No, I wouldn't vacuum the sand. It is true that the
parasite likes to attach to calcium carbonate, in
fact it has been shown that a tank with no calcium
carbonate material, will greatly if not completely
prevent the cycle of ich.

But what I would do is yes you can ad the peppermint
shrimp. They will clean some, but get some cleaner
shrimp in there. If the tang is healthy, and has no
other stress factors it will heal up just fine with
some cleaner shrimp in there.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets


Pszemol wrote on 2/27/2007 3:48 PM:
"KurtG" wrote in message
.. .
Pszemol wrote:
White. About 20 white spots randomly spread over his body.

I can almost see torches and pitch forks waving while I write this,
but I'd vacuum the plenum after the white spots drop off. It's not
really a cure, but it may help you break the cycle w/ the help of your
shrimp friends.

I did that with mine, and I haven't seen Ich since. It also pulled an
amazing amount of crud out of my system, and I just have a thin sand
layer.

I know my English is not perfect, but what the hell you call plenum? :-)

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plenum

My tank is DSB and I am not going to vacuum fine sand out...
Vacuuming would not work.