ich from a LFS. my fault?

2485 Views 28 Replies 14 Participants Last post by oaomcg, Nov 1, 2010

oaomcg

Discussion Starter · Oct 24, 2010

bought 6 rummynose tetras along with some plants and snails from a LFS on monday (10/18) everything was doing great but then on friday evening (10/22) i noticed all 6 of the fish starting to show ich spots. i immediately started slowly raising the temp and slowly adding aquarium salt. i also added a pump with an airstone. saturday morning i got some medication and started treating the tank. saturday night 4 of the fish were dead. this morning i took the 4 dead fish and 2 that were still alive back to the store to see what they could do for me.

the first kid i talked to looked at the fish and said "yeah they've got ich." checked out my receipt and said he could offer store credit as i obviously didn't want to take any more fish home until my tank has been fully treated. he went to talk to the boss about it and i overheard him asking "why would i need to test the water when they obviously died of ich?" boss yelled at him to "just test the damn water!"

so the kid comes back and says "sorry but i can't offer you a store credit because your PH is too high and it's been 6 days" he said my PH tested 7.8 (i just tested when i got home and it is 7.2) i asked if i could talk to the boss. he basically said the same thing. i was outside the 2 day return policy and that it was my fault the fish got ich because the ph is too high. he didn't ask me any further information about the tank or the timeline of the disease. didn't ask if he could help me treat the ich or how to take care of the ph problem (which i now know isn't a problem). just "you're ph is too high, tough luck"

i checked out the tank they came from while i was waiting and there are only 3 fish left of the dozens that were there and the temp is 87 degrees. this makes me think that they may have had an ich problem themselves but i can't say that for sure.

so far none of my other fish are showing any signs of ich (fingers crossed)

currently in the tank (29 gal)
6 bloodfin tetra
3 albino cory
3 peppered cory
2 false sae
3 oto
lot's of plants

water as tested 30 minutes ago
PH: 7.2
KH: 120ppm
GH: 75ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 10ppm

i guess at best this is a $20 lesson on why i need to get a quarantine tank. at worst more of my fish get sick... (fingers still crossed)

what do you guys think? is it my fault the fish got ich? would a high PH even cause ich? maybe there is something about the situation i'm not understanding.

my other question is why would an LFS voluntarily throw away a customer over 6 tetras? i won't be going back there and i made sure he knew that before i left.

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1 - 20 of 29 Posts

Eden Marel

· #2 · Oct 24, 2010

Hmm, well I dunno. If you properly accustomed them to your tank, the pH is fine as long as they arent super sensitive fish.

Sometimes the colors are hard to read in pH test. Depends if either one of you used liquid or dip sticks.

I never quarantine my fish either.

I am iffy on buy from small business... cuz they dont really have the 14day guarantee thingy like Petsmart/Co. And they tend to be more stict that petsmart/co cuz they dont make much money I guess.

Petsmart/Co sometimes test the water but I have never ran into a problem with my water... But anyways it's easy to cheat the test water, just prepare some "clean and right" water before going to the store.

beedee

· #3 · Oct 24, 2010

what was your acclimation process?

Wasserpest

· #4 · Oct 24, 2010

Somewhere I heard/read that ich is often present in tanks but only attacks/develops/shows up if fish are really stressed. I don't know how much truth there is to it, because others say that it will die quickly if it doesn't find a host.

In LFS tanks are mostly sharing the (fresh) water so everything circulates through all tanks, including germs. There might not be a full blown ich epidemy, but I'd say the potential is there.

If the theory above is true, the disease might have been present in your tank and popped up because the fish were stressed.

It's a tough one, but I would not fault the LFS in this case. 87F is pretty high though.

Dave-H

· #5 · Oct 24, 2010

I have also heard that ich is always present, it just becomes a problem with the fish are stressed, sick, etc.

oaomcg

Discussion Starter · #6 · Oct 24, 2010

beedee said:
what was your acclimation process?

i pretty much just floated the bag till the temp was right and netted them into the tank. maybe not the best but i've never had problems doing this with tetras before.

the fish never seemed distressed. they schooled nicely, ate well, and generally looked pretty healthy until developing spots.

i guess it could be possible that they got the ich from my tank but i haven't had any other problems except for these. how likely is it for 6 new fish to develop ich when the others that have been there for weeks are fine?

at any rate, i think i will be buying all my fish from petsmart/co from now on. they may not always have the best stock but at least they will take them back if there is a problem.

Eden Marel

· #7 · Oct 24, 2010

Well isn't it kinda like humans, how you actually have cancer present but you are healthy enough to suppress it? Don't ask me where I heard that, cuz I don't remember. I did not make that up.

Wasserpest

· #8 · Oct 24, 2010

oaomcg said:
how likely is it for 6 new fish to develop ich when the others that have been there for weeks are fine?

Quite likely, since they are the newcomers and stressed from transport, change in water chemistry, and new environment.

oaomcg said:
at any rate, i think i will be buying all my fish from petsmart/co from now on. they may not always have the best stock but at least they will take them back if there is a problem.

Can't blame you! Just make sure you give your fish the best possible conditions, don't overstock, overfeed, etc. That goes a long way to keeping healthy animals.

oaomcg

Discussion Starter · #9 · Oct 24, 2010

thanks for the input guys. i would have understood the refusal of the refund if the situation had been explained to me in a friendly manner. at the very least i would have expected the guy to ask me more about my situation and try and offer a solution. he didn't even ask me anything about my tank other than having the kid test the water. i was more put off by the attitude i got than the policy.

it's great to have resources like this site to come to for help

thanks again

lauraleellbp

· #10 · Oct 25, 2010

That LFS would have lost my business, personally. Just for lack of helpfulness rather than b/c they wouldn't give store credit.

