How long do I keep them away from other fish?

[sinsug]

I recently bought some ottos from walmart, where they are known to have a lot of fish that have Ich. My question is, how long should i keep them in a seperate tank before they are deemed well enough to go into the community tank? I am not really worried about anything but Ich. They don't seem to have any now and it has been 2 days, but i don't want to put them in before I know for sure they don't have it. Any suggestions?
Thanks

 

[daddylovesfish]

keep them in a separate tank for 2 weeks. Does it look like they have ich?

 

[sinsug]

I am not sure if they have it or not, they are so small it is hard to tell. When I looked at them at the store though, I didn't really see anything, but I know for a fact that most of the fish there have ich. Not sure if any of the fish that were in the same tank as the ottos had it, but it's hard to tell cause there were so many in there and they could have just been a little beat up. If they do develope ich while I have them in the other tank, and I end up treating it successfully, how much longer should I wait after that? My tank has a serious brown algae problem, no matter what I try to do to fix it, that is why I bought the ottos. My LFS was supposed to special order some for me but they never came in, so I broke down and bought them from walmart. Thanks for any help

 

[SoulFish]

is your tank planted? if not get a small chinese algae eater, people say they dont eat brown algae but i find this to be completely untrue, i had a mop covering every wall on my 20 gallon and a single one made it spotless in 2 days, they may harm plants thats why i asked if it was planted

 

[sinsug]

No, all i have are artificial plants in my tank. I'll go to my LFS tomorrow and see if they have any of those chinese algae eaters. Is that what I ask for at the store, or is there a different name for them?

 

[SLO-Dean]

that's the name they use in all the fish stores here. Chinese Algea Eaters.
I don't think you would have a problem with the Ottos, I've gotten fish from Wal-Mart with no disease problems.
Ich is caused when fish are exposed to a change in temperature.
Acclimate and there shouldn't be a problem...don't dump in their water though why risk it.

 

[sinsug]

I looked at them closely last night and they do have Ich. So now I have to try and treat them. This happened the last time I got fish from Walmart and they all died. I don't think they died because of the Ich but I could never get it to go away. We'll see what happens with these. Thanks for all the info.