ich

Thats a good idea but you also have to put in mind how infested the fish are. If the parasite has gone into the gills or is majorly infested then you really run the risk of stressing the fish to death. The fresh water dip is very helpful in the early stages. But i dont reccomend it in the later stages. they only way ich can survive is to have a fish host, without the fish the parasite will die off completly.

 

I definitely agree with 4g1v3n. That was one very imortant detail i left out, thank you. If you do it really early, you can easily save the fish, if you do it to late, you can easily kill the fish.

 

UV will help, as noted by others it won't cure what's on your fish but it will break the cycle of new ich forming.

 

We are going to take out all the live rock and inverts and place them in seperate 10 gallon tanks for 2 months and just treat the entire 55 gallon tank with copper at .15 or .20 dunno somewhere inbetween maybe plus im getting the diatom filter this week to put on the tank when we start treating to help with the tank. thanx for all the suggestions any thoughts of what were gonna do? plus im gonna order a 240 gallon tank from glasscages and get it the 28th of feb. because thats when they deliver around where i live about 2 hours away and start a salt in there then transfer the cured fish in there any thoughts?

 

I think that's a bit extreme. If you're going to do that, however, you will need to remove the sand as well. A diatom filter will not remove ich. It's just a high speed filter, nothing more. Can't you just get the fish out of the 55 and put them in the 10 gallon with copper?

 

to many fish to put in a 10 gallon tank i mean we have multiple tanks but it seems easier this way i dunno maybe i could put the fish in the 10 gallons but they are pretty big now and 2 months in the 10 gallon will be really cramped

 

Buy a Roughneck Rubbermaid container, like maybe the 26g size, as you don't have to use a tank.
I wouldn't copper any tank that is to contain inverts afterwards as the copper will be leaching out of the silicon and also even the glass.

 

Good idea and great point about the silicone!

 

good point we have some 50 gallon rubber maids too