[pogodzib]

I don't want to bring up a 3 day old thread, but feel that a couple items in this thread should be addressed for everyone that reads it in the future.

I do not feel that ich "is always present in your tank, just waiting for the right moment to strike" If you quarantine all fish correctly, ich can be kept out of a tank.

Secondly, many tests have been done to see what treatment methods kill ich and what stages of the life cycle kills it. Copper and hyposalinity are by far the easiest and most cost effective treatments proven to work every time if done correctly. There are a few other treatment options, but they either require more than one quarantine tank or chemicals that aren't commonly available.

There are many, many treatments that contain other chemicals, foods, temp adjustments, etc... that are on the market and claim to be reef safe. Some of these may help to reduce the severity of the ich while the ich goes through its cycle. Sometimes the ich won't return after one of two more cycles and other times it will be much worse or your fish will die. It is more a matter on how strong the fish's immune system is and if it can fight off the disease. Either way, these treatment methods will not eradicate ich from your system. The only way to by sure that you will kill of ich is using the methods described in the paragraph above.

Yes, ich is one of the diseases (actually parasites), that not much research has been done up until the past dozen years. Before then, it was thought that freshwater ich and marine ich were the same parasite, when in fact it isn't. However, within the past dozen years, alot of studies have been done on it since it has become so common within the aquarium industry. Unfortunately, there is still alot of misconceptions floating around about ich. To keep things simple for people that aren't aware of the treament options and preventing ich- quarantine all new livestock, copper and hyposalinity treatments are the only two methods proven to work everytime that most people would recommend for the common reef keeper, and there is no reef safe treatment for ich that is guaranteed to work every time and will rid your tank permanently of the ich parasite.