Lots has happened to this tank since I last posted; in the interest of relative brevity, here are the main events:
Had two sets of clowns doing well in the tank when I foolishly added a non-quarantined magenta dottyback, who developed what I think was ich (white spots, flashing and scraping on things) very shortly thereafter (presumably already had it and then showed signs under new stress, etc.). Eventually was able to capture all fish and place them in quarantine, treated with cupramine that was confirmed to actually be at more-than-adequate levels (even higher than recommended levels, as tested by with the Seachem test kit for Cupramine) for over a month. Kept my DT tank fallow for the requisite 72 days while the fish remained in QT and did not show obvious signs of illness. Reintroduced the treated fish a few days ago, and sure enough, within a day, the apparent ich was back on the dottyback (AKA Typhoid Mary, ha!)!
My question is as follows: in a nutshell, what to do?!? At this point, the dottyback still shows about one salt-sized white grain on each of its pectoral fins - he/she otherwise seems pretty healthy, active, and is eating well after a 1-2 day hunger strike following tank introduction. Clowns seem fine. Do I pull them from the DT yet again and try to treat again?!? My goal was always to QT and prevent introduction of ich into the DT, and "do things the right way," so to speak. I have a background in and understand disease transmission, etc. well, so I am pretty damn confident I didn't inadvertently reintroduce the ich from my DT. I did, knowing the risk, however, foolishly add non-fish things such as coral, inverts, and chaeto, etc. into the DT during the fallow period without QT (which I don't plan on doing longterm, I have a frag tank that will act as a QT for non-fish items once set up). I realize the fault in doing this with regard to how a fallow period and the life cycle of marine ich works, so my suspicion is that I reintroduced ich via non-fish items that weren't subjected to the requisite fallow period, and maybe this is what did it?
In quarantine elsewhere, I have a flame angel, Helfrichi firefish, and two red mandarins, currently being treated with their first round of PraziPro and they are all eating, so I am at quite-the-crossroads in anticipation of eventually introducing the next round of fish into the tank. Do I pull the DT fish yet again and do everything over, or do I take my chances with presumed colonization of ich for the rest of the life of the DT and just try to "keep it at bay" as many people seem to do with good husbandry and maintaining healthy, well-fed livestock, etc. This becomes realllllly laughable when you read that my eventual dream fish to add to said DT is going to be a powder blue tang!
Also, regarding my quarantined fish, my lean was to do two rounds of PraziPro and treatment with Cupramine for all fish prior to going into the DT, since flukes and ich very often do not reveal themselves on the fish within the relatively short period of multiple weeks in quarantine. I've read so many of these topics to death, and my belief is that while mandarins are quite resistant to ich, they certainly do contract it and can certainly introduce it into a tank - but I've also read they are quite sensitive to copper, and doing TTM or hyposalinity treatments are not the best options for me at this juncture. Some anticipated comments may include: then why did you buy mandarins in the first place?!? They are currently feeding well on copepods and NutriMar, FWIW.
Many thanks!
