Does My Bi-Color Angel Really Have Ich?

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teamdavenport

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I bought a bi-color angelfish from Petco last Tuesday. My tank parameters were fine and I acclimated it as recommended. A few days later (last Friday), I woke up and the angelfish had a few "white" spots on its back. Naturally, I suspected it was ich so I went to Petco that same afternoon and bought an herbal ich treatment. When I got home that same night (again, last Friday), the whte spots had magically disappeared. I did some research and read that ich comes and goes in stages so to assume there was no ich would be foolish.
 
Over the weekend, I used the herbal ich treatment (starting on that Friday night) and followed the directions (including water changes, removing the carbon from the filter, and adding in the recommended dosage). This morning (Monday), I noticed a few small white spots on the angelfish when I turned the tank lights on. A couple hours later, i checked the tank and the small white spots had disappeared from its back.
 
So my question: is this really ich? None of the other fish have shown signs of the white spots (1 damsel and 2 clowns) and those fish have been in the tank for several weeks. Also, all the fish are breathing/swimming around normally, including the angelfish. Should I continue the treatment? The bottle recommends 10 days and I have also read that you should continue treatment for up to 3 weeks since the last white spot was seen.
 
I'm asking because after heavily reading the ich lifecycle, it doesn't seem that ich white spots would be visible for just a "couple of hours." I thought it lasted for at least a day? Perhaps, I am wrong?
 
Thanks!
 
You are quite right, ich does not come and go - ich looks like grains of salt or sugar stuck to the scales, rather than being discoloured scales.
 
Can you get a photo?
 
Here's a couple photos. If they are too blurry, let me know. He is quite the fast swimmer. On the photo where he's looking to the left, those tiny specles are actually from the glass (not on his back).
 
Thanks for the quick reply!
 

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I can't see anything unusual in the photos, but it could be the resolution. Marine ich is often hard to make show up clearly on moving fish. I realize it's been about a week since you posted the photos. How is the fish doing now? 
 
The "stages" associated with marine ich last much longer than a day. Fish will be speckly and itchy for weeks usually, but breaks in spottiness do occur sometimes and are often falsely interpreted as the infestation having been eradicated. Since your fish's spots fell off so fast, I suspect it isn't ich. Something that often looks like ich but isn't is when fish get tiny grains of sand stuck in their slime coat. That commonly happens when fish are caught in store tanks, since they dart all over and stir things up. Sometimes fish can also turn up covered in sand if there is a digging fish in the tank that throws sand around.
 
Thanks Crazy Crab Laby. The bicolor has been doing well actually. I stopped the treatment a couple days after the original post (above) and re-inserted the carbon filter. So far (2 weeks later), the bicolor has not shown any signs of ich (although, now I have another problem of him harassing the other tank mates).
 
Thanks for the help and insight!
 

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