Veil tail Betta fins are a mess! Please Help!

Hi! Something awful happened to my VT Betta and I have no idea how it happened, I'm in shock So, here's the story: I woke up this morning and saw that his top was pretty torn and I was intrigued but I thought I'd wait and see, I thought maybe his finrot returned, I fed him his breakfast and left.I came home at 4 pm and his fin was the same and everything else looked fine.I hung around and saw him last at around 5:30pm and at 8:00 pm I went to feed him his dinner(I feed him between 7-8 pm) and I was shocked:half his tail is missing and the other fins are a mess.I immediately removed him from his tank but I have no idea what could have happened in 3 hours.Is there a disease that does that? Details about the tank:
-2.2 gallons
-filtered( the filter barely moves the surface of the water, he built a huge bubble nest yesterday and he swam around the filter okay,he wasn't getting pushed around or anything)-it's an adjustable filter and is set to min
-4 bushes of Flame Moss
-one ball of Moss on top of his hut(which he had for 2 months without a problem)
-river rocks, small, smooth, no sharp edges
I did a partial water change 7 days ago-actually I went to feed him dinner and do his water change- I change about 30-35% once a week and once every too weeks I clean the gravel.I treat the water with Tetra AquaSafe, sometimes I even do small water changes during the week(maybe 10%).His water temp is about 25-26 degrees Celsius at all times.

and here he is today(I am aware that these are possibly the worst pictures ever but my camera is at home-I'm in college):





I don't know what to do, no idea what could have happened.
What should I do next?
Will he ever recover?
Could he die from this?

 

What are your readings?

The smaller the tank, the harder you must work at keeping it clean. It sounds like a water quality issue to me.

If you don't do gravel vacs every week, along with a minimum of 50% water changes, your water quality will go downhill quickly. I would do an immediate 75% water change.

 

I did a 50% water change and cleaned the gravel before reading your message.Should I just change another 25% tomorrow? The water quality caused half his tail to disappear? How? I had no idea it could happen Do you think his fins will regenerate? In how much time?

 

Fin rot is usually caused by poor water conditions.

What are your readings?

 

Ph=6.8
A=0.35
N2=0.2
N3=30
I know poor water conditions cause fin rot but I thought it was progressive, I never imagine it would cause half his tail to disappear in 3 hours.

 

Ok, you need to help me understand this.

A = ammonia?
N2 = nitrite?
N3 = nitrate?

You shouldn't have any ammonia or nitrite reading at all. What test kit?

 

Yes, sorry I wrote in a hurry but that's what I mean.I use Tetra Strip tests.

 

Ok, the strips are pretty much worthless. Would you be able to get an API master kit?

With the strips, we can't say what your readings truly are. Obviously, your fish is suffering. If it were my tank, I'd do 50% daily water changes until he seems better.

 

Well then that is what I will do.50% water changes.I have one question though: I use tap water.When I do the partial water changes, I treat the new water while in bottles with the right amount of AquaSafe.Is that okay? Should I just add the tap water and treat the whole aquarium even though the old water is technically treated? I can't wait to get the 5.5 gallon...

 

If using AquaSafe you only need to treat the new water, since the old water already had the chlorine, chloramine or heavy metals removed.

But I would highly recommend Prime instead of AquaSafe. Prime will detox ammonia/nitrite for 24 hours keeping your fish safe from exposure until you do your next partail water change (in 24 hours, you'll need to do water changes daily until cycled). Also if you use Prime treat for the entire volume of the tank.

 

If using AquaSafe you only need to treat the new water, since the old water already had the chlorine, chloramine or heavy metals removed.

But I would highly recommend Prime instead of AquaSafe. Prime will detox ammonia/nitrite for 24 hours keeping your fish safe from exposure until you do your next partail water change (in 24 hours, you'll need to do water changes daily until cycled). Also if you use Prime treat for the entire volume of the tank.

Thanks, he got slightly worse so I transferred him to a QT critter keeper.I am currently treating him for fin rot and for possible infections and doing 100% water changes every day.I'll pick up Prime next week when I will probably buy him a heater as well.I want to keep him at 27-28 degrees Celsius since I heard it speeds up recovery.Today he seems better so I hope he'll be okay.