How often do you feed garlic to treat ich?

[Terry B]

I have seen several different frequencies for feeding garlic to fish. Some say to feed garlic twice a day for three weeks and then once a month after that. Does anyone know the amount that Dr. Kelly Jedlicki recommended at MACNA XI?
TIA,
Terry B

[naso tang]

i had a hippo tang that came down with some ick after being introduced into my tank. i bought some kyolic garlic, the liquid stuff that comes in a bottle(its water solubule so no oil slick!!) i soaked some frozen brine in the garlic overnight, i fed to the tang for a week and i havnt seen the ick on the tang or any other fish in my tank(i know that doesnt mean its gone)for 4 months. this could have just been a coincidence, but i credit the garlic soaked food with helping the tang fight the ick off. i havnt fed the garlic since the spots went away, i now soak the food in zoe. im not sure if this is true, but can the fish build up an immunity to the garlic if fed every day? thus making the garlic useless when an ick outbreak happens?

[john f]

Tangs frequently get Ich when newly introduced. They also recover by themselves quite often. The fact yours did while feeding him garlic does NOT prove the garlic cured the Ich.
Heck, last night it was a rainy night and I won 5 bucks on the lotto. So I guess the rain helped me win the lotto!


John

[PopeShawnPaul]

That's funny John, your right in a way, but garlic definitely helps. I had a new tang that got a few ich spots and I let him try and fight it naturally for a couple weeks. I fed my tang garlic, and it was gone within a day. I have seen these types of results with my friends also.

If it works 9 out of 10 times, is it still the rain?

[Frisco]

I too had success using garlic oil soaked fish food treating a purple tang that had previously been quarantined and showed no signs of distress. Upon addition to the tank, it started showing some type of spots. The spots appeared to be getting progressively more widespread for the next several days, and I attempted to feed garlic oil soaked food because it seemed like the most benign option available. Lowering the salinity, increasing the temperature, adding copper, or doing anything else that has presented historically as a viable option to treat marine fish ailments did not seem realistic with my situation.

I soaked the frozen food cubes in garlic flavored olive oil for about 12 hours, then refroze it, rinsed it VERY thoroughly, and fed about 2X-3X per day for the next several days. Within a day or two, the spots disappeared. I continued to feed the oil soaked food every couple days for the next month, and the spots never came back. While it certainly might be a bit simple minded to assume such a simple cause-effect relationship, it sure seemed pretty reasonable in my mind given my observations. I've never had any other problems with white spot since, so I can't commment further.

I can say that I think one could argue that there are a whole lot of things in this hobby that nobody understands - arguing that something doesn't work and isn't worthy of further examination just because we don't understand (or haven't yet identified) the mechanism is a bit of a fallacious argument. This has the appearance of being a viable treatment and seems worthy of further discussion.

[john f]

Ok,
Here is my experience.
I tried to use garlic on an Ich outbreak involving 5 or 6 fish in my 135 reef. Used the kyolic brand as everyone at the time said it worked the best. Soaked frozen cubes in it, did not even bother to rinse. Fish all greedily ate it up. Fed this 3 times a day for 7-10 days. I saw ZERO improvement during that time.
Used another treatment and eventually the Ich cleared up, after lossing 1 fish.

What we really need is a study on this. I have offered to assist in both a financial and a hands-on capacity several times. Nobody has ever offered to contribute. I could do it but I am not a scientist and would like some input from scientist types on this board with regards to controls and methodology.
Any takers???????


John

[john f]

"arguing that something doesn't work and isn't worthy of further examination"

I don't think I have ever said this. You must have misunderstood me.
See my above post and you will see I am very interested in further examination of this and any other possible treatments for cryptocaryon.
What I am not interested in are anectodal stories which try and link cause and effect based upon limited experiences.
I have used these in the past myself, as have most others. These stories do not advance the scientific knowledge base.

How many times have you read " Wow, I used additive (X) and immediately my corals opened up bigger and grew faster than ever before" Then that same guy 6 months from now is telling you additive(X) is crap and it killed his corals.

John

[Lobster]

Ich isnt a 'disease' that you can just cure. Its a parasite, and as long as the fish is stressed out and conditions are favorable for the parasite to do its thing, it will. Garlic alone will not "cure" ich.

You have to first correct the conditions in your tank, meaning you must first remove whatever has caused your fish to decline to a state that favors the parasite. This is the stressor. This might be a chemical problem, a harassing tankmate, dietary deficiency, new to the tank... anything, but your first step in fighting ich is to remove this stressor.

Once conditions are again favorable for your fish, then you fight the parasite. Garlic is thought to cause the parasites to leave the host. I've had alot of luck with garlic myself, so I would definitely say it does work, once the stressor is eliminated.

If the stressor is still in the tank, feeding garlic is of little use, because conditions in the tank favor the parasite.

