Ick in tank, where did it come from?

so my question is, about ick, it's hard to find what im looking for online... so i thought i'd try my luck here.

i have a 10 gallon tank with 5 neon tetras in it, its been up and running for about 9 months, including 2 months of cycling. for the past 3 monts i havent added any fish or plants or anything and its been running fine, i had a brief spell of a very small reading of nitrite,(under 0.3) but after i removed the water wisteria that i believe was dying, the nitrite disappeared. then all of a sudden one of my neons looked i'll kind of like its scale were lifted up near its gills, and it got really pale, and one other one had a white spot on it, it looked to be ick, so just to be safe it started treatment with Aquari-Sol, its a mild treatment for sensitive fish like neons. i raised the temp and lowered the water level for more oxygenation. after treating for a week, the white speck was gone, and the other neon looked better too, getting its color back. im still treating because its says that once the ick falls off it will incubate for a few days in the gravel and then burst open releasing lots more, and this is when they are most vulnerable to be killed by the meds, but today i noticed that one neons has two spots on it now, i think its the same one as before, so i will continue to treat it, i just not sure if its working, is there a better medication i can use? one that wont mess with the biological filter?

ive read a lot about the salt treatment, do i use regular table salt? and whats the best dose for neons? also can i do the salt with the meds in the tank already?

my other question is, how did it get into my tank?, everywhere i read says that ick does not have a dormant stage, that if it doesn't have a host within 3-4 days it dies. so if i haven't added anything into my tank in 3 months how did the ick get in there?

thanks

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Permalink Reply by Ashley h. on January 15, 2012 at 7:09pm

Im goig teough same issue and i called my vet and he said could be because of poor habbitat or also poor diet, or if a fish is stressed out. im on first week if treatment and only day 6 of medication. You do not want to up tue temp in tank cuz it will stress fish out keep normal and follow treayments for 14 to 21 days but make sure in between treatments you take out 10% of water and refill, that way you do not overdose. as of salt method they say use aquirum salt. and also ick is a parasite wile its on fish where its while means head is in fish ect. so you may have got eid of some spots there may be more there that is not quite visabal to eye. hope this helps.!

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Permalink Reply by Cama on January 15, 2012 at 9:48pm

i have checked my water, and its 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and under 5 ppm's of nitrate, so water quality is good, the medication that im using( Aquari-Sol) says to raise temp to 85 and, feed them NutraFin Max flakes color enhancing food, and TetraMin tropical Flakes. Both food are high in vitamins too.

The medication (Aquari-Sol) is a mild treatment because tetras are sensitive, but it doen't not say to do water changes, but ive been doing small ones anyways just to vacuum the gravel a bit, trying to pick up the parasite a bit. i dont think it due to stress cause the fish were fine for the past 5-6 months, and i didnt add anything to the tank or do anything different, just regular water changes...

i wanted to know about the salt treatment and neon tetras, if they are ok to do it, or if they are to sensitive, also how to do the salt treatment.

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Permalink Reply by Ashley h. on January 15, 2012 at 10:28pm

I am not quite sre on how to do salt treatment but google it and get much info from many sites. Oh and my apologies but i also meant to include with taking ot water will also pick the little ick creatures up as well i will see if i can find on how to use salt too and see if i can as maybe one of your fish is sick and ts stressed just because it is sick in general it is hard to tell at times. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Ashley h. on January 15, 2012 at 10:49pm

3) Salts: sodium chloride, sea-salt, ice-cream, kosher... or synthetic saltwater mix can be employed to kill ich as these parasites cannot tolerate more than about 1 ppt salt solutions, whereas most fishes can. The use of salts has an added benefit in alleviating some shock, damage from loss of fish osmotic integrity. Note that addition of salts is deleterious to the health of Ichthyophthirius but may also be bad for your plants, fishes, biological filter.......i found this... Not much help but does say how much salt to use