Bettas scared of me?

[thegameksk]

Hey all. When ever I go near my Bettas tank they go nuts and swim everywhere and end up staying at the bottom of the tank. They wont come up until I move away from the tank. How can I get them to come to the top? I want to try to teach them some tricks but I cant since they keep running. Thanks.

[ChristinaRoss]

did u just get them recently, they might just be adjusting to their new home still.
what kind of "tricks" are you wanting to teach them?

[BettaxFishxCrazy]

If you got them recently it can take a week or longer for them to get comfortable in their surroundings. Yeah, what kind of tricks do you want to teach them? I've heard of people trying to teach them to jump and it ends badly because then they learn to jump out of their tank or over their divider.

[thegameksk]

No I had them for a few months now. I think part of the problem is that I have them in a small tank for now which requires changing 2 or 3 times a week and they freak out when I try to get put them in their cups. I wanna teach them to like follow my finger around the tank and stuff.

[withluck]

Most fish will follow fingers around the tank, or at least explore it.

Does he rub up on things? Or is it only when you are near the tank? If it's only when you're near the tank, then try only going over to him when you're going to feed him or change the water.

Don't tap loudly on his tank to get him to follow your finger or anything. Honestly I wouldn't even consider that a trick. :s

If you could get him to swim through hoops, maybe.

[dr2b]

Bettas should be in tanks that are 2.5 gallons or larger. It is probably stressing them out that you are having to take them out of their tank so much.

I trained Marina to go to inside the ring. It's to the point now where when I open the tank lid she almost automatically goes to the feeding ring :)

[k stiles]

Yeah, withluck, I saw a video on that once it was pretty cool :D