I am very curious about this, because I heard they like our company, so I wonder if he can see me when I'm at my computer, where I spend a lot of time :)
How far away is it? My fish can see me on my bed, a good 6 feet away, or when I come into the room - of course, they can also feel the vibrations of walking, so I'm not sure if they see me come into the room or feel me. They are pretty good at detecting small movements. If I'm sitting on my bed and I move around, they'll stop and look at me hoping I'll come over and feed them.
Mine all swim to the front of their tanks when I walk into my room, and they're about 10 feet from the door. I don't know if they can see me or just feel me enter the room, but they definitely know I'm there!
I have been curious about this too. So i actually tried to test it. I put mine in the living room tank. 1 hour later i enter again from 20 feet off and he looked at me. So, they can see far off!
well great question! with several informative answer's. I now know my betta can see/feel my movements, no matter where I am in my bed room. which is pretty cool, and maybe just the tiniest bit creepy haha, he always knows|!!
I think these guys (and gals) have pretty darn good eyesight. Our old male used to be able to tell the difference between my wife and me. He always used to flare at me, but loved my wife and didn't so much as open a single gill in her direction. He would get mad at me if I was anywhere in the room and he even used to flare at me when he could see me down the hallway from the bedroom he was in. That's quite a distance for him to recognize me.
We now have a a single female and she can see me all the way down the hall too. She gets excited and begs for food when she sees either of us and she'll even go over to the side of the tank and start getting excited if she sees one of us down the hall. (It's funny and cute how she does it. She swims over to the side of the tank we're on all excited and stares. Then goes to the hole at the top where the food comes in, looks up and checks, then swims back over to glare at us, and then goes back and checks. Sometimes, if she doesn't get food, I can swear she's glaring at us.)
So they can see quite a distance and I would assume quite clearly too considering that the male could identify me from my wife at that distance.
Last edited by Blacklight; 12-12-2012 at 05:09 PM.
I just measured it. It's a little over 14 feet long. Both of my fish have seen me at the end of it. The male used to flare specifically at me if he noticed me standing at the other end of it and he wouldn't react at all to my wife standing there. I don't understand how he could tell the difference between my wife and me, but he could and he definitely did NOT like me. The tank is about 6-7 feet into the room at the end of the hallway.