Originally Posted by mlwoods007
powder blues are notorious for ich. Get yourself some cleaner shrimp and feed good flakew/garlic and you shouldn't have a prob next time. I don't have a p.blue, but I have a scopas, yellow, mandarin, 2 black clowns, 2 bangaii, 5 chromis, NO QUARANTINE, and no ich so far. Just my 2$...
You've been lucky.
Ich burrows under the scales of fish. Cleaner shrimp may help; but they may not. They cannot be relied upon. Furthermore, some fish never allow a shrimp to "clean" them.
Flake food breaks down quickly in your tank and is nutritionally lacking. Also, "...allicin, the active ingredient in garlic, is unstable and prone to breakdown in a relatively short amount of time (Cortes-Jorge 2000)." (Taken form an article by S. Pro).
I am a firm believer in using garlic to stimulate feeding. If you are looking for an immune boost, you need to use fresh garlic. There have been some studies suggesting fresh garlic does boost the immune sytems of fish.