Bought A New Fish Yesterday. Ick Today.

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lateinningmagic

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Apr 14, 2009
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*sigh* This is what I get for buying from the chain store and not quarantining.

I bought an absolutely beautiful Angelfish yesterday, but when I came home today I went to feed the fish and saw that one of the Harlequin Rasboras had white spots. This sucks.

I put in 40 teaspoons of table salt (dissolved in water first) and set the heater to 83 (currently 80). I know the normal salt dosage is 2 tsp per gallon, but I have Kuhli Loaches and plecos in there and they might be a bit sensitive to it. I also have copper sulfate which was super effective for treating the 20g tank, but I have plants in the 37 and don't want to kill em off.

What should I do? Maybe a half dosage of salt and copper combined together? I do have the copper test kit.
 

lateinningmagic

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Apr 14, 2009
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I am not for sure that if the Angel was just added yesterday that the Rasbora got ich from it.
No new fish or plants have been added in any of my tanks for a while. The last fish added were Hatchetfish about 2-3 weeks ago.

What else could it be?
 

petluvr

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Jun 5, 2008
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I may be wrong, and I am sure someone will say if I am, but I can't imagine that the Rasbora would be exhibiting signs of ich after being exposed for less than 24 hours. Could it be that the Hatchets brought it in and the Rasbora is just now showing signs?
 

SubRosa

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Jul 3, 2009
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I may be wrong, and I am sure someone will say if I am, but I can't imagine that the Rasbora would be exhibiting signs of ich after being exposed for less than 24 hours. Could it be that the Hatchets brought it in and the Rasbora is just now showing signs?
A much more likely scenario. No way ich would spread that fast.
 

laurenrocksth

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Jun 24, 2008
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I don't know the answer to your original question, but I have had fish exhibit signs of ich after less than 24h
 

lateinningmagic

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Apr 14, 2009
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I may be wrong, and I am sure someone will say if I am, but I can't imagine that the Rasbora would be exhibiting signs of ich after being exposed for less than 24 hours. Could it be that the Hatchets brought it in and the Rasbora is just now showing signs?
I don't know exactly how ick works, but it is possible. Hatchets are wild caught, so they are probably be more sensitive.

A much more likely scenario. No way ich would spread that fast.
I don't know the answer to your original question, but I have had fish exhibit signs of ich after less than 24h
Contradicting views. Would make an interesting discussion, but what I really want to know is about treatment.
 

SubRosa

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theredchaser

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Aug 8, 2008
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Ich can't spread that fast. What most likely happened is that your fish already had ich to begin with, but had no external signs of it because it was still burrowed underneath the skin. Adding the angel probably caused stress to the fish, thus hindering its immune system and signaled the ich parasite to burst out to find a new healthier host.

Luckily, ich is pretty easy to treat, simply add salt and raise temperature like you're already doing. One thing to note is that the salt only affects the protozoans in the free-swimming stage, so you will need to wait until all the protozoans are in the free swimming stage. Many people simply stop the treatment once the white dots are gone, and blame the treatment when ich shows up again because they didn't treat for the entire duration.

Also always qt, ESPECIALLY from chain stores because they usually have policies on qt'ing new shipments (i.e. no qt'ing to sell faster)
 

lateinningmagic

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Apr 14, 2009
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I don't QT, but I am hesitant from buying from chain stores. I just saw this angel being a bully in the store's angel tank and looking gorgeous, so I just had to have him. I'm going to go ahead and blame it for the Ick.
 
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