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Originally Posted by Delphinus
Last time I battled ick on a tang, it was on my recently-introduced red sea sailfin tang (almost 2 years ago). I checked the above parameters and found my SG to be 1.027... I lowered it to 1.025 as well as soaked my nori in garlic oil (from the garlic pills you can get at the grocery), and the ick was gone within a week.
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Finally had to read this thread to see what folks have been saying about ich treatment as I have battled it on and off over the past several months and am about to begin stocking my upgraded tanks.....
Ich will drop off a fish in a week whether or not you do anything to your tank. The on-the-fish stage of ich lasts only about a week. The rest of the time, the ich is going through the rest of its life cycle, and will reinfest fish once they get to the on-the-fish stage again in 2-4 weeks if fish are left in the ich tank.
Also, if one fish has ten ich spots, those few ich spots will multiply like crazy while in the not-on-the-fish part of their life cycle. When they become apparent on the fish again, there will be bazillions more that what you started out with, reinfesting the original fish and any other fish in the tank. For example, if a fish gets ich in the ocean, the fish will likely not die of ich because its range will be great enough to be able to avoid fatal reinfestion. In the closed and relatively small systems we run in our homes, there is no place for fish to go to not be reinfested.
As some people have pointed out, the use of LOTS of garlic soaked food has some positive effect on keeping the new on-the-fish ich off the fish. While I am not sure exactly why that works, my guess is that the garlic makes the fish reek of garlic and the ich will not attach to the stinky fish. I have used the garlic method with success and with failure as well.
From the reading I have done, mostly the links Leeanne has posted, it is best to remove all fish from the ich tank to a hospital tank. Treat for 6 weeks, while keeping the ich tank fallow for six weeks. If there are no fish in the ich tank when the on-the-fish stage of ich develops, the ich will simply die due to lack of hosts. Once the ich fish have been successfully treated, which, in some cases may take longer than 6 weeks if treatment proceedures have not been followed properly, there should not be a recurrence of ich in the used-to-be ich tank. That only holds true, however, if ich is not reintroduced in the tank at some point.
Also from what I read, stress in and of itself will not cause ich if ich is not present in the tank. Some people say their fish have developed ich after a long period of time in their tanks, yet no new fish have been added. Well, ime, something MUST have been added to the tank to introduce the ich. It could be some rock, LS, a coral or frag, or ANYTHING ELSE that came from a tank where ich was present but may not have been noticed.
All that said, I will be setting up my 20g as a Qtank for any new fish I plan for my upgraded tanks. Choice of treatment will by hyposalinity should ich be a problem. If my fish develp velvet, I will use copper to treat as hyposalinity does not have any effect on velvet.