Hi all.
Forgive the newby q, but I've seen several threads here and elsewhere regarding adding garlic to the aquiarium, as a disease preventative. A. Is it true? B. How is the garlic prepared? Is a whole clove just dropped in? Is it finely sliced? crushed? Cooked?
TIA.
Jeff
Are you having a vampire tetra issue?
(ducks)
There are commercial products like Garlic Guard by Seachem. It's a liquid you can treat foods with.
Most likely, though, you read about people using garlic in their homemade fish food receipes... like beefheart mix.
I add liquid garlic (from LFS) to my beefheart mix, but really you can just add crushed. I like the liquid because I feel like its better dispersed throughout.
I believe you can buy garlic juice (liquid garlic) from the grocery store for cheaper than you can get it at pet stores. That's what I've been told, anyway.
Hi jgolden: welcome aboard the aquarium fish hobby!
Regarding this whole issue regarding the garlic helping or becoming the magic bullet cure??? I think we would all be fooling ourselves if we believed that was all it took.
Taking vitamin C to fight a cold, taking Echinacea to stop a cold, shark cartlidge fights cancer, this herb cures this, that supplement dose that, athletes should take ginseng or other natural supplements but yet the records are set by those on steroids (???), fish look nice with thier natural colours but hey... throw some hormones in them and voila a "brilliant" looking fish!
And guess what? there is no cure for the common cold! Cancer - while scientific research/progress is being made towards cancer, it is still here! along with other aliments, and a blue fish can suddenly turn into a brown fish after a month?
Sorry for sounding like a confusing textbook here, I certianly wish any of the above would be the answer to a cure. But realisticly.. all we can do is experiment with our own experiences and pass the knowledge on. Garlic probably does help in some form since it has a strong antibiotic effect in its natural oil, giving it some type of antiseptic cure in eradicating various worms or internal parasites, But not all parasites/worms, nor will it work if the fishes illness is too far advanced to simply rely on garlic as a perventative to maintaining a heathy fish maybe??, but as a pure cure in itself.... DON'T BET THE FARM ON IT!.
As a former OVAS member has taught me in the keeping of Discus and Angels, that the best friend of a true fish keeper is a microscope.
And I have seen him purchase and breed thousands of Discus and Angels and try hundereds of different cures for various diseases including him using garlic in his fish food mixtures, and he has had his share of thousands of Discus and Angels to his credit, and while we learned and had fun analyzing the fish from gill flukes to intestinal worms the fish carried... the cure it took to finally nurse the fish back to health did not come from garlic, it simply was not enough to seriously erradicate the more serious infected sick fish.
It still took the more proper or radical medicants we know of today to cure them back to health. And if you ask a vet (as I have) he or she will tell you as well as they too have experimented cures for animals as well.
Perventative medicine or supplements be it garlic or whatever never hurts anyone and can help for sure, but it's just what it is... a PREVENTATIVE! not a CURE to totally rely on.
So whatever you should decide, just remember the key is to mix and formulate a food mixture with the right balance of garlic and hopefully have the fish ingest the food with whatever benefical properties garlic might have, and hopefully its enough to keep the fish healthy enough to eradicate or help control various ailments it might have.
Hope this helps!
TR
Even if it doesnt "work", they love the taste of it. Might as well.
Mmmmmm...nummy....garlic....if it's good for me it's gotta be good for the fishies :D