And I agree, if your fish already have ich bad enough, garlic will not cure them. It will help their immune system though and along with copper, is great. If your fish do not have ich, feeding garlic, as PROVEN by my brothers and a few other biologists experiments, will help prevent ich and other parasites from being able to host on your fish. The ich will still be in the tank but if your fish is not stressed and has a strong immune system, it will not kill them.

Copper will rid fish of ich. BUT its really taking a chance with any scaleless fishes, including puffers and boxfish. There are also long term affects that as I said, may not show up right away.

Thats what is good about cuprimine it is not full blown copper, and I have treated my cowfish 2 times with it. I also learned a valuble lesson about haveing a qt tank, treat every fish you buy even if it does not look sick. It is well worth it in the long run, that is if you care about your fish.

Rob, both times I ever had ich in my tank, I started feeding food soaked in freshly pressed garlic oil, and within 2 days all ich was gone. I never lost a fish and treated only after ich was apparent. Maybe I got lucky, but more likely garlic does assist fish in fighting ich themselves. So not snake oil (they get all ****ed when you squeeze them) but garlic oil. Maybe you've been using the wrong oil? :)

Garlic
 

I cant understand why they took treats parasites off there label if it works.Could somebody explain this

Garlic
 

I do believe garlic gets some fish to eat like wd40 and other sents gets salmon to bite and there is probally some food benifet but to tell somebody to risk a fish.Maybe if you cant get your fish out of a reef tank and you have nothing to lose.Brad in a fish only enviroment where there is lots of hosts no way does garlic work.i THINK IN A REEF TANK THAT HAS LOTS OF FLOW PARASITES HAVE A HARDER TIME HOOKING UP TO A HOST.I have had parasites in my reef tanks but with a light fish load.The cleaner wrasse and the cleaner shrimp fixed it with no fish loss and maybe the high water flow

Everyone knows chicken noodle soup doesn't cure anything. Yet a great number of mothers and wives feed it to their children to make them feel better when they have a cold. You need nourishment to fight off those nasty bugs. If noodle soup were to encourage my fish to eat I would feed them noodle soup. As it is...I feed garlic to encourage them to eat not to cure anything. I may be wasting my time and a few cents but I don't see how it can hurt.

Scott

For some reason, I have always had good success helping sick fish. A few that were even looking beyond help, that others brought over. I remember a baby regal Mike brought me, was so covered in ich and sick, we thought of putting it out of its misery.

I treated it in a small tank I had at the time and today he,s the king of a 180g, huge & fat, and 6 yrs. later. Just use most of whats posted here but like I said, "most all", together. I always drop the salinity a bit. I did use a copper based treatment and fed spirolina soaked in garlic and either selcon or vita-chem.

I have not used UV since the 80,s so cant really comment on them but know several lfs that use them for general treatment.

Still think the best advice is to buy healthy fish and give them a healthy home and ich seems to be a non thing.

My garlic doesn't have a label, so I can't comment...

Rob, I never tried to get the fish out, garlic was my first approach. My brown tang was mostly white, looked like he was rolled in flour. Within 2 days, all better. I had several fish in the tank,all affected by ich, flow was comparable to a FO system and garlic did work. How it works I have no idea. Does it boost the immune system, does it make the fish taste bad to the parasite? No idea. Sure copper works if you can catch the fish, put them in your extra bare tank and the stress of all this doesn't make it worse. I think garlic is the chicken noodle soup (which is a cure for everything) of the fish world and should at least be attempted in conjunction with whatever else you want to try.

one other thing to note, Garlic is a known immune system booster and a known disinfectant. will it kill parasites direwctly... NO (this is why they took it off your label Rob) BUT it will increase the immune system of the fish helping him to fight off the ich.

Steve

What is all this label talk??? If its a product your buying that is made specifically for fish, don't! All you need is fresh garlic. When garlic is cut or pressed, it releases a chemical (forget the name) and this is what helps the fish. I can't imagine powdered or any other preserved garlic being as potent.

And as for garlic being the reason fish are at risk or dying...THATS NOT TRUE! Im pretty sure its still the ich killing fish and not garlic. Its one thing to say that they still died of ICH when you were feeding garlic but its another to say they died because of garlic. Not to mention, its been mentioned over and over again, that garlic should be used in mild cases of ich, along with other meds or as a regular food supplement.

I asked my brother for his UBC experiment and will post a few of the results when I get it but he told me last night a bit more about the project...

There were 6 40G tanks (in his basement) and 6 Celyon Puffers (brackish fish). He got the puffers the same size and QT'd them for 3 months to be sure they were healthy. They all ate the same food and all tanks were plumbed together, so water was the exact same. All the tanks were seperated and three were fed garlic soaked food and three just regular food. Ich was introduced to all the tanks. Basically, over 6 months the results were something like this...Out of the three without garlic, 2 died and one had a mild case of ich still at the end of the experiment. Out of the three with garlic, none died, two never got ich and one got it on and off the whole time.

Personally, I like those chances. Its a great preventative and boosts the fishes immune system. If you can give me proof otherwise (I keep asking) besides the fact that something has been taken off some label, then thats great and we can all learn something. My brother and I are also really, really interested in what all these Marine Biologists were saying???

Cleaner Wrasse do not really eat parasites much, mostly just dead scales. They unfortunately can only eat whats on the surface of another fishes skin and not whats below. Ich is mostly below. Its great if they can catch it before it gets into the fishes skin but its rare.

allicin

GSP - powdered garlic works just as well, if the correct inclusion rate is used. If you refer back to the link that I posted on page 4 of this thread, an inclusion rate of 3% powdered garlic was found to be the magic number in that particular study.

I know its only sort of relevant, but here is a little proof of the "killing" power of garlic, Two potential molluscicides useful against pest aeolid nudibranchs common on species of monitpora in aquariums by Eric Borneman.

BTW the Ich is gone. Used Coppramine and no issues. Only lost the flame
Thanks Stinky and everyone else