Tenacious white spot

[Woody]

Twice in recent weeks, I thought I had cases of white spot cleared up in my 46-gallon tank, but two or three days after it clears up, it begins to come back. I've been treating the water with Coppersafe and making sure to maintain its levels with any added water. Ph, nitrates, etc., are all normal, and I've been careful to bleach and rinse my nets to avoid contaminating my other tank. In the latest round, I went from cure to reinfestation with nothing going in the tank except frozen brine shrimp; I changed no water, used no nets, etc.

The tank is stocked mainly with silver dollars and apollo sharks, and the silver dollars seem to be the main victims. The apollos were affected a few weeks ago, but not in the latest two rounds of trouble.

Could the Coppersafe be losing effectiveness because I'm adding only small amounts and the older stuff is getting weaker (it's been in a little less than three weeks)? Would I hurt the fish if I add a bunch more Coppersafe? (I also have a pleco and two cories to think about.) The local stores give spotty and inconsistent advice on such matters, so I'm sort of figuring this out for myself ... with help from all of you, of course.

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

You should be adding treatment a good week after the ich clears up. Ich medication does not clear ich off of your fish, it only kills the free swimming form in the water. the only way for ich to disappear off of your fish is too do frequent water changes, and if at all possible give each fish a 5 minuet salt bath (fill a large bowl with tank water and add about 2 teaspoons of aquarium salt, and allow the fish to be in the container only for around 5 minuets. this causes the parasites to die because they cannot handle being in varying salt levels), this way you will also not need to subject the scale-less fish to salt.
Make sure your filter has no carbon in it either, as this will render all medication useless.
I hope your problem goes away soon.