To be fair they may look different because i lightly touch the yellowing leaves to just make them fall off as to not waste plant energy on them.
i did a check for bugs and couldnt find anything ! but even some newer growth is turning yellow. i guess all i can do is water it less see if it gets better and then water it more and see if it gets better lmao
If the leaves drop readily when tapped, the tree is not wasting energy on them. They have already been jettisoned...the petioles have been sealed off and nothing is flowing into/out of the leaf. That often happens long before the leaf yellows. It can take a long time for chlorophyl to full die out. Once closed off, the petiole linkage weakens over time until the leaf falls off naturally. This is why foliage can hang on in tornado force winds in the spring yet fall with the slightest hint of a breeze in fall.
In actuality, the leaf isn't "turning yellow". In actuality, the green is dying off to reveal the remaining color. The same thing happens with fall colors. The chlorophyl dies off revealing the underlying leaf color...yellow for BRTs, red, for maples, etc...The opposite happens with new foliage. Young BRT foliage is bright green because it hasn't generated a lot of chlorophyl yet. Young maple leaves tend to be reds and oranges until their chlorophyl grows in. Bright light kills chlorophyl. If it kills it faster than it can be replenished, the leaves turn pale while similar leaves in shade are deep green.
I'm not sure if it will make you feel better or just clouds your situation, but I my smaller tree out to take some pictures. It looks similar size to yours...maybe a tad larger...maybe...
Those yellow leaves are still hanging on from when they died off after being brought inside back in October. A dozen or so fell off while simply picking up the tree. A gentle tap of the branch and these fell off:
But, at the same time, the tree has started pushing new growth:
This is the smaller of my two rain trees and I did not take a picture of it when I brought it in, but it had at least twice or more the foliage it has now when I first brought it inside. It was nearly entirely bare 2 weeks ago, I'm actually a little surprised at how much foliage it has today.
My larger tree is boxed in a corner and I'm a little embarrassed to post a picture of it! But here it is:
It also lost about half of its foliage but it bounced back to inside conditions sooner...presumably because it is about 3 times the size of its brother: they are the same age.
If this is similar to what you're seeing, I, personally, would not change anything about the care. I think the worst thing you can do is see-saw between too little and too much water! I sometimes don't think we appreciate the timing of things enough. If the tree is in growth mode, it needs water. If you cut off that water, the tree may flip into a resting mode or root tips may dehydrate and not be ready to absorb water readily. Then we start watering it more?!? The tree has made its adjustments and we're now asking it to make new adjustments! That's a lot of stress
The feedback loop can be very negative and the outcome worse that just letting the tree remain steady-on...
My BRTs have always looked like crap over winter...mostly because they are too small to bull through change. The larger one is starting to get to a point where it's less fussy, but the smaller one still drops leaves sometimes if I look at it cross-eyed. Maybe in another 5 years they will be large and mature enough I can put them somewhere to be seen during the winter. For now, I mostly just shove them in a corner and try not to worry about them until March...