I once found our betta on our floor. Been there for awhile but put him back in the tank. It didn't move for 5 days but it eventually survived. We were amazed that he got well again. With intervention, even a very sick can get well.
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Sorry, but this is EXACTLY the reason why we recommended purchasing your own test kit. I would say that IF the store was correct in their assessment of your water quality (i.e. high ammonia/nitrite/nitrate) that there is possibly your main problem right there...poor water quality leads to stress which can lead to disease. I would suggest doing as many water changes as you can since you have no way of knowing where the parameters land after each one. At least you can be somewhat confident that they are low, given a lot of turnover, until you get a kit...again, it is pretty much an essential tool for hobbyists.
In the future, flushing a fish because of a disease that it treatable for a good majority of cases is not the choice in that situation, IMHO. Now, it sounds like there was potentially more going on than just ich given the other symptoms, but NEVER rush to conclusions when it comes to treatment/euthanasia.
Chances are your other fish are either already infected or are highly susceptible to infection. Ich has a free-floating stage (the part that salt or meds actually target), which is why you need to treat the entire tank...that is IF it was ich, as you say. There's no way for anyone else to know at this point, which makes me hesitate to suggest treating for anything right now.
If I had a sick tank I would have moved her but I stand by my belief that she would have not lasted the night. The longer I waited the higher the chance that the other fish would have gotten infected if they weren't already. God knows I wish it were different
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Trying to isolate ich is a worthless endeavor because of how its life cycle operates. As I mentioned, you would have to treat the entire tank regardless.
I have turned off the aquarium light and I'm raising the temperature to 80F which all my fish will be ok with, any higher will stress out the danio. The higher temp should shorten the life span of any ich in the tank and in a few days I'll get some salts to kill off the ich. Do you think that the ghost shrimp and the golden snail will be able the handle the salts? I'm thinking that the danio could maybe handle a couple degrees higher temp then 80F if I do it vary slowly, I usually have it in the mid 70s. From what I understand is that I can stop ich from reproducing when the temp is 86F but I'm don't know if the danio can handle it.
Stress is the cause of 95% of all fish disease. Pathogens are frequently present, but healthy fish can fight them off in most cases. Stress weakens fish terribly, preventing the immune system from functioning well if at all, and the fish is wasting so much energy dealing with the source of the stress it makes things even worse. And ammonia and nitrite at levels much above zero are highly stressful.
At this point, daily water changes of half the tank are the best remedy. If ich is really present, raising the temperature to 86F and treatment with salt is usually recommended (livebearers willhave no problem with this for a couple weeks).
Edit: Just saw your last post. The danio might be OK for this. I guess the point is that if nothing is done (and 80F will not help here) and this is ich, all the fish will be gone in no time. Saving some by proper treatment is better than nothing.
I was able to sit up a quarantine tank and I put the danios in it with no substrate and a raised filter for more air. The quarantine tank will be sat at 80F which is the upper limit of the danio. My primary tank I'm going to take it as close as I can to 86F safely and I have taken out the decor but for the plants. Both tanks have aquarium salt and conditioner that helps with the slim coat. I'm thinking that I'm going to have tank one in quarantine for atleast a week and danio's tank 2 weeks because of the different temps, but these are just a minimum time frame.
Not a dumb question at all, and the answer is that these are two very different "salts." Aquarium salt is pure sodium chloride, much the same as "table salt" except the latter may contain iodine and anti-caking ingredients. Table salt with additives is not recommended for aquarium use, though some will suggest using it in an emergency for disease treatment.
Marine salt is actually the salts of several minerals, sodium chloride being one but also calcium and others. This is because salt is only one of several minerals present in sea water, and all are essential for the fish and other creatures that live in a marine environment. Marine salt should be used to create brackish water when that is needed. Rift lake cichlid salts are different again, being the "hard" minerals like calcium and such but not containing sodium chloride.
