Kurt_Nelson
Aquarium Advice Addict
Your LFS is giving you some really bad advice. First they say that the clowns can't get ich, now they say if they have it the anemones will kill it. Neither is correct. And to head off the next excuse, no... cleaner shrimp or a cleaner wrasse will not get rid of it.
Hard to really say what to do at this point. So much has been done already that I wouldn't have done to start with, it's hard to give advice. I've never done freshwater dips, so can't help you there. I've always considered that when one fish in a tank has ich, the odds are that all of them have it - they just might not be showing symptoms yet. I would personally treat all fish for ich, regardless of whether or not they're showing - but I would've used hyposalinity and not copper.
You'll find various opinions about copper use in reef tanks - some say that copper adsorbing resins (Polyfilters, the resin Seachem makes that removes copper... can't remember it's name right now, etc...) will remove it from your tank and rock - over time. Some will say it gets into the silicone joints of the tank and you can never get it out. Not really sure who is right, and the problem is that down the road if you start having mysterious deaths you won't know if it's from copper leaching into your system or from something else unrelated to copper. It could really lead to some serious frustration and head banging down the road. For that reason, most folks just stick with the "never use copper in your display tank, or with your live rock" rule and they don't have to worry about potential consequences.
