ammonia.
Bettas are very sensitive to ammonia and can get under stress and lose colour.
Also read: How Often To Change Betta Fish Water?
Adequate and stable water parameters
As we discussed above, providing ideal living conditions to our betta fish is necessary to improve and enhance their colour.
Bettas are very sensitive when it comes to water parameters and will come under stress if not provided with their ideal water parameters.
Provide your betta fish with a water temperature between 78-82 °F.
Now, it is necessary to provide our fish with stable water temperature as the unstable water temperature will make them come under stress, and because of that, they will become vulnerable to various issues.
So, to ensure stable water temperature, add a heater to your betta tank.
The water pH level of your betta tank should be between 6.5 and 8.
The most necessary thing to take care of is ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.
Even a slight amount of ammonia and nitrite can make your betta fish suffer from life-threatening conditions and become pale.
Ensure the ammonia and nitrite are maintained at 0 ppm, whereas nitrate should be below 20 ppm.
We recommend using the API Freshwater Master Test Kit to regularly check your betta tank’s ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH level, as it shows the accurate result.
Feed high-quality diet
Food plays an essential role in keeping your betta fish healthy and enhancing their colour.
Bettas are carnivore fish and require meat-based food in their daily diet.
Feeding your betta fish with live food on a daily basis is not advisable, and you should feed it once or twice a week.
Betta pellets or flake food should be the staple part of your betta diet.
It is common for a betta fish to avoid eating flakes, but you should give it a try and see if they like it, and if they are, feed them flakes as a staple part of their diet.
There are pellets specially made for bettas, and bettas love to feed on them, so if your betta is not eating flakes, feed them with betta pellets.
To avoid overfeeding your betta fish, feed them in a quantity they can finish eating in one to two minutes.
To make that simple, consider feeding your betta fish 2-3 pellets or any other food twice daily to avoid overfeeding.
Ensure dim lighting
Adding artificial lights or ensuring indirect light to your betta tank will help you improve your betta fish colour.
If you keep your betta tank in a room with no lights and see them after some hours, you will find your betta fish looking pale and uncoloured.
After that, when you turn on the lights or add artificial light to your betta tank for some hours, you will notice your betta fish appearing more colourful and darker.
It states that there is a correlation between lights and betta colour. So, providing your betta fish with light is necessary to improve and enhance their colour.
Note: Betta fish don’t like too intense light, so ensure to provide them with dim light. (You can add floating plants to your betta tank to limit the lights)
Note:Â Avoid direct sunlight as it will result in algae growth and manipulate the water temperature by making it too hot.Â
Also read: Do Betta Fish Require Light?
Add live aquatic plants.
Adding live aquatic plants will also help you improve and enhance your betta colour.
Plants will help you clean the water and provide your betta fish with a good hiding place.
All these will prevent your betta fish from stress and help them improve their colour.
Provide stress-free environment
Providing your betta fish with a stress-free environment will improve and enhance your betta fish’s colour.
Stress will make your betta fish vulnerable to various diseases and parasites, and it will become pale.
Ensure all these things to provide your betta fish with a stress-free environment:
- Provide clean water conditions by performing a weekly water change. (Treat the tap water using the water conditioner before adding it to your betta tank)
- Ensure adequate water parameters of your betta tank.
- Create plenty of hiding spots in your betta tank.
- Add plenty of live aquatic plants to your betta tank.
- Add a heater to ensure stable water temperature.
- Provide your betta fish with ample space. (At least a 5-gallon tank is necessary for one betta fish)
- Feed your betta fish regularly with a high-quality diet.
- Avoid overcrowding your betta fish tank.
- Avoid adding non-compatible tankmates like goldfish and cichlids to your betta tank.
- Maintain the ammonia and nitrite level at 0 ppm, whereas nitrate should be below 20 ppm.
- Add a filter to your betta tank to keep the water clean and safe from ammonia and nitrite.
Ensuring all these things will provide your betta fish with a stress-free environment, which will help them remain healthy and enhance their colour.
Also read: How To Know If Your Betta Fish Is Stressed?
Why is my betta fish losing colour?
There can be various reasons behind your betta fish losing its colour.
Betta fish lose colour primarily due to poor water conditions and a stressful environment.
Other reasons can be old age, poor feeding, inadequate water parameters, and disease.
However, you must know that betta fish change their colour and become dark when they mature.
With age, they will get darker, and it’s completely normal.
If your betta fish is not old and is losing its colour and becoming pale, all this can be the reason:
- Inadequate water parameters
- Poor water conditions
- An ammonia spike
- Poor feeding
- Stressful environment
- Physical injury
- Disease
To know the reason betta fish is losing colour and how to prevent such, you can follow up on our article: Why Is My Betta Fish Losing Colour And Turning White?
Conclusion:
It is necessary to ensure that your betta fish is healthy and happy, as a healthy and happy betta will have an enhanced colour.
Provide your betta fish with ideal living conditions, adequate water parameters, and stable water temperature to keep them healthy and enhance their colour.
Food plays an important role in enhancing your betta fish colour.
Feed your betta fish regularly with high-quality food to ensure enhancing colour.
Providing dim lighting and adding hiding spots and aquatic plants will also enhance betta fish colour.
Always avoid overcrowding your betta tank and ensure you are not overfeeding your betta fish, as these all will stress them out, and they will become pale.
Reference: NCBI, ScienceDirect, Wikipedia