UV and Kick ich

[johnangelo]

After a slight breakout of ich I am considering using Kick-ich....I have heard mixed results on this products effectiveness. Carbon a skimmer is supposed to be shut off...but what about UV? Also, is it OK to shut off your skimmer for 14 days! Cant find any contact info for kick ick as to the manufactures. Thanks!!

 

[paulamrein]

Kick ick is just 1 of millions of snake oil cures. The results are mixed because there is no solid evidence that it works. Most of the people that says it works was because the ich parasites finished their cycle on the fish and voluntarily fell off. It was just good timing that the cycle was ending at the same time. Most of what you find is that at it's best these "new, reef safe" products do nothing. Unfortunately, this includes the UV, it will kill some, but not cure any problem. The only proven method for fighting the problem is copper, or hypo salanity, both can only be done in a separate tank. and must be done for a minimum of 4-6 weeks (depending on treatment). There are a lot of threads out there that will go into great detail how, and what to look for.

 

[WWodyz]

Kich ick and UV

Kich ick and UV

Cured my blue jaw and Sailfin Tang. I put the temp up to 84, ran the UV 24/7 and treat with Kich Ick. It worked for me and i will be doing this as part of my ich battle from now on. shut down my skimmer also for 14 days.

 

[jmicky41]

I called the maker of Kick-Ich, and he said to turn the UV off for the treatment period. I've used it a few times with seemingly good results, but the fish were not heavily infested.

 

[Kevin1000]

To my knowledge there is no "reef safe" ich cure that is considered effective - that includes kick ich. While a UV device can help reduce some of the ich -- in order for the UV device to eliminate the ich it must be powerful enough to kill protozoan parasites while moving 4-5x water volume through it (that rules out most of the inexpensive UV devices sold at your LFS).

 

[Freed]

John, WW and jmicky please read the second post in the thread.

 

[Sk8r]

Allegedly a UV device won't kill copepods [desirable no-see-ums]...so I question its effectiveness with other freeswimming critters like ich.

I use garlic routinely. I don't have ich, have had only one outbreak in this tank, lasted 3 days, went away, no other sign of it for 2 years. If you're having persistent or repeated outbreaks, the level of infestation in your tank is pretty high, or you're putting in new livestock fairly often without qt or something weird is going on.

I do think that tanks with corals have far less of it: I suspect that to a coral some stages of ich are delicious.