ICH

I know this is redundent but the first thing to do is get a QT tank.

You can get a 10 gallon tank at wal-mart for $12.00. And a heater for another $10. Clamp on light $5. For less than $30 you have a QT setup.

Once you get him confined you can do all kinds of treatment. Such as hyposalinity, copper treatments, etc.

 

If it's a tang and it's just starting to show white spots, wait and see.  If it goes from a few white spots to a bunch (let's say 20 or more) get that fish out of your display.  Go to the store, buy a cheap heater, 10 gallon tank, and sponge filter....get that fish out of your main tank ASAP and copper treatment like Seachem Cupramine knocks it out quick.  Hyposalinity works too.  DO NOT do hyposalinity on a coral tank unless you want to kill all your corals.  I got bad advice from a well intentioned friend when I was a noob and killed a bunch of my corals... :-(
Take a pic to show us what it looks like and we can better recommend a course of action, but it may be too late from it taking hold in your tank and all of your fish getting ich...
--AJ

 

+1 

 

for the record I do not condone shopping for chinese crap at wal-mart.

I'm just saying you can get a QT setup going in less than an hour.

 

You can get a 25gram bottle of chloroquine phosphate from Spectrum Chemical for 43 dollars. I read about this in Freshwater and Marine aquarium magazine. If you use this stuff it is light sensitive so turn the lights off. Also if you get a QT tank put a old pvc pipe or old fishhouse so it has some place to hide which will reduce stress. 90 days is adequite.

 

Oh yea and it says it's reef safe.

 

+1 to the 10 gal hospitol. I've treated ick with both copper and hyposalinity. After treating a tank with copper, some will adhere to it and may release over time. I did copper in a 50 gal fish only tank and regret it because I would like to eventually add some corals to it. The decontamination process is quite labor intensive, so go for a dedicated QT.

My copper treatment (Seachem Cupramine) did not work; I may have had too low of a concentration to effectivly kill the ich--I used a Seachem copper test kit and had a difficult time reading the results.

I've used hyposalinity twice with good results-no return ich on any fish and no losses during treatment. I read up on hyposalinity and then followed my treatment plan meticulously. Pay attention to PH. I bought a few new fish 5 weeks ago and was only going to quarantine them for one month. I'm glad I did because I didn't see the first signs of ich until 3 1/2 weeks. They are in a 10gal with SG at 1.009 and looking good. I put a couple PVC elbows and unions in the tank for the fish to hide by and to reduce stress.

Good luck.

 

Famous last words. 
I'm not saying it isn't, because I don't know. But my experience is that most ich treatments that say they are reef safe, aren't.

 

ICH is a nightmare... im going to tell you a little story in hopes you don't make the same mistakes i did. once upon a time i picked up a blue regal tang and didn't quarantine him. (he looked healthy) needless to say ick spread like crazy to all my fish. after hours of research i decided to use Seachem Cupramine. (side note. salifert test kits are the only ones that will test for this copper... the one Seachem sells wont even work... trust me i tried them all) i treated the fish for 2 weeks and the ich cleared up and i threw them back into the main tank.... End of story or so you would think. about a week later i saw ICH again!!! i had not added any new fish WTF... after more reading i learned about the life cycle of ick. without knowing it i reinfected all of my fish. ich can hide in you tank for about a month without a fish to live on... so i had to take the fish out again re-treat them. and leave the main tank fallow for a month and a half (just because i was paranoid) BTW my corals loved it.

hope my little epic helps a bit

Patrick

 

That's the way to rid your system of Ich Patrick.  Hard lesson, but you did things right.  Way to go!
--AJ