Kind of a weird situation...fish fell on the floor. Need some advice kind of quickly!

I bought 8 Harlequin Rasboras yesterday and during acclimation and introducing them to the tank...a couple of them jumped from the water and landed on the carpet. Now, one of them I was able to recover and get him back in the water fairly quickly (within a couple of seconds), but the other one flopped away from me and seemed to be dead. I put him back in the water, and within a few seconds he was revived and swimming around.

Now, when I put them in the main tank, they all looked fine and dandy. Today, they are all bahaving normally, but one of them looks like he has a thin white film on him, and I assume that it is the one that got away from me on the carpet. He is acting normally like all of the others, schooling normally and eating normally. All other 7 Harlies...including the first one that fell on the floor, look completely healthy and normal. My question is...should I quarantine him? I don't have a quarantine tank set up, but I do have a spare 2 gallon that I can set up. The issue is that it will not be cycled...

What should I do? Should I leave him in the main tank and just keep an eye on him while keeping the water pristine, or should I not take the chance that he could spread whatever he has to the other tank inhabitants and put him in an uncycled quarantine tank? I mean, I did put a piece of slate that was in the main tank into the quarantine tank as well as tank water from the main tank in an effort to kickstart a cycle...but I doubt that it's substantial enough.

Thoughts? Opinions? Thanks.

He was only the floor for maybe 30 seconds. Perhaps 45. I figured it might be something gone awry with his slime coat.

Is there anything I can do to bolster the rejuvenation of his slime coat? Will it return to normal over time? One of his eyes is also scratched up...but I assume that was my doing when handling him between the floor and the tank.

jm1212 said:

he should turn out to be fine.

ive had a fish jump out of the tank during feeding while i was out of the room and lay on the floor for about 15 minutes and everything turn out fine.

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That's great news, and exactly what I wanted to hear! Did you do anything in particular to treat his issues? Did he have the same white-ish film over his body? About how long did it take for him to recover?

Alright. Thanks everyone! I'll leave him in the tank for a few days and see if he improves. I'll do a water change in a couple days. I did one this morning.

Let's hope for the best!

Yikes...just in the last couple of hours, his eye has gotten worse. It's getting a white cottony-type look to it. Doesn't look good...

Fungus? If fungus, can it spread to others? Is there anything I can do immediately, like raise the temp. of the tank?