New fish with Ich

[DonDallas71]

I just bought 3 new neons and immediately after i added them to my 37gal tank I noticed white spots on them. I immediately removed them (took about 15min to round them up) and put them in a tiny 5gal tank on my kitchen counter.

Was that long enough to infect my 37gal and other fish? I am worried I just screwed my new tank after I finally got it cycled.

I did not transfer any water that came from my LFS into my tank, so it was just the fish themselves that were introduced into my tank. They had snails in the LFS tank and I did not want to risk transferring any of them in the water.

The LFS tank and the plastic bag were just too light colored to be able to see the spots. It was not until they were in front of the black background of my tank when I noticed them.

 

[dkpate]

Snails don't carry the ich parasite.
I doubt it was long enough to transfer into the main tank, since ich does have a life cycle. Cysts on the body, they pop, the parasite falls into the substrate and forms a cyst, the cyst explodes, releasing the parasite into the water.
Just be careful though, and keep a super close eye on the fish in the main tank. You could even do a vacuum as a precaution.

 

[glassbird]

You are probably going to be ok, but a thorough gravel cleaning as dkpate suggested would be a wise move. And it can't hurt!

Hopefully you ducked the bullet this time. But a quarantine tank is a wise thing to have. You will save yourself a lot of stress, money, and fish lives.