[ScubaSteve]

Hi Tony,

Bummer dude. I recently lost my butterfly to ich. Butterflies are weird with ich. They don't act like they have it and it comes and goes, like you said. But each time it comes back it comes back a little worse until one day they take a dramatic turn for the worse. Mine went from ich-y but happy and healthy to dead in less than 48 hours.

And I agree with Paul on the comment about secondary infections. My butterfly, in his dramatic down turn, contracted a secondary infection that lead to symptoms like red spots on the skin (bleeding) and the tell-tale signs of popeye. It is the secondary infection that I believe got passed around to everyone else in my tank. A day and a bit after my buttlerfly kicked the bucket, my mandarin followed. No idea what killed the mandarin but he had all sorts of weird symptoms that were all over the map. As Paul said, ich isn't likelt to attack smooth skinned fish (like mandarins). Who knows... Just be prepared for this.

Change 50% every second day and don't bother with cycling the sponge. It'll do nothing at this point and meds will kill anything useful. The butterflies are finicky as all heck. Even though you CAN drop salinity fast, try not to as this seems to just irritate the butterflies, who then get stressed, which makes things worse. I never tried the copper meds but I agree with the half dose idea. As long as you can keep them eating like pigs you're golden. Oh, and don't for a second think they'll fight it off like tangs do... once a butterfly gets ich they just start cycling through it and progressively get worse.

Have fun and good luck! Tell those butterflies to stop getting their knickers in a twist and getting sick.