Need advice, Betta is lethargic but otherwise seems healthy, eats, and is responsive

Hi everyone, I purchased a twin tail halfmoon betta almost two weeks ago. He is in a 2.5 gallon tank (I know 5 gallons is best I'm going to buy one soon) and the tank is heated to 80 F (I constantly check). It also has a filtration device. The substrate and items in tank are good, and my fish seems to enjoy them. My fish displays no symptoms of poor health, eats when I feed him (I don't overfeed), and comes over when I come to the tank. When he does swim, he swims normally and without struggle. The only problem is that he is very lazy. He deliberately swims up to the intake and stays there for quite some time (he is not stuck, he swims away effortlessly when he feels like leaving the intake). He does this very often, enough to the point where it seems concerning. I was wondering if you guys had any advice?

Hi

Can you give us the Water parameters.
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate

Also can you post a photo of the fish and one of the tank please.

This sounds like fairly normal betta behaviour to me, they are quite lazy fish and are not active swimmers compared to most fish (especially the heavier tailed types) so there may not be anything wrong with him.

NickAu said:

Hi

Can you give us the Water parameters.
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate

Also can you post a photo of the fish and one of the tank please.

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ammonia: 0.25 ppm
ph: 7.4
nitrite: 0 ppm
nitrate: 0 ppm

I was following the testing directions very closely and was using the color comparison chart

betta fish said:

This sounds like fairly normal betta behaviour to me, they are quite lazy fish and are not active swimmers compared to most fish (especially the heavier tailed types) so there may not be anything wrong with him.

Click to expand...

That is such a relief to hear, I had no idea.

You will need to get that ammonia down to 0 as you don't want to see any, keep doing regular daily small water changes, how much do you feed? he is beautiful by the way

Hes a nice boy, Overall his tank is ok, Get the ammonia down as betta fish said, Hes only new and still settling in give him time and lots of clean water.

Oh yes it could be wores, He could be a glass surfer.

betta fish said:

You will need to get that ammonia down to 0 as you don't want to see any, keep doing regular daily small water changes, how much do you feed? he is beautiful by the way

Click to expand...

Thank you, I will do that right away. I feed 3 of those small betta pellets in the morning and at night. Also, once the level is 0, how often do I perform water changes and what percentage?

NickAu said:

Hes a nice boy, Overall his tank is ok, Get the ammonia down as betta fish said, Hes only new and still settling in give him time and lots of clean water.

Oh yes it could be wores, He could be a glass surfer.

Click to expand...

That's true. Thank you, I will start on that right away.

Also, I was wondering if you had any advice about using the gravel pump? I know I'm screwing up because I'm finding that by time I have removed only some of of the waste, too much water is gone. Its the one with a pump in the middle and a hose on each side.