A good thread to check out -
Quoted from Stuart60611 -
"You have essentially two main choices here: (1) maintain optimal tank conditions and feed very healthy food frequently (such as vitamin enriched food or garlic to improve the fishs' immune system); or (2) remove the fish and treat them for crypt.
With respect to option 1, you will NEVER rid your fish of the parasite, and the best you can hope to achieve is a balance where the fish, although infected with the parasite, are able to cope with it. If you elect option 1, you can hope to achieve a balance with occassional spoting and abnormal behavior, incluidng flashing, darting, scratching, reduced activity, and reduced feeding. After dealing with the crypt parasite multiple times and observing it in many other systems, fish always show some signs of being infected. I almost always observe a noticeable increase in activity and feeding once fish are treated and the parasite is no longer affecting the fish. Fish can live in a controlled crypt infesation for many years.
Option 2 has three accepted treatment approaches -- all of which require the removal of the fish from the display and treatment in a hospital tank when one's display is a reef. There is NO treatment which you can apply in a reef tank which will eliminate the parasite. All treatments which can be applied to a reef tank at best will reduce the parasites' numbers (often only temporarilly), but they will not elimininate the crypt parasite. Only Hypo, copper (cupramine is prefered), and the tank transfer method work to eliminate the crypt parasite. Hypo works, but it is a very difficult treatment to do correctly because you have to constantly maintain your salinity in a very narrow range, or otherwise the treatment is ineffective. Likewise, when treating with hypo it can be difficult to maintain water quality (particullarly PH) which often requires many water changes during the treatment and correspondingly a high chance that salinity will not be correctly maintained as a result of the water changes. Many people fail at hypo because they have their salinity only slightly off the required level.
Conversely, cupramine is much easier to apply because it has a wide effective range and allows for quite a wide margin for error. Cupramine, despite rumors otherwise, is very safe to use on virtually all fish, including copper sensitive fish, like puffers, angels, and tangs, all which I have successfully treated with cupramine on multiple occassions. The main thing about cupramine is you have to ramp up to treatment strength very slowly and more slowly than the directions state on the bottle. Tank transfer method is also viable, but it requires mutliple tanks and a lot of work draining and refilling multiple tanks during a short period of time so if you go that direction clear your schedule for a bit.
For me, I just hate to watch my fish infected with crypt and do not enjoy them with less activity and engaging in abnormal behavior. Therefore, I always treat for crypt. Plus, I have to believe that fish overall have poorer health when they are dealing with the stress the crypt parasite causes. I cannot imagine that it is pleasant for the fish to have thousands of parasites crawling around their bodies feeding off the fish. I often see fish infeced with crypt suddenly dart into a cave or hide when the parasite causes them discomfort in attempt to get away from parasites biting them. Also, crypt can be a ticking time bomb in the sense that even if you can reach a balance where your fish can cope with the parasite, any major stressor, such as temperature or salinity change, can cause the parasite to get out of control eliminating this balance and kill your fish."
