ich

[fish mann]

how effective are cleaner shrimp? and would you rather do that than set up a hospital tank for jus tone fish? i bought a butterfly fish the toerh day, and i was looking at him today, adn i noteiced a frew spots on him.. it looks liike ich.. but i cant treat my tank with copper because i ahve lr in the tank.. so i was thinking of buying a cleaner shrimp to solve the problem.. doyou think that will be the right thing to do? and i would set up a QT tank for him, but i dont ahve the filter for it...help?

 

[elfdoctors]

Cleaner shrimp will not eradicate most diseases (particularly ich) in your tank. To be effective they have to remove all organisms on all surfaces of all the fish including the gills. Certain fish will take to cleaners and many will not.
I have two cleaner shrimp and a neon goby which don't clean any of my fish (except perhaps my hands when I hand feed them).
Cleaner shrimp (and all invertebrates) will rarely bring diseases into a tank. Many people don't quarantine them (although you should discard the water that was used to bring them home).
If you have ich your fish will get progressively worse. You should probably look into setting up a QT. You may be needing it as a hospital tank to treat your fish if it is ich. If it isn't ich you will have your QT set up for the next new fish.