yikes! my girl ariel has had this problem for a while now, i noticed greyish patches on her body. thorugh a LOT of reading, a few websites, and the help of other people's pictures and descriptions, I've diagnosed her as having the terrible flexibacter which is not horrible, because i caught it and am treating with maracyn. good news is, the greyish stuff is slowly disappearing (i'm on the third day of treatment) the bad thing is, in the bad spot of grey she had between her tail and body, there is this HOLE where the bacteria must have just been eating her away. now i'm wondering if the maracyn will help that heal by itself, it is sure working to get rid of the bacteria. OR should I put maracyn 2 in there with it to help heal the fin back to the body faster. i don't want anything bad to happen with this nasty hole. i know i can use the maracyn, maracyn 2, maroxy and all at the same time, but i want to take it fairly easy on her as not to drive her nuts with meds. she is eating fine and swimming fine...just realllllly clamped fins as this is probably not the most pleasant feeling in the world.

that sounds so scary. bu the way, thanks for the email. mr. george may have the flexibactor as well. but how come it's not spreading at all? that's the only thing that is strange to me. and the grey lumpy patches(which are only on his gills) seem to almost be metallic. is this velvet? by the way, i don't have an answer to your problem, just asking some questions of my own.

sounds like mr. george unfortunately has the same thing. i hope not though. it doesn't really spread quick and it just lingers there on the skin. ariel has it near her gills too. have you treated mr. george with maracyn? it's working wonders on ariel in just three days, but the only thing is, she is reeeeally lethargic. she is staying at the bottom kind of recouping, because i think she is afraid of anyone chasing her. she can't move fast, i think she might be in pain. she will come up to eat and tries to swim fast, and then stops short like she remembers that she has a hole in her. she comes up to breath too. she is not slow moving, just choppy-like. this whole process is killing me. i wish she were just better with the blink of an eye. i don't know if you've read any previous posts of mine about ariel, but this little girl is a big part of my life. she was my evil devil fish. now she is just as timid as the others. i want my meany back

well, today is the fourth day of treatment, and the hole has now turned into a broken fin. the hole got bigger and just kinda seperated the tail from the body. ugh, this is horrible, BUT she is eating still very much, and seems to be swimming around more today. tomorrow is the last treatment and then she gets some fresh water to cleanse her. any suggestions to the post-op treatment?? should I carbon out the meds and then treat with melafix?
she is not bleeding at the spot at all.

Id say thats a good idea. Is it possible it might be finrot? Does it look worse or just different? If it just progressed outward to the fin and not any closer to the body i guess thats kindof good.. Hopefully your betta gets better!

well, fin rot is bacteria, but this is a different strand that is called Flexibacter. it is MUCH more serious and fast acting. I know that I've properly diagnosed her, as the medicine is working and all the symptoms match on Dr. Barb's website. http://www.aquamaniacs.net/flex.html
what i meant is that her whole tail is falling off now, so it's not getting any better looking. but the fuzzy stuff is quickly going away, so all I can do is hope for the best and for no secondary infections here.
anyway, I am just praying that she heals quick it's killing me more than it is her i think

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid1...62/f952a91b.jpg
this is a picture of my beautiful ariel when she was healthy. (you can see the beginnings of the white fuzzy line from her tail between (vertically) her body

Mabye you should continue treatment past the date it gives you until the white stuff is fully gone, then use bettafix or melafix But thats just what i would do, im not familiar with the medication so I could be wrong. But I did that when my goldfish had finrot and it helped them. So mabye it would help.