Deborah Mundorff wrote:

I think his color may return, it is hard for me to tell but it looks a
little better. We have stepped up the water changes a bit (although I
thought we were pretty aggressive already) and are testing for amoniona
every day - ensuring it stays 0. I'm still confused on the ph levels - the
reading on my strips seem really low and I haven't quite figured out how
that relates to fish health...

On an earlier suggestion I posted the same question on the betta forum at
Aquamaniacs - almost everyone responded that he looked healthy and that
color loss may be a result of age - but to also check the temperature.


He doesn't look to me like he has the typical old age loss of coloring.
That's more of a general fading of his normal coloring. Think faded
cotton T-shirt.
What I think is happening is a simple color morph. Bettas that have
Cambodian in them (the lighter bodies where a lot of these nice colors
are coming from when mixed with regular colored Bettas) often will
change colors over time.
Also, it's very possible he has marble genes in him. This would mean
any type of color change at any time inhis life can happen.
These changes often happen in chunks and go from one color to an
entirely different color.
I happen to love marbles. They're like little surprises in each fish
that never stop.
So don't worry about him. He looks fine.
It would an entirely different story if he were missing scales in these
areas, but it never looked like it to me.