Andre,
Thanks for laying out the detail on your tank. I can honestly tell you that our tanks are almost identical in how we started them and documented their evolution.
In having almost identical equipment and corals and critters we have also been plaqued by nuissance algae, diatoms and ich at around the same time.
I'm a couple of months ahead of you so I've been hit first; it's almost as if we have two identical boats that are going through a hurricane at different days, I happen to be at the eye of the storm as you entered the beginning.
Winning the battle on ich first comes with proper feeding and I mean fatten them up, as I've heard and from experience it helps them so much as the immune system is maintained; my blue tang was the one that was hit hard and he never stopped feeding.
I listed for you the foods that my LFS recommended so I won't list them again here. Next step is to raise the temp in your tank, you are doing it correctly; gradualy get up to 83-84.
This will allow the ich to cycle through it's stages sooner and thus giving the NO ICH the best chance to keep the ich from becomming an epidemic.
Having the NO-ich pair up with max feeding and higher temps slows it down; you should see the ich come less and less during the dosing.
I dozed for almost two weeks and I noticed that the strain got less and less as my fish were showing less white spots on every other day.
I even purchased cleaner shrimp two of them and one red blood shrimp; which they have been seen cleaning during the outbreak; so I'm glad you tackled this problem from all angles.
Just make sure you completely follow through with No ich, don't stop it because you see the fish already cured, I went through my entire bottle making sure I would erradicate as much ich as possible.
Remember to keep chemi-pure out and the skimmer off during this critical period. Keep on eye on that skimmer as when you fire it back on it's going to go mad skimming and you'll need to be present to empty the cup many many times; do this on a weekend when you are home.
Regarding your fuge, it seems you are growing your macros correctly but I had no positive results with that fuge light over mine.
I quickly realized after much research on the net that my spectrum of light was off and my water within the sump was rushing through too quickly.
I purchased a 75 watt bulb at 2,700K from Home Depot for only 9 dollars and another 5 bucks for the clamp.
The bulb only draws 19 watts of energy, the savings are great and my macro just went crazy pulling out excessive amounts of nitrate that was hurting my tank.
Now since you have the same light as me if you want to increase the potential of your fuge remove those 10,000 k bulbs and replace them with the coralife 6,700 k bulbs; this spectrum is way better than the 10K ones, trust me on this.
Even though I'm using the 2,700k bulb and getting great results there is a better bulb same price but at 5,100k. I just haven't been able to order it yet.
This bulb came from the research that Melvev over at RC did; and it works as you can see.
Here are some pics of the fuge light I got and where I placed it in my sump.
Mike G