[BOOM BOOM]

It works, no it doesnt, yes it does, LOL

Seriously though, from what I understand Garlic will not in any way kill off Ich, BUT, It will raise the fishes immune system to help fight off Ich that is present in the tank. I was also told that Ich is always present in the tank, just like cold virusus being present in the air. If your fish is healthy it can fight off the Ich, just like if you are healthy you can fight off the common cold. The garlic will help keep the fish healthy and it will also keep you healthy. I am no expert and have no proof, just read alot and talk to a lot of people.

[naso tang]

your right john f. its all just a big conspiracy

[Q-ball]

I agree with several of the things said above...I have used Garlic before as well and it did seem to help. Did it cure it? I dunno, but ya know what? My fish like the taste so it's not like there's any harm I do think garlic helps, when combined with removing stressors from the fish's environment and simply feeding it good food & alot of it! I think alot of people will agree with me that the best prevention is keeping the fish happy. Just my .02...

Q!!!

[billsreef]

Hi John I like your willingess to experiment. The main crux to coming up with a real set of data is to set up several identical tanks. The next trick is to stock them with Ich infected fish, ideally the same species and same number in each tank. One tank will be your control, this one gets no treatment for the ich and is maintained and fed the same way as the other tanks. The remaining tanks are maintained the same but will be fed garlic soaked foods. Your observations of what fish recover will be the data. Obviously the more you can test the better and more reliable the data.

I did this a couple of years ago with hyposalinity and even some of the so called reef safe remedies. Unfortunately some changes at work have left me unable to perform the same sort of experiments on garlic at the current time, but I'm working on changing that

[john f]

Hey Bill,
Thanks for the reply.
I was thinking also that 2 tanks could be controls, 2 tanks could be fed with garlic soaked foods, and 2 tanks fed normal foods but have garlic drops added to the tank water. This way if garlic does seem to improve the Ich we could see if it did so directly or internally through the fish.

The tanks could be small 10 gallon size if the fish were small. I was thinking about blue hippo tangs?

Terry,
Which species of fish would be easiest to work with and what would be the best way to infect all the fish with the same exact strain of cryptocaryon?

John

[MiNdErAsR]

I've never used garlic to treat anything in my reef. My question is, how do all those fish survive in the wild with no garlic available?

[jimhobbs]

Originally posted by john f
The tanks could be small 10 gallon size if the fish were small. I was thinking about blue hippo tangs?

Tangs in a ten gallon?..Would that not create a stress situation; in and of itself?

[GOOD (G)REEF]

I believe ich is partly due to poor diet. Well, maybe not poor, but not as well-rounded as the fish might get in the ocean. I've heard of people feeding brockoli to help bring up the fish's vitamin C levels, which helps out alot. Just my $.02.

[john f]

Tangs in a ten gallon??
You might be right Jim.
Have any suggestions yourself?
Small hippo tangs are available all the time at my LFS that are about 1-2 inches in length.
One of the problems in sorting this problem out is that if I place a 2 inch tang in a 55 gallon tank with no other fish and no stressors, he will most likely recover spontaneously from the crypto.
My thoughts were to induce a slight amount of stress with the smaller tanks so the fish WOULD NOT recover by itself.
This then puts the burden on the remedy to affect a "cure"

John

[KW]

I don't know about garlic and fish but when I go backpacking I take along plenty of garlic. Eat plenty of garlic and as you sweat it out it acts as a bug repellant. I wouldn't recomend this for everyday living but, if you are out in the woods who cares what you smell like

Maybe it does the same thing for ich as it does for bugs. I don't know. I have no interest in putting garlic into my reef. Thus, I have not read a thing on this subject.

[billsreef]

Hi John,

The thought of garlic in the water having an effect is something worth looking into, however you still need to have at least one tank without any kind of treatment to be a control.

For using 10 gal. tanks possibly damsels might be a good bet, as they are both small and inexpensive.

Good (G)reef

Broccli is usually recomended as a high vitamin C and vitamin A containing food to help ward off and even cure Head and Lateral Line Errosion. Though the vitamin C will help with the overal immune system of the fish.

MiNdErAsR

The difference between the wild and our tanks is that small glass box. In the tank the crypt reproduces and has the same fish to infect. Each one reproduces into roughly 200 more crypt tomites in that small box, pretty overwhelming, hence the need for ich cures in our tanks.

[Phishmon]

those little hippos are perfect
and seen as they are larval caught and raised they
are not the ich magnets they have the reputation for
the ones we get in are great and never get sick

the ones that are ich magnets were exposed to too many chems and are having problems getting back the immune system
thats why I only get the larval raised ones and net caught fish
then there are very few problems


so no worries on the ich

if you fix the stress the ich goes away there is usually no reason to treat for ich

feeding good foods Etc

but shouldnt you be going that already

so basically with good husbandry and no stress you wont have ich problems

[Frisco]

I would like to move the discussion about testing procedures to another thread I started to try and allow the original questions to be answered. Here's a link to the new thread (in the disease forum) and I urge you all to participate! http://archive.reefcentral.com/vbull...threadid=10066

[Agu]

Terry,

My experiance using garlic (McCormick garlic juice) has been inconclusive at best. When my powder blue tang showed spots of ick(?) treating the food appeared to help. After he came down with a full blown case of ick 6 months later the garlic had zero effect. Perhaps the spots being treated aren't ick, the treatment is only effective against light infestations, or it loses it's effectiveness.

