Miyagi is extremely jumpy! poor thing :(

[Friendlyfishies]

Im not sure what to do :( ...Miyagi my plakat is over scared of anything around his tank...Ive had him for about a month and hes always been a spooky fish that would spaze at quick movements but the past couple weeks he had gotten much better...now hes reverted back to being super scared but hes worse! Now he comes right out of the water, flips and flops, swims into the walls..the other day he spooked so bad he got himself stuck between his moss ball and the wall. Im a bit worried now when I clean him thats he going to spazz out and fly right out of his tank and onto the floor. Im really worried hes going to hurt himself. & no hes not flashing, ive been watching from a distance, hes perfectly normal when im not near the tank...he nearly scares himself to death when someone walks by the tank or when you make any normal movements with hands/arms et. He has live plants and top cover. My other two double tails are fine with me...I can do whatever I want around their tank/in their tank, I could probably pat them to be honest...but Miyagi, I never seen a captive bred betta act this way. Do you think he may have a vision problem? Im very concerned about him :/

[BabyBetta0108]

How big is your tank and is it in direct sunlight? I read somewhere that bettas don't like being in direct sunlight, so maybe you can move him to a more shaded place. Or it could be that he's just a really shy fishy and takes a long time to settle down? My VT was like that for a while, but now that he's used to his tank he's fine. I would maybe avoid sudden movements around him and be careful to move slowly when near his tank so he won't be spooked. Hope that helped!

[Friendlyfishies]

Its an evolve 4 which is probably about 3 gallons of swimming space with an LED light directly above his tank.

[Ilikebutterflies]

I have had fish get like this when their water parameters were bad. In my case it was nitrites being too high. I was doing 50% changes every 2 days but it wasn't til I bought a liquid test kit that I realized the nitrites were still to high. Once I made sure the water was right the fish settled down.

[Friendlyfishies]

That might make sense! I just switched from doing 60-70% every other day to 40%...Perhaps the tanks arent ready for a less % water change! I will try and up my changes again, hopefully that will help. When he was calm and not so spooky I was doing the 60-70% changes. I wonder what about what perams would cause a fish to be jumpy lol.

[OrangeAugust]

You're doing 40% water change every other day? That is actually too often. Do one 50% and one 100% each week. The water changes could be keeping him high-strung, too because they're too often and it stresses them out. Do you take him out each time? If you get a gravel vac, you can keep him in when you do the 50% change. Then you only have to take him out of the tank once a week.
I have one of my bettas in a 2.5 gallon, and I actually do two 75% changes with a gravel vac twice a week. So I don't have to take him out of the water at all. I don't check his water parameters super often, but when I do they're usually good. Buy a liquid test kit, too. In case the ammonia or nitrites gets too high in between changes then you can change more of the water more often.