[MrTuskfish]

Originally Posted by vitz

fwiw-just a reminder that i'm one of (correctly done) hypo's biggest fans, and have been using both it, and fw dips, as a mainstay in husbandry protocol for years and years...

(i advise to use them here on this bb, as a search will make evident)

i'm not challenging it's value, method(s) of action, effect(s), etc .....

most people who do a hypo treatment do NOT do it correctly, nor for long enough a period of time. 4 weeks, for example, is NOT long enough, not close, to ensure eradication on the qt'd fish. 8 wks is the minimum. 10-12 if you want to be absolutely certain to get the most possibly long lived cysts that encysted at the latest possible time, by the most resiliant individual of the most resiliant strain of ich you might possibly have.

most do not ensure that the sg stays ABSOLUTELY below 1.010-1.0105, ALL THE TIME (a few hrs at >.011 can mean yer back to square one, heh).

most do not ensure proper fomite elimination protocol (using separate nets, washing hands between tanks, not putting tank where microbubbles can send spray into the other tank, etc etc).

that alone renders 80-90%, by my 'gut estimation', of the hobbyist populace claiming to have verifiably 'eliminated ich' from their systems to be truly comical, due to their own unaware ignorance of all of the above.

Although I'm not a fan of hypo for many reasons; I agree that user error is probably the biggest reason for incidents of hypo failure. Many folks don't even have a precisely calibrated refractometer. I think you're a bit high on the SG needed to kill ich; most of the info from real RC experts (Sk8r, et al) use 1.009 as a target SG, some go to 1.008.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1991470


One big downside to learning everything on the internet: many/most new hobbyists don't know what ich looks like and treat anything. If a newcomer doesn't have a few good books on the hobby; at least find good pics of parasites and diseases.