I've never heard of clearing ich with a filter. Not to say it isn't possible, but once the fish break out in spots, you really do need to treat for it. Raising the temp is one part of the process, but you still need to kill the parasite without harming the hosts, and for that, try Aquari-Sol.

However, if you want to kill micro-parasites in an aquarium, I honestly don't thnk you can beat a UV sterilizer and few things will prevent reinfestation more effectively.

Agree with bird, you really need meds to cure ich. Rememer the ich has a life cycle of free swimming, attached on the host fish, then in gravel. It's not likely the filter will be able to catch all the ich as it can only catch them in their free swimming mode before they find a host. Best thing is to avoid igh by quarrentene tank or let store hold them.

You are right about the gravel James. I admit that I didn't think of that aspect, because excepting only my 3 planted show tanks, all of my fish are in bare tanks, but none has ever been introduced into any of my show or breeder tanks before they spent at least 2 weeks in a Q tank.

Last year, I bought a dozen small Clown Loaches at an action and within a few days, they had all broken out and Clowns are real buggars to cure, but over the course of several days, I raised the water temp to 88, dosed them with Aquari-Sol and ran the water through an 18 watt UV with the powerhead turned down low, to insure the water got an extra heavy dose of the UV as it passed through the UV unit.

They were Q'ed and treated in a 10 gal. tank, and with such an overdose of UV on the water, I would guess that every Ick spore was knocked out, because in just a few days the fish were clean, so I backed off the meds, but kept up with the UV and after another 2 weeks in the Q tank, I felt safe to release them into a show tank with the rest of my Clowns and haven't seen a spot since.