Hyposalinity + raising temperature = cure ich ? yes ? no ?

[angmoh]

ok, my LFS told me to increase the temperature to 28 celcius , and that will remove the ich . is that true ?

Currently i'm using hyposal. to cure my clownfishes . but it seems doesnt work well, i'm gradually decrease the salinity, today is second day , and the reader reads 1.016. I still find alot of whitespots on my fishes, and even one's tail already rotten :\

I'm wondering can i use both treatment at the same time to cure my fish ? ie. increase temp to 28 celcius, and still maintain the hyposal. to 1.012 - 1.010.

THanks.

[Andrew]

your salt needs to be at 1.009 in a hospital tank. Raising the temp really doesnt work at all. Hypo and feeding garlic is the best way.

[Alarmguy66]

2nd day? Use a little patience. Hypo typically takes 4-6 weeks to eliminate all traces of ich. While I believe raising the temp MAY speed the preocess a little, it isnt necessary. Get that salinity down farther and you will see some results, but not overnight.

[Randall_James]

Salinity should be set to 1.009. You need to use a refractometer for this as the typical swing arm style checker is just not very accurate. I have read where the temp at 82 might speed the process but no real proof of this. Do not just drop the salinity on your fish, take about 3 days to do this and then they need to stay there for at least 4 weeks. This needs done in a qt tank where you can clean the tank every morning. (hyposalinity will wipe out most anything in a tank except the fish)

No fish in display tank for at least 6 weeks also. (this sure makes you wish you had quarantined a new fish to start with)

There is a ton of information on this pinned to the top of the forum. There are some that think garlic/ginger help but I have found nothing to really back this idea up and most reports are pretty incidental.

[angmoh]

is feeding them ginger really helps ? will my clownfish eat ginger ? *shrugs*

[Andrew]

Its garlic. Garlic helps fish get stronger and allows them to fight of diseases. I put a drop of marine garlic on my fish's food once a week and they say nice and healthy and ich free.

[angmoh]

oh is to extract the garlic sauce ? hehee

i chop the garlic into small pieces and throw a bit into the tank, but the clown fish doesnt seem to like it ...cos they are not eating it..

is it ok to leave the garlics in the tank ? or shall i take them out ?

[bennyinca]

Garlic extract works better, use it to soak dry food in before feeding to fishes.

Raising temp to 82F only accelerates the hatching of the ick spores, it does not kill anything. This shortens the lifecycle of the marine ick.

[leebca]

You may wish to learn more about garlic and marine aquarium fish.

It isn't garlic, its garlic juice. The antimicrobial agent is made only when garlic is crushed (and it doesn't exist in chopped garlic).

:wavehand:

Garlic is not the aquarist’s miracle anti-Marine Ich drug. Garlic is not a cure for Marine Ich. Allicin, a primary active ingredient in crushed garlic, is not stable, and it doesn’t always get to the microbe. Even with the use of fresh allicin (freshly rendered garlic juice) there are several inhibiting factors between getting the chemical to the parasite. And how should it best be delivered? through feeding or through the water? In short, water dilutes allicin to low ineffective levels, and feeding it to fish usually gets through the tissues before the gastric acids de-activate it. So, feeding garlic juice to the fish has the best chance for allicin to do its job.

More tests are being done and information may be slow in coming, but for now, optimum use of garlic juice would be fresh squeezed/crushed (which initiates the chemical reaction to create the allicin) and the immediate feeding to fish through their foods, in quantities of what will be absorbed into the food just before feeding. Don’t use garlic that has been treated with chemicals, pesticides, etc. Don’t let the juice come in contact with anything that may have residual soap or chemicals left on it, like from a dishwasher or rinse products. Use it immediately. If garlic juice addition is limited to the food that will absorb it, and not adding it to the water, there is little chance of an allicin over-dose. And too much of the garlic juice will harm the marine fish we want to treat. Adding left-over fresh juice to the tank can hurt.

Some people have had success with a garlic press to juice it. Others have used a blender and handkerchief. Soak and rinse the handkerchief in distilled water. Put the blender rendition into the damp handkerchief and squeeze the liquid through the handkerchief.

You want to add just the garlic juice, not whole pieces of garlic. The fish will eat solid garlic, but that isn’t your goal. You want the juice because that is what contains the antimicrobial agent(s) (e.g., allicin) and that is what gets absorbed into their bodies before their stomach juices attack and denature the allicin.

Garlic juices (extracts) in the fish stores have the advantage of containing vitamins that might help the fish build up an immunity. The garlic juice in the fish stores have the disadvantage of having low active levels of allicin. It is too unstable to exist on a fish store’s shelf for much time. Garlic paste and minced garlic in the grocery store also suffers from a reduction in potency because it has sat around and allowed the allicin to break down.

Garlic does not always have the same effect in different aquariums, so forgive those who have had little or no success with it. There are many proven things which inhibit the ability of the garlic juice to deal an effective blow to the parasite. Add to that the fact that effective doses are unclear at this time. And the final disappointment — garlic ingredients are not that powerful against microbes.

Hope the above helps you.

:rollface:

[Randall_James]

Garlic and Ginger are both claimed cures are basically unsubstantiated. Most of the data is just anecdotal.

do you and your fish a favor, stick with the known fixes. The only thing I can say is that if ginger was such a miracle cure, the commercial guys would be all over it.

Frankly, I am not so sure about garlic for treating the ich either. As there are no definitive studies to prove efficacy, I will just do the qt tank at 1.009 and the "fishless" tank for 6 weeks...

[angmoh]

using the human's-eat garlic will do right ? i'll just extract the garlic, soak in with my fish food will do ?

i thought we are feeding them garlic pieces.. hehe

anyway i'll try it tonight .. thanks