Greetings, I just wanted to share a recent Ich experience with all of you and hope that it helps someone out there. I got my husband a 6 gallon nano tank stocked with your usual possum wrasse, blenny, and goby in addition to nice corals, cleaner shrimp, scallop, hermit crabs, and star fish...well, things were going so well that we decided to get another tank. This tank is a 28 gallon well stocked with live rocks, corals, painted fairy wrasse, flame hawkfish, pink spotted watchmen goby, 3 pajama cardinals, then we got a flame angle. Two days later, noticed ich on the angle but he was happy and eating well, day later noticed ich on fairy wrasse. Well, much to my surprise (out of stupidity) there is ich on all the fishes in my 6 gallon tank! I did remember that the 8 gallon tank temperature did drop to 68 degrees one night so they must have been "sensitized" but the real reason may be that I used the same syringe to feed both tanks. Well, after trying the garlic, and fresh water dips (lasting 4 minutes), the ich continued in this tiny world. I got myself a 6 gallon nano as a hospital tank running with bioballs filled to the max from my LFS to help cycle the new tank. During this week, the ich had all but disappeared in my 28 gallon. I moved the possum wrasse, blenny, and goby from the 6 gallon to the hospital tank, lowered the salinity to 1.012 and increased the temperature to 84 degrees. I did one gallon water changes on the 6 gallon hospital tank each day to get rid of the waste as I was overfeeding them on purpose. For a few days they looked like they were doing better, they were eating and beginning to swim like they used to, I thought we made it. During this time in my 28 gallon, ich reappeared on my flame angle and painted fairy wrasse, I did not want to break down my tank to catch them and put them in my hospital tank and that would have crowded the three that are already there. So I decreased my salinity to 1.021 to the lowest I believed possible for the corals to survive and kept the temperature at 82 degrees. 7 days later, the fishes did not do well in the hospital tank, ich worsened, I did fresh water dips on all three fishes. Not soon after, they each died one day apart. The flame angle and painted fairy wrasse in my 28 gallon continued to eat well and acted fine through all this, even with that "salted" look. They continue to do fine and after doing 4 gallon water changes every day for five days the ich is gone. It has been more than 14 days now and no signs of ich. What I learned from my experience is that:
1) Do not use the same syringe to feed more than one tank, if you do, then rinse them well with fresh water to kill parasites between the tanks. Better yet, don't do it.
2) Keep a steady temperature.
4) Hospital tanks may cause more stress on the sick fish.
4) Probably the most important of things. Keep your water PERFECT! What do they say? An ounce of prevention...
Best wishes!
Cyrus