Freshwater with Liquid Garlic Dip

[BBReef]

I've been two years without Ich, recently added a new fish who brought it in, after much searching and reading, I have concluded that freshwater dip and feeding garlic appear to be the best way to treat my purple tang. My question is, what do you think about adding garlic liquid or crushing a couple of cloves into a bowl of freshwater and then do the dip? Also how long does one leave the fish in the freshwater dip? After reading this http://www.geocities.com/horge1218/garlic.html I reasoned that getting the active ingredient in garlic, Allicin, into the blood stream and onto the the affected area would be something that would help in the treatment. Hence the garlic water dip idea. Good idea or bad?

Sorry if this topic has already been mentioned, I did try to find anything where someone had used this combination in the past but found nothing.

Thank you

Rob

[billsreef]

generally the best way to get the garlic into the fishes bloodstream is to soak food in the garlic oil and then feed that to the fish. FW dips IMO don't do much for ich which is already imbedded fairly deep into the skin.

[BBReef]

Thank you Bill, I'll go ahead and just do the feeding garlic soaked food then, I was interested in the soak because it sounded like the parasites just fall off when you do it. When I looked at the fish last night before bed it had no spots, this morning just 7 hours later, the spots where all over. How long does it take before they get deeply imbedded.

Thanks again.

Rob

[billsreef]

By the time you can see them with the naked eye they are already imbedded into the fishes skin.

[BBReef]

Makes sense to me, I'll stick with the feeding of garlic to help them fight the ich and boost immune. I wonder how the idea of FW dip came about and what do people see falling off of their fish when they do one.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

Rob

[billsreef]

FW dips can be effective for a variety of skin flukes. Also in severe cases of Amyloodinium the osmotic shock will cause some of the parasites to drop off, thus lightening the parasite load and giving some relief to the fish untill the medication can kill of the rest.