Application was daily for a week soaked into his daily nori. With the fullblown case daily for three weeks, until I finally caught him. The ick was unabated for the entire three weeks. btw, he's now in a q tank undergoing hyposalinity.

Agu

[Terry B]

Boomboom,
Your analogy of ich being similar to a cold virus is faulty. A virus and a parasite have little in common other than the fact that they are both pathogens. Cryptocaryon irritans is an obligate parasite and it is not always present in our systems or water. This has been proven in tests and is a commonly know fact at fisheries. Like Billsreef said: “The difference between the wild and our tanks is that small glass box. In the tank the crypt reproduces and has the same fish to infect. Each one reproduces into roughly 200 more crypt tomites in that small box, pretty overwhelming, hence the need for ich cures in our tanks.�

John,
There are at least three different strains (not different species) of Cryptocaryon irritans, but to date there hasn’t been any difference found between the strains for resisting any particular therapy (i.e. copper, hyposalinity, garlic, etc.). The species used for experiment depends partly on the tank size. Personally, I wouldn’t use any tangs. I would favor a hardier species possibly a damsel. A species that has large clear fins would be a good choice because the telltale white spots would be easily visible. A dark body color would probably make it easier to see the spots as well.
If you want to be sure that all the fish have the same strain of infection you would have to do two things. First, examine skin and gill scrapings from every specimen to determine if they already had a subclinical infection. Second, you could place all the fish in one large tank or several smaller tanks that are on a community system and share the same water. Once the fish are all together you could introduce a specimen that has been examined and known to harbor Crypt. Some form of stress will increase the spread of infection and reduce the resistance of the fish, but ich can spread to fish that are not stressed beyond what nature intended (nature intended the release of stress hormones to be adaptive in nature). It is in the unnatural setting where fish cannot escape a chronic or acute stressor that the adaptive process become maladaptive (including reducing immune fuction).
I haven't yet formed a firm opinion about garlic at theis point. I suspect it has a use in lightly infected fish and sometimes can be helpful in more advancecd cases. However, I still don't think it is as effective as copper or hyposalinity. This could mean a lower success rate and a higher incidence of reinfection.
Terry B

[Terry B]

Can anyone answer my original question?
Terry B

[Rowdy]

Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

My 55 reef has been impecably free from white spot since it's inception. My brother in law's reef on the other hand is constantly infested due to frequent fish additions , my opinion. He has lost several nice fish and has also brought several through mass infestation of white spot. (with garlic I believe)
Well, the other night, saturday to be exact, he brought over a nice piece of rock hosting some extra hardy xenia he's been growing. Naturally, I took the rock out of the cooler full of water and plunked it into a nice spot.
I have two Tangs, a real nice, healthy and vibrant medium sized powder Brown Tang and a nice healthy smaller hippo Tang. I've had both fish in this reef since early June and neither of them have ever shown signs of unhappiness, they both eat voraciously and I feed them a well rounded diet including lots of seaweed. These are my only fish and in a 55 gallon they have enough room to swim, for now, because the reef is designed to be rather open in the front.
This morning, 12/12/00 @ 2:30 a.m. I was checking on my reef before work and noticed that my Tang has several white spots such as one would associate with White Spot Disease or Ich, whatever. I didn't even consider the parasite might hitch in on a rock or the minute water standing on it from the other tank. But this is what happened, I know it. My tanks record has been too good through all of the stresses a beginner can put on his fish. My Tangs have been stressed many times through my rearranging rock work etc., that wet arm all the time faze, that get every speck of algae off of the glass fze... etc. they have never shown vulnerability to white spot. My Hippo when first introduced, got himself stuck to the intake line for my Magnum350 that runs the skimmer and had a giant white round hickie on his side for weeks yet he never showed signs of white spot. What I'm saying is, the theory of the parasite being everpresent might not be dead on. I believe it may have a certain dormancy after it's inception in a system and remain present to one extent or another, but I have no evidence to support it either way.
All of my parameters are dead on and my coral are all happy as ever, there have been no fish or livestock additions for a long time other than this xenia, this is why I attribute the outbreak to that.
Now, I have taken no action yet towards treatment. I do not plan on setting up a hospital tank nor do I feel safe dosing any medication into my reef system. I am willing to try garlic though, and possibly a vitamin concoction might be in order to investigate the self-rid theory. I don't plan on losing these fish either, my brown tang is practically hand tame and will eat from my fingers.
I am willingy to follow advice or experiment myself systematically to further bolster or dispell treatment theories. Right now I count about 6-10 grain of sugar sized spots on the brown tang, none on the blue, yet.
What are your thoughts or comments?
I'll be checking back this afternoon.