Hi all! my first post here
I second Victor and Brad. I used garlic on my fresh water discuss. What a great stuff.
Victor, I am not sure if ICH is present in our tank all the time. It needs life host to survive its cycle that has 3 stages. If we have ich in our tank for long period of time it means that some of the live organism is infested with it and we just have it under managable control. Fish that has it is not 100% happy. We observe only one stage in our tank, white spots (cysts) on the fish body, that represent very heavy infesting. There is only one stage when ich can be successfully treated. It is free floating stage when it breaks out of its cyst and starts to swim around looking for a host. To protect our fish we need to boost their immune system (garlic works great), keep the stress to minimum. Fish immune system when in full power can handle ich with no problem. Now, once you get it, IMHO, you have to treat the tank (very difficult in reef situation) more than fish. Fish either can survive it or not. You can't help it much when fish has it. While in hosiptal tank being treated with chemicals, we just break development stage of ich. In order to make sure that ich is gone don't make mistake to put fish back when you don't see spots. Keep it in the hospitality tank for at least 3-4 weeks. Some people had success with UV and Ozone filters, and some chemicals, such as malachite green and fomalin. Anyway I am talking more from fresh water experiences. What I learnt from reading so far about salt water ich the only difference is response to the temparture raising treatment, that works miracle in fresh water tank. In saltwater tank it produces oposite results.
Chicki, keep your main tank 6-8 weeks empty (well, fishless), if your problem was ich it should be gone. However, I just came cross article about some lab test on marine ich. Ich was still present in invert. system without fish after 60 days. Exact conditions of system were no provided. Make sure you treat your hospitality tank (repeating treatments) to kill ich completly there as well.
My 2 cents.
[ 19 September 2002, 00:24: Message edited by: pirate ]
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