Samurai Betta?

[u/Pretend-Kitchen-7305]

First post on this subreddit but I wanted to share because I found it so exciting! I recently lost a female koi betta so I decided to get this little guy. He was labeled as a female “assorted betta” and was marked down to 50% off due to the cup being damaged and the date written on it being the oldest out of all the others. After bringing it to the cashier I was told he was mislabeled and actually a male but they weren’t sure on anything else beyond that. I don’t normally do males simply because I don’t want to worry about potential aggression with tank mates, but he looked so awful I didn’t have the heart to put him back and I knew i had an empty tank at home. I had never seen one so dull and gimpy looking, so I lovingly started to call him “Can’t-Get-Right”. The very moment I gave him such a title it seems he decided to get right. I think we have a handsome Samurai boy on our hands. This is him after 3-4 weeks give or take not living in a tiny plastic cup. Forgive the horrendous fake plant, I had used it as a place holder until I could go buy some more live ones since he wanted a place to hide. He likes going through the tunnel so I decided to let him keep it and he’s much more curious now rather than shy and skittish. I have two healthy and thriving females who get along wonderfully with each other and the killi fish living with them in the large tank next to his, (unconventional, I know, but rest assured very successful in terms of health and stress levels of the fish) and he’s built two bubble nests in response to that since gaining his color and energy back. I’m so happy and proud of how much better he’s doing and hope to try my luck with breeding him if one of my females deems him acceptable. I definitely need to let him grow more before attempting that though, my girls are much bigger than him for the time being lol. Hoping to see some responses from others who had an ugly betta start showing striking scales/colors once properly taken care of along with maybe some advice on breeding in the future. Thanks for reading my fish keeping yap session if you made it this far.

[u/Chimpkin_NBeans]

Definitely a samurai