Also what do you think about a mandarin going throughout this process

Yah, it's a really labour intensive process. The most sweat equity needed of any of the treatment methods. Just like tank maintenance, you're more likely to do it 'right' if you make it as easy and quick to do as possible. I'm not sure I'd love the fish I was treating much if I had to clean 30 gallon tanks 4 times in 12 days.

The other good thing about the TT method is that you really think hard about all those fish you see in the store and go 'oooooo' over. Knowing that your'e committed for 12 days of work is a strong deterrent to impulse purchasing.

Why don't you guys just bleach the water and then dechlorinate? You don't have to throw the water out when you do tank transfers.

Yea I don't mind putting in the work after this ich ordeal and I've learned a lot with these fish in hypo so I'm prepared to do all the work before hand so the acutal process is easier when it comes time to do it

I have lots of heaters, 3 air stones, 2 hob filters and a few crappy powerheads I'll just look to pick up some 15ish gallon tanks

They're tricky, but they're tricky fish in general. I'm 2 for 2 on failures with them now, but the first one I think was beyond the point of no return when I got it, it never ate, or even swam more than was necessary to keep itself in one spot and didn't survive a week, the second one came through the transfer just fine, at least as well as any other fish. I didn't treat the second one with prazipro though as it was suggested that doing so might have prevented the first one from eating. However, the second one ate from day one.

However, it just bit it in my display. I have no idea why. It went from active and feeding one day, to dead the next morning. It was only in the display a few days.

I had a mandrin that lasted over a year till ich/hypo treatment killed it it started in a 30 gallon and moved to the 125 when I upgraded so I will be doing another mandrin again for sure

Do you have a process you go by for how much bleach to use and how to be sure it is all removed?

When using tank transfers, does the fish go into the display at the end or into QT for observation?

I use sodium thiosulphate for dechlorinating. It works very well. If you mix 60 grams into a total volume of 500 mL of RO/DI water then 1 mL of sodium thiosulphate solution will dechlorinate 1 mL of 5.5% household bleach (check the label for concentration as some have changed to 8.5%). Chlorine strips for pools are cheap and can confirm, but this recipe works fine.

When using tank transfers, does the fish go into the display at the end or into QT for observation?[/quote]

Into the display provided all is good and they are eating well.

Where can I buy sodium thiosulphate?

Hmmm, you've caught my interest with this. I have used the hypo method with good success. But the downside is that it takes a long time, usually about 2 - 3 months the way I do it. And you always need a mature QT running and ready.

The TT method seems a lot faster. And I have a lot of those old 5g salt pails available. Instead of using new fresh SW mix, any problems with just using some stored DT water from a water change? As I said, I have a lot of those salt buckets, so can easily do that. What about filtration, or is 3 days not enough time to worry about that? As the final step before the DT, I can transfer them to my QT to observe them a bit longer.