I speak on my own experience, any similar events are pure coincedence
(disclaimer =).

When I got my Blue Tang, he got it ick very soon. I put the tank apart
just to catch him. I isolated him on a 10G with an ich reef safe medicine
(according to the LFS) and it was hard to see the stress he was going
throught. The eyes for just a little bigger but eventually he got better,
not completely but much better, wich make me feel sorry and put him back in
the tank.
Besides it make the silicon blue stained on my tank.

A few months later he got it again, very very bad to a point where he
scratched the skin out and you could see deep into the red flesh. At that
point I keep feeding him and decided to pull him out to end his suffering.
He didn't let me, kept hiding coming out only to eat. I gave up and two or
three weeks later he came out of his hiding showing all his skin back.

If you look at him now he's perfect, no scars at all.

My advice would be, feedings(frozen/good quality food), water changes and
patience. I read parasites are always present, it takes fish weakness to
be vulnerable. I wouldn't try any medication again, especially on the
whole tank.

I learned Blue tangs are very sensitive to ick, meaning they will get it
again on the next nervous crisis.

A celaner shrimp may help. Mine used to jump on top of the fish to clean
them, very cool, for some reaon I lost about 5 shrimps, no apparent
reason (I think there must be a guilty fish). I just got a coral banded and
it's still alive. I suspect he is not a nice treat with those claws.

If you find the source of stress then you find the cure, maybe the Damsel is
causing the stress...darn damsels, lol, they get so mean but they are so
cheap....=)

Good Luck,

Ruben


"KurtG" wrote in message
...

My tang has been itching itself for weeks/months, and often allows the
4-stripe damsels to "chew" on him. However, he's a nut case anyway, so
I didn't worry about it (maybe a newbie error). Now my Coral Beauty has
some bright white dots on it, and it's starting to itch as well.

Could this be marine itch? Should I isolate these two and treat with
Copper Sulfate? I read that pygmy angles don't handle Copper sulfate
very well.

--Kurt