Betta Color Fading

Question
Hello, I own a blue male Betta fish that I have had for about 2 and a half months now. He lives alone in a 2 and a half gallon tank. Up until now, he has been very active and vibrant and healthy. He still is eating when I feed him, which is once a day (I feed him Betta pellets everyday and bloodworms 2 or 3 times a week), but he has been very still and his color has been fading drastically. I'm worried about him because he's naturally a very active fish, and for the past few days he has spent the entire day literally lying on the bottom of the tank. (But he is not lying on his side; upright.# His normal color is a very deep blue, and it has begun fading from blue, to a pink-purple color, to almost a frosty white on the bottom half of his body. I clean his tank once a week, and when I do I use a dechlorinator, a little less than a teaspoon of aquatic salt, and just now I have put a small drop of fin rot medication in it because the edges of his fins have been looking a bit fringed. His behavior change wasn't gradual; it was as if he changed over night. By the way, the tank isn't filtered. I'm thinking the reason for this is that the water temperature is too cold, since I have not bought a heater yet. #The temp is only 69 F right now and I know that is WAY too cold so I will probably be able to heat his tank between now and tomorrow.) But I wanted to double check and make sure that his sudden behavior change was due to the water temperature, since also due to the summer-fall switch my room has become quite colder than when I got him in the summer. Thank you for any information you can provide me with; I really appreciate it!  

Answer
Mandy,

  We have a couple of problems one of which you know about. HE NEEDS A HEATER.NOW. 69 degrees is not acceptable. If you have a room in your house that is warmer than the rest, like an upstairs bathroom, put him there until you get the heater. These are tropical fish that need heat even in the summer time. As soon as you get that heater, you will see a drastic change in your Betta. If his change has been that fast, you are running out of time. The other problem is the salt. You are putting way too much salt in that water. Do a 50% water change right now, DO NOT add any salt to the new water. Tomorrow do another 50% water change not adding any salt to that water. Do not add salt to your Betta's tank at all. The norm in salt adding is 1 teaspoon per 5 gallons of water. Your tank is half that size so no more that 1/4 teaspoon should be added to the entire tank. When you do a 25% water change you do not add 1/4 teaspoon to that water. Every time you do that you are add too much salt. Betta's are NOT brackish fish. That means no salt in their water.

I CHANGED MY MIND!!!!!!!!!!!  Do a complete water change, cleaning out the gravel as well. You can make the new water a little warmer than it is but no too much. This might help him get moving again. Get a desk lamp and place it at the tank. The heat from the lamp should warm up the water a little bit, but he will swim to the light and get some warmth there. Make sure the light is where he can get to it. What I mean is raise the tank to where the light is, or bring the light down to where he is. Let me know how he is doing tomorrow after you do all of the above. Good luck.