aptasia isn't bad, just inject them with a kalk slurry while you don't have many.

Steve

They hitchhiked in on a free coral, being a generous host I fed them some lemonade and they haven't been seen since... I hope that clears up the original post.

Silica is found in the oceans anywhere up to 10 ppm and it is removed from our salts and our additives. Silicates help to produce some types of algae, that are more readily eaten by our pods, and other things in our tank (ie tangs and regular hermits).

I read about it in this article By Randy Holmes-farley

Between work and sick kids I haven't been able to put the time into monitoring and dosing the sodium silicate and since I want to do it properly I'll wait till I have the time and energy. On a side note I got quite the ich outbrake and have started a "Natural" ich treatment/experiment that I think will work. The experiment started on Tuesday afternoon and I have seen major reductions of ich on my tangs (may just be falling off to breed so we will wait and see on that one)... The flame wrasses still have a fair amount of ich on their front 1/4 (I think it's cause the shrimp are scared to get near their mouths) But overall I have seen a reduction. It will take 10 days before I will say if my experiment is being successful or not.

I noticed the Ich on my tangs Monday afternoon and proceeded to monitor my tank. I couldn't see Ich on any of my other fish. My tangs didn't stay still enough for me to get a good picture of them, mostly the Ich was on their fins and face. But two of the less dominant ones had Ich all over. I watched closely all afternoon until lights out. When all that was left was the blue LED's I saw more Ich. My wrasses were covered in it. I couldn't see the Ich under normal light but under the blues was a different story.
http://i737.photobucket.com/albums/x...landIch032.jpg

Adding to the saga of trials and "FUN"
Well something has happened that I wasn't expecting... I'm having massive Cyano die off and some type of green algae (that I have wanted to grow) has started growing. But today it was huge the amount of Cyano that was lifting off the rocks or just decomposing where it was. There is still lots there but I would say close to 20% is dead or dieing within just a couple days... I was not expecting this and I don't finish work till later tomorrow so I hope that there are no deaths while it goes through this transition. All of the die off of Cyano is creating an ammonia spike and it's at .5, Nitrites are at .3, and nitrates are at almost 0. I was not expecting the die off to happen so quickly so I don't have any bottled bacteria on hand to help to jump start the populations in the tank... I'll keep you updated over the next 2 days (I have Tuesday off so I'll post Tuesday night if not sooner)

So after 10 days there is no sign of Ich... I believe that a combination of three things saved my fish and put the Ich into remission.

1. Lots of Skunk cleaners... I have six or seven Skunk cleaners in my tank and they service most of my fish well, some of them are very bold, jumping onto a fish in open water and cleaning a fair distance from their post. (I also have two Fire cleaners but they don't like to clean.)
2. I added Brine shrimp cysts to my tank... lots every day, I would say that there wasn't one cubic inch in the tank that didn't have hatched brine shrimp filtering the water. Also I don't have a skimmer, UV, or anything else that can kill/remove stuff from the water, so they stay in the water column. Brine shrimp may or may not filter the Ich out of the water, but I felt it may help so I tried.
3. I fed garlic in my food. Not a huge contributor but I feel like it could have made a difference.

glad to hear your fish are doing well.

I wish you continued good luck with the Ich outbreak. I was wondering what the justification was for the brine shrimp, do you see it as a food source to keep the fish healthy enough to fight of the Ich or does it in some way attract or break the Ich cycle?

I'm not sure if the brine shrimp would eat them or not, but brine shrimp are filter feeders and they filter out usually phytoplankton. Phytoplankton ranges in size from 50µm to several feet in size. Ich in the Theront stage are between 40-69µm. I'm hoping that the brine shrimp will filter out and eat the Theronts thus braking the Ich cycle. If this works or not or even had any effect is unknown... the only way to do it would be to experiment with them and do several studies. But I know that if I ever get Ich again, I will be "saturating" the water with brine shrimp.