I being a newbie at the time tried a lot of stuff . I will try to explain my course of treatment as exact as I can remember.
Hippo tang was showing classic signs of ich just days after getting him home after further research discovered this was a trait of the hippo tang. The advice that people had to give was varied and not real clear it varied from do nothing to take everything out of the tank let it run empty for 6 weeks while treating all of my fish with something that could kill them too.
The first thing I tried was getting their appetite up feeding well with food soaked in garlic. The idea here was that if you feed the fish food soaked with garlic not only would it stimulate the fishes appetite but it would change the scent that the fish has in the water and make it difficult for the free swimming ich to find the fish. After 2 weeks nothing had changed and I couldn't stand the garlic smell in the house (and I am full blooded italian to illustate how bad this really was) anymore so I decided to try something else.
I went to Epcot to talk with some of the marine biologists at the living seas. They showed me that some of their new Hippo's had the same problem as well. They said to just feed them well and It will eventually go away on its own. They told me I could also try buying a couple of cleaner shrimp to help.
I then stopped by the pet store to talk with the manager who is a friend of mine and asked him what he would do if it were his tank. He said he would try ruby kick-ich. He did not have it but he called around and found it for me.
I got home turned of my skimmer(instructions on the bottle) and started the aggressive treatment on the bottle. I went to the pet store and bought 2 cleaner shrimp, after being acclimated for 1.5 hours went right to work on any fish that would swim by. Biggest problem 2 weeks with no skimmer and really high nitrates as a result. I decided I was going to do a large water change and start a second treatment. I bought a second bottle of kick-ich and it is still sitting in my cabinet. I decided before I was going to start the second treatment that I was going to get my nitrates back into check. So I started doing 20 gallon water changes ever other day and vacuuming the sand. I also ordered a uv sterilizer to help kill off any of the free swimming parasites. After 1 week of every other day vac & waterchange plus feeding , the uv, and the shrimp there were no signs of ich anywhere in my tank. Every once and a while the hippo gets stressed and gets a few little spots but they are usually gone within a day.
So I guess the moral of the story is dont try all that crap on the store shelves. keep your water pristine, you temp stable, add a couple cleaner shrimp, and have a good and varied diet and they will over come it on their own.
50% of people say there is ich in every marine system and there is no way to completely eradicate it. It is usually always dormant but only surfaces when the fishes immune system is lowered due to stress or sickness.
50% of people say it is not there unless we introduce it on an infected fish. We should quarantine any new fish that we get for 6-8 weeks to make sure it does not show any signs of sickness or disease before adding it to our system.