Garlic?
- Thread starter leewish
- Start date
ahmed_iAM
New member
If it has no value why do people use it?
Because it is easy and most people always prefer an easy solution.
ahmed_iAM
New member
Garlic is effective against several types of bacteria. Though it has never been proven to help with apatite or marine ich, it still isn't an awful idea. Have never hear of it hurting coral.
Sleepiness
New member
+1 on Garlic. I would not say it cures anything though. I had an ich outbreak and 2 of my 3 fish did not survive. My gramma was the lone survivor. He had ich and a serious case of fin rot. and I used seachem garlic for 2 weeks until real medication came in the mail.The gramma had practically zero fins from the rot. He did not swim much, he would just rest on a rock until food came. He did not have much of an appetite until I started using the garlic. I would just mix some with water with the garlic and suck it up in a small baster. The gramma would swim up to the baster and just swim around in the garlic solution like a maniac. I never feed with a baster so I am assuming he liked the garlic. I cant say for certain garlic helped but I believe it kept him around long enough to administer kanamycin. That was over a year ago and the happy little gramma is fully healed up.
No, it has no effect on coral that I am aware of. It is long term bad for fish. Please provide the reference on why it is thought to be effective on bacteria. Here is the reference on garlic.
ahmed_iAM
New member
Here's the article http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/sp/index.php
And from Steven Pro.
Sleepiness
New member
Antimicrobial properties of allicin from garlic.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10594976
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10594976
Sleepiness
New member
last time I checked ich is a protozoa
Yes crytocaryon is a protoist not a bacteria. Allicn only lasts an hour or two when fresh garlic is crushed or damaged. Doubt you'll find any active allicin in the garlic juices and concentrates used in the hobby. Even if you could use fresh garlic as some have tried it wouldn't have an effect on marine fish disease.
Sleepiness
New member
Maybe so, but many of the compounds created by the decomposition of allicin have the same antimicrobial properties. Though not nearly as potent.
Go back and read Steven Pro's article, which says:
"The bad news is that this paper dealt with a bacterial infection. There is no relationship between garlic's effect on bacterial infections and parasitic infestations. Also, the fish were not fed garlic-laced food; they were injected with garlic extract. That brings into question whether feeding fish garlic extract would be as effective as injecting them with it. Additionally, the garlic extract was prepared freshly for every injection. This is particularly important when taking into account the effectiveness of commercial preparation, and also in light of the fact that allicin, the active ingredient in garlic, is unstable and prone to breakdown in a relatively short amount of time (Cortes-Jorge 2000). Furthermore, since garlic is a non-natural food, the antigen effect of a novel compound may have been responsible for increased immune response, and although they used a negative control (nothing), they did not use a similar variable - i.e. onion, paprika, nutmeg, or whatever else one has in their spice cabinet that they think might somehow help their fish fight disease). And finally, even though all the fish showed improvement by the end of the study, none of the fish was completely healed. They all remained infected with Mycobacterium marinum, although at low levels."
However everyone is free to choose whatever method they think is viable.
"The bad news is that this paper dealt with a bacterial infection. There is no relationship between garlic's effect on bacterial infections and parasitic infestations. Also, the fish were not fed garlic-laced food; they were injected with garlic extract. That brings into question whether feeding fish garlic extract would be as effective as injecting them with it. Additionally, the garlic extract was prepared freshly for every injection. This is particularly important when taking into account the effectiveness of commercial preparation, and also in light of the fact that allicin, the active ingredient in garlic, is unstable and prone to breakdown in a relatively short amount of time (Cortes-Jorge 2000). Furthermore, since garlic is a non-natural food, the antigen effect of a novel compound may have been responsible for increased immune response, and although they used a negative control (nothing), they did not use a similar variable - i.e. onion, paprika, nutmeg, or whatever else one has in their spice cabinet that they think might somehow help their fish fight disease). And finally, even though all the fish showed improvement by the end of the study, none of the fish was completely healed. They all remained infected with Mycobacterium marinum, although at low levels."
However everyone is free to choose whatever method they think is viable.
