How do I get rid of ICH???

[Aqua_Man]

I have a 60 gallon tank with live sand and 70 lbs of live rock. The filtration is made up of a wet/dry filter box with bio balls. I had an outbreak of ich a couple of months back which killed by fish. I waited 3 months and introduced a Lemon Peel Angel and within 2 weeks it also got ich. I tried medication but to no positive outcomes. Evetually it died. Someone told me that there is a new strain of ich which occassionally pops up, carried by a new fish that is pretty resistant to medication treatments. Now how do I get rid of this monster:blown: !

[FMarini]

Hi;
sounds to me like you got stressed out fish....
so first things first....
use that little search button up top there and search for ich. Its been covered a few million times in here.
Two things come to mind...one what is/are your water parameters like? (nitrate levels w/ your wet/dry?). anything else come to mind about these stressed out fish.
Second...to eliminate ich you can do 2 things...either use copper in a quarentine tank (NOT your main tank), or hyposalinity (use the search commands for this). Either way Copper will kill off the ich in 5-10 days but then treat for 2 additioanl weeks-copper is th emost effective-BUT-BUT it needs to be monitored to be used effectively, and at high levels its toxic. Hypo (reduce salinity to 1.009)will take longer to control the ich, its more "gentle" but treat for at least a month.
Once you get it under control....always quarentine your fish for 3 to 4 week first, and leave your main tank fishless for at least 1 to 1.5 months(a few life cycles of ich)
my opinion
frank

[billsreef]

Hi Aqua-man,

Frank has you started in the right direction to truly cure ick. I have yet to see any strains of ick that are resistant to either copper or hyposalinity treatments. However there are plenty of other "treatments" sold that are not effective, especially the so called reef safe cures.

[witchdoctor]

It is also entirely possible that the fish had a touch of ich when you purchased it, depending on how long it was in your dealer's tanks, whether they routinely treat the water, etc. Once it was in your tank, the stress of the new environment could easily allow it to fluorish.

That is one of the reasons it's so critical to quarantine your new fish. You can see if they develop some infection, and feel free to treat it rather than introducing the infection (and the fish) into your main system. Still need to do all the other stuff (remove stressors, etc.)

[Aqua_Man]

How long of a period of time should I wait before I introduce a new fish its now been 2 months with out fish in the main tank. All I have are urchins and a cowrie snail.

[billsreef]

typically 4 to 6 weeks is suffucient to starve out any remaining ick cysts. The longest dormant period for any strain of ick that has been documented is 72 days.