Ich Treatment and Inverts

[gouramiguy]

I have a mangrove biotype tank with lots of mollies, and fundulus/gambusia sp. The fish appear to have ich. Since they come from brackish and almost pure-fresh water environments, I've decided hypo is the best treatment option. The tank also has quite a few hermits and snails in it. Can I just move them into one of my other tanks? Is there a risk that the small amount of water on them will bring ich to my other tanks?

 

[Spar]

its not the water you need to worry about with inverts, it is the cysts (Tomites - one of the life cycle stages of Ich). Very likely that a parasite has formed a cyst on a shell and it will hatch at some point in the next 72 days (usually in 5-8 days).

for near-100% confidence of ridding your DT of Ich, you will need to leave your DT (with inverts and all other non-fish) fallow, meaning fishless, for at least 10 weeks (over 72 days).

for the fish, you can remove them and treat them separately. i highly recommend reading up on the Tank Transfer Method (TTM) as Hypo has a lot of downfalls such as some hypo-resistant strains of Ich and difficulty in administering.