God(or diety of your choice) Grant Me Patience!

Garlic is pretty widely accepted as a good remedy for SW ich, the fresher the better. Soak the fish's food in it for ~20 minutes prior to feeding.

Can you give us more information about what fish you have and where you are in setting up your tank? Are you still cycling with fish in the tank, or is the cycle complete?

Marine ich is obviously caused by a different protozoan parasite than FW ich, but the symptoms and treatments are similar. Garlic is the best, least destructive option. Copper-based meds will work as well, but these WILL KILL invertebrates and persist in a tank, preventing successful invertebrate care indefinitely. If you want to use medications, you're pretty much best off setting up a quarantine tank to do so. If you don't have sensitive inverts in the tank right now, hyposalinity is another good option. Lower the sg of the tank down to about 1.017 over the next few days and raise the temperature to the low-mid 80's to speed up the life cycle of the parasite. Within a couple weeks the infestation is usually eliminated.

For ich, I would personally use the Copper Method, although can be expensive compared to the freshwater dip. I would set up a 10 gallon quaratine tank, and use the copper treatments for it.

Saltwater Ich caused by the protist parasite Cryptocaryon irritans . Transfer the fish to a quarantine tank and leave the main tank free from any fish for at least 48 hours, better still for a week. You do not cycle a quarantine tank, basically you only need to put a fresh and sterile seawater. You need to attach a filter to the quarantine tank, do not use any biological filteration, only mechanical filtration and if you could provide ozonation or UV irradiation, so much the better.

Feed your fish only once every three days for the rest of treatment. To treat find any specialty medicaments for salwater ich, it should contain a copper compound (malachite green). If you could not get these treatments, then just find malachite green and a general anti-bacterial and anti-fungal medicine (not antibiotics). The quarantine tank should be dosed with malachite green to form a bath, dosing rate should be equivalent to 3 mg/ liter.

The following can be used to form a bath in the tank, Nifuripinol at 0.25 mg/ liter, Parachlorophenoxyethanol at 20 mg/ liter, and Phenoxyethanol at 100 mg/ liter (refrain from using anti-biotics). Replace the quarantine tank's water every 24 hours and dose out for a new bath (or every three days if you want ot be economical). Continue treatment until symptoms are gone for a week. When symptoms are gone the water need only to be replaced every three days.

PH =)

It would be quite hard to treat the main tank as ich, esspecielly when using copper. Substrate will also have to go, as the copper would easily soak into the substrate, so when you add the live rock ad inverts back, the copper will apear again. Your best bet would be to buy a 10 gallon rubbermaid tank from Kmark, and use that as a quaratine tank.

PH =)

Carbon removes copper, but it doesn't remove enough copper. Very minute, trace levels of copper will still kill invertebrates. PH is correct in that substrates tend to absorb and hold minute levels of copper, gradually releasing it and making it REAL difficult to keep inverts alive.

I'm going to say that part of your problem is likely fighting. By my count, you've got four different species of damsel and a dottyback in a small space...even if they have their own caves and such, that's bound to result in perpetual in-fighting. You would be much better off with a big group of a single species of damsel as this would result in less fighting. Ideally, I would suggest ditching the damsels altogether as they will harass the hell out of anything else that you might add to the tank, but at the very least pare down the number of different species in the tank.

You asked about a cleaner shrimp. First I would not recommend putting anything else in your tank until you get a handle on the problems you are having now. Second, a cleaner shrimp is hit or miss. If they are finding enough left over fish food, they tend to loose interest in cleaning. Why fight a fish for food when there is some laying over there? Some will continue to clean, others not.

Also, I agree with the other post. You have too many fish. While there may not be any damage or all out brawls, there is stress, lots of stress, and that is what leads to ich.

I also graduated from africans and marine fish are not the same. They need alot more space. Just my opinion!