Hi all,

I'm a somewhat experienced betta keeper (have had several over a decade or so) and this one's perplexing me. I've only had one female betta before, and only saw her display stress stripes after major moves (5 hours in a car cupholder? I'd be stressed, too!)

My current betta I have had for about 2 months. Things seem fine (footnote), so why the heck is she striping? She seems otherwise content and healthy.

I have noticed she seems to stripe up when I approach the tank, but if I leave the tank alone for a while and glance over from several feet away, she's solid dark bodied. Is she just afraid of me? What do I do?

Footnote: She's in a 10 gallon tank with 6 harlequin rasboras, a nerite, and an embarrassing number of Malaysian trumpet snails. The rasboras keep to themselves; I haven't witnessed any chasing behavior between them and the betta. The tank is 78F, and parameters are 0 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, <5 ppm nitrate. Filter is an Aquaclear set on low with high plant coverage to break the flow. I feed her Omega One betta pellets and Fluval Betta Bug Bites. I'll admit I slack a bit on water changes... 20% every 2 weeks or so.