My tank was infested with ich. I noticed it early, but I chose not to treat it with medication because it would kill live rock and invertebrates. I can handle losing my snails and crabs, but live rock is so expensive!! It was truly cheaper to let my fish die than to kill the live rock. How do I treat ich when I have live rock? I plan on having anemones in the future too. (if I can get ich under control.)

Would it be a good idea to add a stress reliever water conditioner (like this) to prevent the fish from becoming too stressed? If so, how often?

I should tell you right off the bat that I know little about fish, but I've done some reading for your question. It seems that the recommended treatement is to use a copper treatment which would kill the live rock, snails, etc. In order not to kill the invertebrates, you should put the fish in a separate tank and treate that tank only. It's not a good idea to use the treated tank for invertibrates in the future because residual copper can still be there. After a while, without any fish to feed off of, the bacteria in the original tank will die off alone. I've found different estimates of the time this takes, but they range from 14 to 28 days. After this, you can put the fish back in the original tank.

This page was one of the better-written and more detailed pages on the treatment.

WOW Peach! Sounds like you have a gorgeous tank! Wish you could post a picture! I LOVE saltwater tanks and it sounds like you have a lot of interesting things!

Peach-we have a couple of saltwater tanks and we have also experienced the same thing. We also have live rock and coral. We have noticed that we mainly get ick when we buy from a store we don't regularly buy from, and from putting fish that are not compatible together. Sometimes a fish that is supposed to be compatible with others just isn't and stresses out the tank. We have found that a uv sterilizer is the best solution. Hope this is some help. I find a lot of helpful information at Saltwater.com on their message boards.

It's actually not ick, it,s white spot. It's cause by the calcium deposits from the coral. all you have to due is add 1/3 of aquarium salt to the tank and if that doesn't work wait 24 hours and then add another 1/3 cup of salt. Hope that helps!