Sick Puffer

[LFS_Girl]

My dogface puffer has recently come down with a case of either marine velvet or ich. He is still very active and eats well, but is totally covered (body, fins, tail, and eyes) with tiny white spots. It happened literally overnight, he has no tankmates, doesn't appear stressed, and is very friendly (comes to the glass, tries to sit in my hand when feeding). The fish that I had in this tank before, a gold box, had the same symptoms and died just a couple of days after I bought him. Before adding the puffer I did a large water change and had a damsel and chromis that were living in the tank with no problems, but now I think that I must still have parasite in the water.
Here's my dilemma: the puffer's tank is full of live rock, hermit crabs, anenomes, etc. I can do a hospital setup for the puffer, but what should I do about all of my rock and inverts? Does anyone have suggestions as to a non-copper treatment I can use that will be effective?

[Aquaman]

If they have Ick you can setup a hospital tank for your puffer,damsel and chromas, treat them in the hospital tank and leave the main tank without any fish for 6 weeks, some may tell you to leave the tank empty for 4 weeks, but I would leave it empty for at least 6 weeks. Ick must have a host in order to survive and reproduce, without fish the Ick parasite will die within that time frame. You just need to worry about the fish in the Q tank. Contact Terry B. about treatments for Ick, Hyposalinity seems to be the prefered treatment for Ick nowadays, slowely lower the salinity in your hospital tank down to 1.009, I don't know how long you will need to keep the hospital tank at that salinity level though. Terry B should be able to help you there.