Copper treatment neccessary?

[Mahi]

I installed a Coral Life 12X 36 Watt UV Sterilizer on my 300 Gallon Fish Only Aquarium about 4 months ago. I keep on 24/7, but I noticed my blue hippo tang, Longnose butterfly, and my Emperor Angel starting to have ich on them for about 5 days ago. Not scraping on rocks too much but it concerns me. The other fish seem to be fine so far.

Would you still recommend copper treating my tank eventhough my UV sterilizer is supposed to be doing just that? If so, How long should I wait before turning off the UV sterilizer and skimmer and to start copper treating my tank?

[leebca]

Not totally sure how many times I've written that UV doesn't treat nor does it prevent Marine Ich. But I think it is probably in the hundreds by now.

Anyway, you've been mis-informed. UV doesn't prevent nor cure Marine Ich. You need to do some reading to understand why that statement is true. These are good links to posts that have this info:
UV for U and Me
and
Marine Ich - Myths and Facts

Regarding to the parasite and its cure, just follow this post:
Curing Fish of Marine Ich

In short, remove all fish from display system and treat them. Let the display system run 8 weeks without any fish in it. The details are in the above (last) post.

Good luck!

[Mahi]

Thanks for the clarification on the UV Sterilizer.
Your suggestion to remove all fish from my display tank and to place them in a QT is going to be not only very time consuming but also challenging to say the least when having to catch all the fish. I know this method is probably the ideal method of curing the problem, but could I just medicate my display tank with all the fish in it and then do a massive water change once the fish are cured within a couple of weeks?

[leebca]

If your display system has no rocks, no substrate and no (dead) corals, and no invertebrates in it. I'm assuming a relatively 'normal' system that has inverts, and possibly other small benthic creatures. You can't treat a tank like that.

If your tank is bare bottom, no decorations other than plastic, then they can be treated in that tank. But that tank will be useless to keep alive invertebrates like snails, crabs, shrimp, etc. after the use of copper. Also, residual copper will linger and likely slowly kill the fish. To you the fish will just appear to or seem to have a short lifespan.