Hypo and Ich.....Should I do it?

[linuxguru]

Hello everyone, well it has been a little over a year with this tank and we have been back and forth with the battle of Ich. We have on countless occasions put the Ich into remission with the addition of garlic mixed with their food and have suffered no loss of life, unfortunately it is a short victory as it (Ich) eventually slowly makes it’s way back onto the fishes bodies. The current tank has a 5” DSB, 90 lbs live rock , and fish. The tank is void of any type of Inverts or corals and was wondering since this is the case, if I could go ahead and do hypo with minimal consequences to the fish OR the live rock. If you guys say it is ok, I will immediately but slowly make the transition in the salinity department. Also if anyone believes I should take a different approach, I would extremely appreciate it and take it into consideration.

[CSeaSee]

That's what I did for my tank when it was a FOWLR and I never had anything negative happen. You'll probably lose a lot of microcrustaceans, but a few will survive and come back...that's the great thing about the diversity of life! Also, although you will undoubtedly reduce your Ich population to very, very low levels, it won't be entirely removed. However, it won't be a problem anymore, unless something else is going on in your tank. Then, the ich will be a symptom of another, different, problem.

[Steven Pro]

I would not use hyposalinity in a display. You run the risk of killing all the life on your liverock and in your sand. And that could result in ammonia problems which could end up killing your fish.

[Reefland]

I agree with Steven here. You should move the fish (all of them) to a temporary vessel and perform the hypo method on them there. While doing this and keeping the display tank void of any fish for 4-6 weeks you should once and for all end the cycle.

[JUNRL]

I also did the hyposalinity (OST) thing a couple of years back when I had FOWLR, and it was a success. The only problem IMO is the tediousness of the entire process. You'll always have to be on your toes monitoring water chemistry. But now that I shifted to reef, I have to do away with OST and instead use the garlic approach. Mince a few pieces of garlic, mix it with water and let it stand, and lo and behold, the ich away elixir. Soak your fish food with it (I give them fish pellets soak in the solution then let it dry). It doesn't kill the ich, I think it keeps it from attaching itself onto the fish. I guess the ich finds garlic taste/smell repulsive. I also believe that besides repelling ich, garlic also helps heal fish bruises faster, IME. Have patience, keep on feeding with garlic solution, you'll see your fish rid of ich at first and after some time you'll see them back again, it's the ich cycle. But in the end, ich won't be able to stand the garlic in the fish's system and if it can't find a host, it can't complete it's next cycle.
But then again, this is just an observation from experience.
Whatever approach you may take, I hope if goes well. GOOD LUCK