A few concerns about my Beta

[serendipituous]

I recently moved my 1 year old Beta into a new, 1.5 gallon tank and I have been seeing cloudy water with tiny white stuff in it that appeared after 4-5 days of the setup. This is making me really uncomfortable (because I assume the betta is uncomfortable: it is staying at the bottom most of the time and not moving much around. Still eating but not very energetic as he was when he was in the old tank, which interestingly enough was smaller.) Is the small white stuff due to the bacteria colony forming or should I worry about fungal growth? It looks like parts of a spider net, but only about 0.5 cm long.
I have never had any problems with foreign growth before in the old tank so I can't recognize what it is.

In the meantime I have been doing 2 things:

• ~25% water change (with water that has been sitting for about a week), and added dechlorinating agent and stress coat.
• Tried to raise the temperature to speed up the bacteria growth process. But this isn't going so well. The temperature currently is 78F, I wanted to get it to ~82F . I have this Hydor mini aquarium heater (115 V, 60 Hz, 7.5 W) http://www.f3images.com/IMD/aquarium_images/hydro_mini_aquarium_heater.jpg When I plug in the heater it seems to get hot and work fine. But once I submerge it in water it gets cold and even if I leave it in for hours it doesn't change the temperature of the water.

Can anybody help me with my current Betta situation?

 

[serendipituous]

just to clarify - the white stuff is mostly sticking to the fake decorations but is also visible floating in water.

 

[aqua_chem]

Also dramatically cut back on feeding. Fish actually need much less food than most people give them, so he'll be fine.


At this point water changes and dieting are your best friends.


Also, do you have a filter on it?