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Thanks for everyone's posts, I've definitely learned a few new things about ich. I agree, its definitely stressful (to the fishkeeper) when this happens and I hope you end up with a healthy fish recovering on its own!

I had a ich problem recently myself; I just added a great Coral Beauty on the weekend and 24 hrs later it showed some signs of ich. It had as many as 20 tiny spots I guess. Long story short, I put it in the main tank (a 33 gallon reef, understocked so not a HUGE risk) directly after a slow 3 hr acclimation period. I have done this with all my livestock and never lost a thing. I DO have a QT standing by incase things get worse (but honestly I've never needed it in 8 months of reefing!!). Anyway, I cranked the temp to 86, got the new C.B eating and kept a close eye on maintaining pristine water parameters. Did small water changes and sucked out as much extra detritus and debris from the bottom as I could.

The C.B. now after 4 days shows NO signs of ich but I will definitely keep watching closely. All other fish(Scooter Blenny, Clown Goby, and Maroon Clown) show no signs either, What a relief!


I do have a couple questions about this whole process though and after reading the other posts here:

1. The coral beauty was litterally trying to swim straight up out of the bag almost the entire acclimation process. I assume trying to get air, but I had an airstone in the bag as it was dripped. I did not want to dump it in fast since the salinity in my tank was much higher! The fish was obviously stressed, so its no doubt it showed ich after getting in the main tank. Is this an oxygen problem or simply stress? Should a fish be moved quickly to higher salinity if it lookeds like it is severely stressed? I was debating just dropping it in the tank since it was litterally going crazy swimming up for over 2 hours!

2. It sounds like ich can hang around in the tank for a long time if the fish introduced it and it might come back? If I see no signs of ich for several months, can the fish really still be carrying it? There doesn't seem to be any way to erradicate a tank of ich then if it has ever had it before and you keep fish the whole time.

3. And finally, I have read a lot that people feed with garlic soaked food. Is this some fish store product you must use or is there some garlic extract at the local supermarket you can use? Is it harmful to feed all the fish with this even if they don't have ich?

Thanks for all the great help everyone!