Ich!!!! Help

1. Garlic Oil soaked food- Doesn't kill the parasite, it just makes them jump off the fish (they don't like the taste)
   
   
2. Raise the tank temperature- this helps kill free-floating parasites and young
• In SW Reef, I don't go much higher than 84 degrees... it will take a week longer to kill but won't endanger your reef and other fish as much
• In FW I've gone as high as 89 degrees and saw an incrementally faster resolution to the problem, but that tank had much larger fish, I wouldn't risk it with smaller fish
  
  
3. Do More Water Changes than normal (clean substrate while you're at it)- This clears more of the free floating parasites and their young and also provides a cleaner tank so your fish are in better condition to fight the ICH.
1. SW - I did about 20-25% twice/week
   
2. FW - Shocking as it may seem... for bad outbreaks I've done as much as 25%/daily (FW outbreaks are much harder to cure because you don't have the benefit of cleaner shrimp to remove much of the parasites)

• NOTE: I recommend Fire Shrimp over standard cleaner shrimp, and peppermint, even though they are cheaper... (personally I would get all of the above when I have an outbreak)
  
  At the time I was going overkill with everything that was even suggested to help, so I bought: Cleaner Shrimps (2), Peppermint Shrimps (2), a coral Banded Shrimp, a handful of ghost shrimps, and a cleaner wrasse.
  
  Peppermint and Ghost Shrimps didn't do anything that I ever saw (mind you,  I was obsessing and watched them probably 4 hours/day).  Cleaner wrasse also helped occasionally, but wasn't really in the game it seemed.  I noticed the fish would LET the cleaner shrimp, cleaner wrasse,  do the job when jumped upon, but they seemed to twitch and jerk when the shrimp cleaned them.. like it was hurting them; pulling too hard or ripping off chunks with the parasite.  The coral banded shrimp looked like he'd have eaten the whole fish if they had gotten hold of them.
  
  On the other hand, there was a cave where the Fire Shrimp lived that became known as the car-wash.  The fish would actively seek out the Fire Shrimp when they got infected.  They would back into his cave, and calmly hover while he went to work all over them... without a twitch or any sign of pain.  
  
  So this one is completely my experience, but fish seem to trust and enjoy the fire shrimp car wash more than the average ICH skin ripper 

3.  Believe it or not... add Salt hehe - Not our average Salt Water salt, but little boxes in the FW aisle commonly referred to as Brackish Salt or Aquarium Salt

It's said to increase gill health, and increase the effectiveness of medication in FW tanks. whatever the reason, it was part of my regiment and it worked

4.  Rid-Ich or similar ICH medication - I've probably used them all, but none seemed very effective until combined with all of the steps above.  Then it finally knocked it out.  

1. Adding an air bubbler (in SW and FW) - ICH attaches primarily in the gills... thus the focus on add Salt to FW to increase gill health
   
   
2. Empty your tank and boil sterilize your substrate... there is a nut job in just about every forum somewhere isn't there? LOL
   
   
3. Coppering your tanks -  think we've all heard the term, has this fish ever been in a coppered tank?!?
   
   
4. Quarantining - Seems popular with most, but I've always been scared to take a dying fish, and adding more stress by chasing him around my tank for 1/2 hour to get him into a quarantine tank that doesn't have his favorite home cave or any familiar/safe surroundings.   Scratch that... tried it twice with my giant FW tank... both times they were dead by morning... I blamed the net-chase.