Garlic and phosphates
 

I was wondering if anyone out there has noticed phosphates going up when using garlic? I'm using Garlic Gaurd right now, have been for almost a month now. I normally only use it when introducing a new fish into my system. I added a Butterfly, finicky little eater, a couple weeks ago. I soak the frozen food for a couple hours before feeding, drain off the excess garlic then feed. Now I notice phosphates are high. The garlic is the only thing I'm doing different and phosphates have always been low. I'm now using Phosban Pro and changing water every 4 - 5 days but they just don't seem to be coming down. I've checked my freshly made salt water - no phosphates. So now what?

I use garlic extreme quite liberally with no increase

not sure about the phosphate thing but.......just a heads up....Ive read that prolonged use of garlic may lead to liver damage in fish......so probably best used only when necessary

add a little to some water and test the phosphates, id be surprised if there was none

Just curious.... is this a study backed by scientific research? A lot of things are "suggested" in this hobby so not always sure if you know what I mean.

I use garlic guard each and every feeding and wonder if liver damage is really something I should worry about.... or if maybe its synthetic salts and additives that may be the actual cause?

the study I was referring to was linked in a thread over at RC.....Ive tried doing a search for it , but we all know what the search function is like there:mrgreen:....garlic is not a natural part of a fish's diet so it would make sense to me if their livers wernt able to process it properly.....
just curious why people use it like it has some medicinal value????.....all garlic is to a fish is an appetite stimulant.....it smells good

Well next time you have lobster just use straight melted butter, it tastes good.:biggrin:

Supposedly the garlic somehow leaches in to the fish's skin. and ich do not like it so will not stay on the fish.

Any truth to this?

From what I have always understood is that parasites do not like the garlic in the fishes system and it can prevent certain parasites from "bothering" the fish.


Anyone shed light on this or have all the LFS been feeding me garlic for no reason? (LFS - not a hit on you guys in any way)

A study was done some time ago showing that a 'natural chemical in garlic extract has anti-parasitic and anti-fungal properties.
In my own experience it has proven to be the case.
As a result whenever I add a new fish I assume it has ich and start feeding Garlic Extreme. I soak dry food in the garlic extract and feed. I feed heavily and only garlic extract soaked food as the idea is to get as much garlic in the fish as possible.
On another board a Phd guy posted that it was a anecdotal evidence only. When I challenged him as a scientist to do a experiment he ignored the challenge.

yes phosphates will increase with any organic matter that you introduce to the tank.
all plant cells contain enzymes and DNA and other protien. remembering that all DNA has phosphate, and most enzymes utilize phosphate as ATP, AMP, etc.

by adding ANY plant or animal matter to your tank you are introduceing orthophosphate.
as the material decomposes and relases the single phosphate (this phosphate is free form. and is what you measure with test kits) this is the same for nitrates.

Every time you introduce any food, you introduce nitrates, and phosphate.

try ferric oxid to remove the phosphate. either in a filter bag, or a phosphate reactor.
and chaetomorpha (m macroalgae) for nitrates and phosphate.
if you dont have a sump i used a aquaclear 300, with a enegry saver lamp over . while i was breeding my bangaii cardnals.

where did you read that? another myth?

:biggrin:

Garlic and liver damage on fish
 

The links are here:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w1g55h5463225648/
http://ajol.info/index.php/ejb/article/view/29978

I am in the camp of people who think garlic does nothing to ick. The only time I use garlic is when I want to get new fish to eat prepared food by soaking the food in garlic juice.

Garlic juice (unles you are squishing garlic cloves) is useless as it is watered down.
Get either garlic extract from a health food store or Garlic Extreme.

Sounds weird.. we don't give high dose of garlic to our fish and the little that goes in the water probably disperse and is not that much taken by the fish. If we eat a little salt it's good, at least it taste good, but if we eat too much of it we could die, so not sure if this is really a concern about a little garlic in the food? It would probably be more interesting to see if giving garlic to fish the way we do it is still affecting the liver.

"the damage of garlic on both liver and kidney in this work may be attributed to the relative high dose of garlic used."

but if you feed garlic on a daily basis the accumulation over the fishes lifespan could be damaging......ever have a fish die for no apparent reason?....I dont have to get drunk everyday for alcohol to be damaging to my liver:wink:

I've always used it to keep the vampire fish out of my tank. It does other stuff too? I was starting to think i'd been scammed like my Monster-B-Gone closet spray. :P

well that's the point. there is no study on that one, only on high dosage.

If you drink a little wine each day it's good for your hearth but if you drink the whole bottle in 5 minutes you'd probably be very sick if not worse.

Even water can kill you if you have too much of it too quickly.

Is there such thing as a long term study of garlic on fish liver? with normal small dose that a fish might eat when eating the food. We don't even know how much the fish actualy swollow, maybe near to nothing once it is diluted in the water.

Obviously if people have success treating ich with this, it must be doing something beneficial to the fish. I would not say give them 3 garlic a day but here and there in the food, must be near to nothing.

I don,t see the point of giving that to the fish constantly, but in case of ich or when a fish lack appetite, then if it works, it works in a good way.

I don't have ich as I do strict quarantine with hyposalinity but if I would have problem with that I would probably give my fish a little bit of garlic. I did at the begining to entice appetite and to help the fish that I bought get over the ich with hyposalinity. I think it's not so much the garlic that helped for the ich but the hypo treatment, but at least it gave the fish great appetite!

So if a fish die for no apparent reason it is because of garlic? what are you saying here? sorry but I don't buy that. A fish that die for no reason is probably wild cought with cyanide much more than diying from garlic. I beleive that dammage liver much more, as well as copper treatment. You don't have to get drunk each day but if you only drink a glass of wine each day you will not get liver dammage from that. French people do it all the time and they don't die from liver dammage more than us.

My neighbourgs are French and they drink wine each day, just a little glass at diner time. The man is 89 now and very healthy, the wife is 79 and she is also very healthy. wow...they should be dead from liver dammage!