Well there is the heat/salt treatment and then there are ICH medications. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. The heat/salt method is all natural treatment and is non-toxic to fish, but is a slow process and might take a bit too long. Also, some fish don't tolerate salt all that good, so it might actually stress them out more than do good. Using ICH meds works faster but is toxic to fish to some level. I've tried all sorts of ICH meds over the years and found that aquari-sol works pretty well for me. It's a mild ICH medication that can be used on most fish with scales and without scales. Using aquari-sol along with the heat treatment is what worked real well for me in the past, even in the worst ICH outbreaks. And since Aquari-sol is so mild, it can also be added once a week as a preventative.
These are the steps I take when I suspect ICH.
Do a PWC
Clean the gravel really good
Add Aquari-sol and let my temperature climb up to 85 degrees over a period of 6 hours or so.
I continue to dose the tank with aquari-sol every day(do a 30% water change daily before each dose)until all the fish stop the flashing and the scratching. I then stop dosing with Aquari-sol, but leave the temp. @ 85 degrees for another week. Then after all that, I'll do another 30% water change and dose the tank with aquari-sol one more time.
On another note...I picked up this ICH/parasite medication called CopperSafe. This medication is supposedly very safe for most fish. Can be dangerous to plants/snails however. One dose treats the tank for one month.
Here is some info I found on CopperSafe:
"CopperSafe, when used as directed, maintains a total copper level of 1.5 ppm to 2.0 ppm in the water. CopperSafe remains active for over one month in the aquarium. Levels of 0.3 ppm free copper are recommended in the literature for therapeutic use, but with Coppersafe, the levels of free copper will be measured at 1.5 ppm to 2.0 ppm. This level of copper can be used in the treatment of fish due to Coppersafe's unique chelating agent. The chelating agent binds with the copper making it nontoxic to fish but effective against parasites. CopperSafe does not discolor the water and will not interfere with the biological filter"
So the next time I have ICH outbreak, I'll be giving CopperSafe a try.
Hope this helped. I'm sure others will chime in and give you more information.
