Marine Ich! NO NO NO!

I don't know how it got in my tank exactly, but 3 of my fish had small onset of ich (a few white spots on their fins, not many). I know that it can quickly get out of hand so I wanted to take care of it before it reached disasterous levels.

I had to completely tear down my tank and remove all my fish to QT tanks for Cu treatment. I couldnt treat the display because I have inverts and coral. I managed to divide them up into 2 different tanks. Sadly the QT tanks aren't as big as I'd like for this sort of thing, as their purpose is to help me catch things like this before they make it into the display (i failed). Luckily none of my fish are full grown, so this helps the situation slightly. All between 1-4 inches (only the mandarin dragonet is 4 inches, others all smaller).

So here's the QT setup - 10 gallon, mandarin (yes he eats frozen and live brine shrimp, so i'm hoping this ties him over during QT until i can return him to his ample supply of pods in the display), firefish, small clown.

15 gallon long - 1 inch yellow tang, 1 inch sixline wrasse, royal gamma (little over an inch).

I hate that they are in so small of area because I didn't catch the ich before it got to my display. I plan on doing small daily water changes to hopefully limit some of the stress.

From what I've read I have to keep them in QT for a month for the Copper treatment to fully work on them and to give the display tank time to be cleansed of any of the free swimming ich cycle. Water temps are all at 78-80 degrees.

Is this an acurate/safe amount of time? Will my babies be ok for that long of a time in such tight quarters??

I feel terrible :cry:

What do you mean by subsequent quarantine time? Just the amount of time after treatment is over to keep an eye on them for returning symtoms? I just want to make sure I'm doing everything I can, test kits at the ready, to ensure their long term health. The Cu treatment I got says it stays in the water for a month, and to add more only when doing water changes.

After 2-3 weeks should I stop replacing the Cu in the water when I do my water changes? Then just keep an eye on them for the next 4-6 weeks?

Nope, I saw zero spots on the Mandarin. But I put him in QT because I heard the only way to rid the display tank of Ich was to remove ALL fish. He's spot free. The Ich getters were the royal gamma, the wrasse, and the firefish. The yellow tand was surprisingly Ich free as well. But I heard without treatment it was possible for the condition to worsen to such a degree that it infects even the healthy fish.

So far so good in the QT tanks. The infected fish have stopped rubbing on things (I put some fake non-porus decor in for them to hide) and now I only see a few spots on the royal gamma. Treatment with Coppersafe has been 3 days so far. I'm going to continue treatment for the reccommended period even after all signs are gone, to ensure their health.

I'm mostly worried about making sure it's out of the now-fishless display tank before I put them back in. And making sure I keep them in QT long enough to observe whether they are really ok or not.

I forgot to mention its chelated copper that i'm using, if that matters to anyone.