The life cycle of ich is they feed on the fish then detach and lay offspring in the sand, then swim in the water column and reattach to other fish. It is very possible that they don't only remain in sand, sometimes also on coral rubble.

In Maries case, that is exactly what happened!

Kien is right, was thinking about it attaching to things other than fish... So yes, if you got ICH from the coral/rock, it wasn't from that, it was just in the water.

Sorry to hear about your issue, keep the fish happy and stress free and all should be fine. Crossing my fingers for you.

Ich can be anywhere that is wet, sand, rock, water, fish, depdening on stages of its life cycle. The following diagram shows the life cycle of ich and normal time it spends on each cycle. In the tomont stage, ich can attach to sand, rock, coral or tank bottom. Also there are some information in the last few years suggest that the tomont stage can last up to 72 days (vs. 28 days in the diagram).

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...hlifecycle.jpg

Knowing Doofus is the ultimate ich magnet I have been reasonably diligent about quaranting everything wet that goes in the tank but I have become complacent. The corals and rock arrived cold and needed to be dealt with fast.....totally my fault, I knew better and if I lose Doofus I'm not sure I will keep the big tank

If it's ich, it's easily treatable with minimum stress to fish. The hard part is that you have to treat all the fish and leave the tank fallow for 8+ weeks. Don't feel bad. I think it all comes down to luck. I don't know of anyone who is quarantining their inverts or corals. I know some quarantine fish.

I have a spare 4 ft 90 gal sitting here if you want to setup a proper quarantine , would hate to see anything happen to good ol Doofus.

Garlic Ich treatment
 

You know the drill Marie but for the benefit of others.
Take some dried food and soak it for 10 minutes in garlic extract (from the health food store) or Garlic Extreme from the LFS.
Dried because it will absorb more garlic than wet food.
Feed very often. The idea is to get as much garlic into the fish as fast as possible.

Continue feeding for a couple of weeks even though the spots are gone.

Good Luck. I am she he will make it.
Wayne

OMG Marie Im so Sorry, I hope Doofy is going to be ok.

+1

The reason your fish has ich is because it's stressed for some reason.

If you have a tank full of healthy fish and dumped a gallon of ich infested water, nothing would happen.