There is nothing particularly more natural about using salt. Salt is not a part of any typical freshwater environment. It does have benefits, like not killing off your cycle bacteria. Nothing will help an individual fish as such with ich. Ich is a parasite and any ich spots on your fish will go through the natural biological process of developing into a mature cyst and dropping off the fish. What we try to do with medication, which makes continuous medication so important, is to interrupt the reproductive cycle of that parasite. The parasite can only be killed when it is free-swimming and looking for a new host. For us that means using salt or another control that can kill off the free-swimming stage of the parasite. Since each individual ich spot is a separate infestation, each one counts as an infestation. The disease does not work the way we are accustomed to thinking about disease in humans where a bug infects us and we treat it using systemic medications. It is more like trying to control fleas where only the fleas in the carpet are susceptible to the poisons. As soon as the last parasite is gone from each fish it is cured if we can prevent a fresh infestation. The medication we use tries to prevent that infestation. Since ich parasites can not survive long without a host, a few days after the last spot is gone from the last fish means that all parasites are gone from the tank environment. It means you have succeeded.
/s1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa466/TiggsGTI/New%20tank%20progress/?action=view¤t=VIDEO0002.mp4
