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did'nt mean to come across condenscending there.. was just helping to answer the most recent question you had posed, and since scarcasm has been prevalent in this thread, added a bit of my own with a rhetorical question for you to ponder.
ok.. quality advise.. the only way to "Cure" the tank is by removing all fish, and leaving the tank without fish for 6-8 weeks. This will break up the life cycle of the ich in the tank, the cysts will hatch, the newly born "ich's" will have no host to attain nutrition from, and will starve to death before reproducing (the parasites remain in cyst for for a month+ and are dormant in this stage).
Quarantining the fish and hyposalinity is the way to eradicate the fish of the ich.. the fish can withstand the lower salinity (1.09 - 1.10) while the parasties cannot. There is plenty of info to be found on this treatment protocal, look in the fish disease forums here.
That is the "correct" answer for you.. everything else is substandard, and hit or miss. having now said that, yes I have had success with a fish winning the war with ich over prolonged periods of time, and I did not go the hypo route either.
-disclaimer- the following is anecdotal, and is not a statement on how to go about eradicating your problem, I already stated the correct way.
I have had a hippo tang for the duration of time I have owned my tank, about 7 years now (back off tang police). It would come down with ich problems as well, it would linger a week or 2, clear up on its own, then reappear a month or 6 down the road, and repeat.
I have now not seen a trace of it in I would say 3 years. Not much really changed in my usbandry during that time, I always tried to maintain aaas stress free an environment as possible, fed an extremely varied diet, including using garlic, and selcon, and had stable temperatures. There is conjecture that fish develop "immunity" to the parasite, I would say that is just that though conjecture.. perhaps they do become more resistant, perhaps its just a bunch of bs.
The one change that did occur during my last (hesitate to use final here) outbreak was the addition of 2 neon gobies. They would often swim alongside my tang, snacking on whatever invisible thingys they saw on its body. I honestly do not think this is the sole reason for it clearing up though, I have no idea why it finally cleared up.. but since then I have not seen a trace of it. I am not under the conception, even after this long without it that my tank is "cured" though, it is just not symptomatic.
If you want to be 100% sure you have this problem kicked and that it will not return, the only way to go is to QT your fish, leave your main tank completely fishless for about 2 months, and treat the fish with hyposalinity in the QT tank, otherwise its just russian roulette. I got lucky somehow, but it would be irresponsible of me to tell you that it will work for you too.
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