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Hi! it's okay, a lot of us have been there! I think it's awesome you're taking care of the little guy. I'm about to give you a whole bunch of information:

1. White tips are fin regrowth. If you're seeing regrowth, it means you've improved his conditions from whatever they were previously and he's only going to get more pretty. Congrats!
   
   
2. As per above, I would ease up with medicating. This statement is going to cause you some stress going forward and I apologize in advance but: sometimes overmedicating can be harmful too. AQ salt and melafix can be rough on a betta so you want to use them sparingly.
   
   
3. In absence of a filter, your aquarium isn't cycled. There's info sheets kicking around, but for purposes of the rest of my post, filters are important because they house the bacteria that turns fish waste (ammonia) into nitrites, and then those nitrites into nitrates. This is important because ammonia and nitrites at any level are harmful to fish, whereas nitrates are fine up to a certain points, and plants will 'eat' nitrates and reduce them. Without the bacteria cycle, your fish's waste just stays as ammonia and hurts them.
   
   
4. In terms of fish health, ammonia will lead to fin rot and also ammonia burns on their gills. So, I would highly recommend buying the following two products: API Master Test Kit and Seachem Prime. These two product are your best friends in ammonia control. The test kit will help you monitor ammonia and nitrites until your bacteria establishes, and seachem prime is something you can add to neutralize ammonia for a period of 24 hours. It's also a dechlorinator, so you should put it in any new water you're putting in the tank. Seachem Prime is one of the best things to have on hand when keeping fish.
   
   
5. Until you get your filter running and your cycle established, you're going to have to keep doing fairly frequent water changes. These should be enough to keep his fins on their route to recovery without any of the medicine, but keep an eye on him. I would say that the black on the tips is part of his natural colouring, by the way. Very pretty fish!
   
   Eventually, you will have an established bacteria cycle and will only have to change some of the water once a week. Until then, you need a test kit to monitor ammonia levels with the aim of keeping them at zero either with water changes or the Seachem Prime. Another recommendation I'll make outside of your questions and concerns is making sure to get a thermometer to watch that the temperature stays stable. Unfortunately, 2.5 gallons is a small volume of water in terms of temperature regulation, and swings in temperature can be harmful to their swim bladders. A thermometer will let you keep an eye on that. Ideally his temp would be as steady as possible between 78-80F.
   Also, I'm not sure what your method is for water changes, but if you can find a way to do it while leaving him in the tank, it would be less stressful for him. Stress can weaken their immune systems and make them more susceptible to various illnesses.

it's hard to tell, the teared up bits can be caused by decorations or other sharp things. Are the tips brown or bloody/red? Then it's probably mild finrot.

Best treatment would be lots of waterchanges, and maybe some almond leaves.

There are good testkits available on amazon, expensive but worth the money if you can spare it.

edit: changed tears to teared up bits, bettas don't cry!

I personally like the adjustable heaters. I have this one in my 2.5g hospital tank and this one in my 5.5g main tank.

gravel vacuum