Is this normal? Fish PTSD?

[SageMyster]

I received my AquaBid purchase today... the lovely Alastor, whom I've already completely bonded with. If you look at the latest video in my blog (in my signature), you can see how he was packaged and what he looked like when he came out. His colors are not fully developed... in fact, he looks rather white in the right light (he is actually blue). I imagine the trauma of being shipped from Thailand is reason enough to be upset. But my main concern is that he is swimming around erratically in the 2.5g tank, from one side to the other, at 2.5 seconds each round. It's very off-putting. Any ideas, help, suggestions? have any of your fish done something like this?

Poor Alastor!

[bethyMT]

Give the little dude some time to adjust. He's probably just blowing off steam from the long and stressful journey. If it helps, turn off the light and let him rest. In a few days he should be fine.

My Sassy will swim laps in the back of his tank when he's upset...he did this when I attempted to switch tanks. Took him a few days to calm down, but he's OK now, no pacing.

Sometimes bettas are neurotic. Fortunately, they are cute enough that we tolerate it;)

[MattsBettas]

I'm not sure... He might just be exploring. As long as their is no other symptoms and his tank is in good condition. Wait a few days to see for sure.

[LittleBlueFishlets]

How did you acclimate him? (Process, time, etc.) It looks like you just got him today, and he is already in his new tank- is that correct? But the water parameters here are very different from Thailand. How did you acclimate him to the new water?