Its also important to note that if your fish do have ich increasing the temperature will speed up the life cycle. A difference of 10 degrees can make almost a months difference in terms of the life cycle.

Here is probably the best article I've found on ich. It's designed around puffers though so only the basics like temperature and life cycle will apply to you.

http://dwarfpuffers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3

Pimafix and Melafix are great natural remedies for treating the actual fish after infection but I think aquarium salt is the widely accepted natural preventative and eliminator of the tomites when they're in the free swimming stage..I'm not big on chemicals myself, and I'm not sure how salt would impact your system. Miami is (obviously) the cichlid buff..

Of course all this really only matters if your fish actually have ich...which should appear as an obvious skin irritation and not just flashing alone. Good info for future reference nonetheless...

I found this article once when my puffer had developed ich after adding some ghost shrimp which probably weren't carrying the parasite (inverts can't get it) but it was probably free floating in the water that came form the fish store. He didn't have any appearance of it on his body but instead had an infestation in his gills and suffered for 3 days nearly dying because he was unable to breathe properly. I treated with aquarium salt and twice-a-day water changes of 50% while the tank was at 82F.

Like the article says, most fish will resort to swimming near the surface 'gasping' for air, but again I'm not the resident expert on cichlids, in fact I'm a general noobie..when my puffer developed the gill infestation I -literally- thought he was dead...in fact there's a thread about it in this very section, you'd have to go back a few months though, but I literally thought he was dead. It's a miracle he's still kicking today really.

The free floating stuff is microscopic so unless you've got some superhuman eyes you aren't gonna see it. The key is recognizing whether or not the fish is effected at any given time, and if you're absolutely sure your fish do have ich and you need to treat for it, cranking up the heat any increments above 80, and following through with treatment twice a day for 2-3 days is guaranteed to eliminate a problem no matter where it is in the life cycle stage, as long as you're treating correctly, because the chances of it being eliminated with the life cycle moving so fast are incredibly high.

doing daily water changes, the nitrite level is falling slowly. They've been fed like half a normal meal in the past three days. That's all there is to really say.

Nice work. Has the flashing reduced?

I do have a question though - did you mean your nitrites were at zero? I looked back and you started the tank two weeks ago so I would very surprised if that was the case. Have you switched away from the test strips yet?

try lowering the power head - - -if it's blowing bubbles it's getting air somewhere - - do it have a venturi attachment on it? if so try removeing it or plugging it - - -just be careful, a lot of bubbles is a pain in the ass but no bubbles might mean no oxygenation - - - good return flow from your filter can take of most of that though

sand replacement isn't to bad, when Serial32 lived with us he added platground sand to his tank and just took the sand rinsed it till clear water was coming out of the bucket {small amounts at a time} then just take like a tupperware container and a bigger lid of some sort, fill the container flip it over on the lid, take it to the bottom and slowly slide the lid out and let the sand come out - -do this about 3000 times and you'll have it all in there ....lol ...........seriously, it's time consuming but it worked ..............oh yeah turn off the filter and power head until your done and everything is settled down

Boss