I'm super particular about my LFSs, though.

I also QT all new fish for a minimum of 4 weeks. I haven't had an ich outbreak in any of my main tanks for years. At least 5+ years... maybe close to 10?

Eden Marel

· #11 · Oct 25, 2010

lauraleellbp said:
That LFS would have lost my business, personally. Just for lack of helpfulness rather than b/c they wouldn't give store credit.

I'm super particular about my LFSs, though.

I also QT all new fish for a minimum of 4 weeks. I haven't had an ich outbreak in any of my main tanks for years. At least 5+ years... maybe close to 10?

Me too...

If they had tried to help to the best they can, I might have forgiven them.

I must be really good at preventing or really bad at noticing, cuz I haven't had ich either since I began fishkeeping maybe when I was 11 years old.

mgamer20o0

· #12 · Oct 25, 2010

what do you guys think? is it my fault the fish got ich? would a high PH even cause ich? maybe there is something about the situation i'm not understanding.

my other question is why would an LFS voluntarily throw away a customer over 6 tetras? i won't be going back there and i made sure he knew that before i left.

i would bet money they had ich when you got them just now showing signs yet. high ph wouldnt cause ich. why they did it who knows.

like Wasserpest said most stores are on a central system. if they get in a fish thats sick it can spreed to all the tanks. they get fish in all the time and its just really impossible to qt them all. this is why you should always qt your new fish. for me its not worth the risk.

I have also heard that ich is always present, it just becomes a problem with the fish are stressed, sick, etc.

I also QT all new fish for a minimum of 4 weeks. I haven't had an ich outbreak in any of my main tanks for years. At least 5+ years... maybe close to 10?

my gut says its not always in the system. i know i have stressed my fish from time to time.... yet no ich. i keep hundreds of fish here i have had thousands though my qt and only once had ich show up in 1 qt.

i have moved fish around. do wcs 50% water changes from the hose all year long which can drop the temp. i have over stocked at times. if its always in the water i figured it would have shown up sooner or later. yet most of the time it shows up for other people it can easy be traced back.

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Diana

· #13 · Oct 25, 2010

Ich can hide in the gills.
I bet the fish you bought brought the Ich with them.
Ich does not have a dormant phase, so it cannot hide in a tank for very long. Maybe 1-2 generations might stay in the gills, or be in such small numbers that you miss seeing just one spot.
Within a week, though, if the Ich is there at all, you will see more and more of them showing up on the body and fins.

Optimum conditions for Rummy nose Tetras is warm, soft, acidic water. I have not had much luck with them in harder water, which is usually also more alkaline water.

Captivate05

· #14 · Oct 25, 2010

Wow, all they should have said is that they have a two day return policy and therefore cannot give store credit. That's prefectly understandable.

They should never have brought your parameters into it at all. Any fish that my have ich supressed to their gills could get a full-blown infection just from being moved from one environment to another, regardless of pH.

F22

· #15 · Oct 25, 2010

That whole thing went the wrong way. LFS are around for a few reasons, knowledge, selection, and customer service. It seems that you got none of what you deserved.

On a side note though. I really wouldn't buy fish from any store using a centralized system, there are too many fish coming in and out of the store and to be honest you really can't regualate well on the retail end. In seperate tanks, you can keep disease to a minimum and medicate easier

djscotty

· #16 · Oct 25, 2010

I had the same thing happen from petsmart, brought home some new tetras and within 24-48 hours all the fish had ich. I let them know what happened but they didnt really care. I was able to cure it, but I lost 2 of the first tetras and one of the new tetras in the tank. Chalk it up to lesson learned.

oaomcg

Discussion Starter · #17 · Oct 26, 2010

so, theoretically, if i put perfectly healthy fish into a tank contaminated with ich, when would i start to see the first spots? i'm not really sure what the timeline of the disease is. i understand it's affected by temperature but 4 days seems pretty fast to go from perfectly healthy to full blown ich. i still think these fish were sick when i got them. just not showing spots yet.

the rest of my fish are still doing well (knock on wood) i'm going to continue medicating at least till the end of the week.

OverStocked

· #18 · Oct 26, 2010

I wouldn't buy from a store that has a 2 day guarantee. Honestly... If petco can do 30 days, the LFS should be able to do 14.

djscotty

· #19 · Oct 26, 2010

Petsmart has a 14 day guarantee. My fish developed ich within 48 hours. They never showed any signs until I put the new fish in. The orginal tetras regained color within 24 hours of first putting them into the tank. The new fish with ich never regained their color at all.

fischman

· #20 · Oct 26, 2010

oaomcg said:
so, theoretically, if i put perfectly healthy fish into a tank contaminated with ich, when would i start to see the first spots? i'm not really sure what the timeline of the disease is. i understand it's affected by temperature but 4 days seems pretty fast to go from perfectly healthy to full blown ich. i still think these fish were sick when i got them. just not showing spots yet.

the rest of my fish are still doing well (knock on wood) i'm going to continue medicating at least till the end of the week.

Ich has a lifecycle and once it is introduced to your tank it is in there whether you remove the fish or not. You may see it right away, within 4-7 days or not for several weeks due to the parasites hiding in the gills. If you treat the tank and have no visible symptoms for 3-7 days you should be safe.

Also, it's a rumor that all tanks have ich in them. Ich is a parasite that does not have a dormant stage. If it doesn't find a host it will die. Often times the mysterious ich infestation comes from a fish that had it in their gills or when adding contaminated water with the invisible parasites in it.

Josh

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