Ick & Garlic

[david540i]

What is the purpose of the garlic? What is its effect on the ?ick fish.? Also would it benefit/harm other fish/corals/inverts in tank that eat the food with garlic?

Also, would a cleaner/skunk shrimp eat these parasites?

 

[Spar]

Garlic does 2 things; 1) the parasites dislike the taste of it and will jump off the fish if they fish consumes it, 2) garlic helps build the immune system on the fish to the point where they "may" not get ich again. What garlic does not do is kill the presense of Ich... i.e. you will always have the chance of it coming back, even on the fish that had it once before if Garlic works at first.

I feed garlic to my fish (with the drops) and no harm seen to anything living.

I haven't seen my cleaner shrimp eat any Ich from my fish, but they supposively will. not to the point of ridding ich from the tank though.

 

[crash519]

There is no definitive proof or evidence that garlic does anything. It does tend to make the fish more responsive to the food which in turn makes them healthier and stronger to fight off the parasite. It is believed that it strengthens the immune system much like it has been shown to in humans, but I've never read any proof in humans, fish, dogs, cats, etc.....

I'm adding it to my food at the moment since I've got an ich outbreak right now, but I normally don't. The fish are looking better at the moment, but that doesn't really mean anything.