Ginger for Ich... it works...?
- Thread starter Salty150
- Start date
ThRoewer
New member
Ginger won't do anything to kill Cryptocaryon.
All reports to the contrary are most likely due to the fish acquiring immunity due to Cryptocaryon's rather slow lifecycle. I had it actually die out in my large system over the course of a year. This is a very common occurrence with low level Cryptocaryon infections and otherwise fit and healthy fish.
But if you have fish that are seriously infected you will have to treat them with hyposalinity or TTM or both together.
All reports to the contrary are most likely due to the fish acquiring immunity due to Cryptocaryon's rather slow lifecycle. I had it actually die out in my large system over the course of a year. This is a very common occurrence with low level Cryptocaryon infections and otherwise fit and healthy fish.
But if you have fish that are seriously infected you will have to treat them with hyposalinity or TTM or both together.
ThRoewer
New member
I have tried it and it does nothing against the parasites, at least not if you are dealing with a real outbreak.
Should there be any positive effect of ginger it could only be something like boosting the fish's immune system. But that is something that could only work in light cases without any complicating factors or stressors. If fish are really sick there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that it does anything.
Also, I'm pretty sure there have been trials during Cryptocaryon studies if such things like garlic or ginger have any toxicity to any of the Cryptocaryon stages. If there had been anything you can be sure it would be all over the parasitology magazines.
What I have experienced (as many others as well) is that mild cases of Cryptocaryon with otherwise fit and healthy fish the infection may just go away without any intervention as the fish build up immunity.
The tests that have for sure been done are those regarding acquired immunity (Burgess 1992) and those findings are pretty conclusive: fish that have survived a nonlethal Cryptocaryon outbreak will acquire a level of immunity that it is proportional to the level of the survived infection.
To my knowledge not researched, but very plausible is that prolonged low level exposure can also lead to increases in immunity.
The single exposure tests (tests where fish were exposed to a single immunizing nonlethal infection) lead to full immunity after a recovery time of roughly 3 months when confronted with a lethal number of theronts. Microscopic inspections of those fish did not show a single trophont on the fish = the fish were fully immune. Fish that were exposed after 6 months only got a mild survivable infection. This however indicates that the acquired immunity is not permanent but would require regular exposure to the parasite to boost/maintain immunity.
Also, immune fish are actually toxic to the theronts, meaning any theront that tries to feed of an immune fish is actually killed off and not just deflected off to go and infect another fish with no immunity.
I had a clear case of full acquired immunity with a baby Maldives Regal Angel. In QT it survived a serious ich outbreak after hyposalinity treatment. When I transferred it later to my main system which still had a low level ich infection going at that time the fish never showed a single spot or symptom while all the other Regals there still sported a few spots once in a while (I put one of the Regals under the microscope to confirm that it was actually Cryptocaryon and it was).
Now, all this is not to be taken as advice to do nothing. If your fish have a serious and increasingly intense Cryptocaryon infection, a real treatment will be required.
Should there be any positive effect of ginger it could only be something like boosting the fish's immune system. But that is something that could only work in light cases without any complicating factors or stressors. If fish are really sick there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that it does anything.
Also, I'm pretty sure there have been trials during Cryptocaryon studies if such things like garlic or ginger have any toxicity to any of the Cryptocaryon stages. If there had been anything you can be sure it would be all over the parasitology magazines.
What I have experienced (as many others as well) is that mild cases of Cryptocaryon with otherwise fit and healthy fish the infection may just go away without any intervention as the fish build up immunity.
The tests that have for sure been done are those regarding acquired immunity (Burgess 1992) and those findings are pretty conclusive: fish that have survived a nonlethal Cryptocaryon outbreak will acquire a level of immunity that it is proportional to the level of the survived infection.
To my knowledge not researched, but very plausible is that prolonged low level exposure can also lead to increases in immunity.
The single exposure tests (tests where fish were exposed to a single immunizing nonlethal infection) lead to full immunity after a recovery time of roughly 3 months when confronted with a lethal number of theronts. Microscopic inspections of those fish did not show a single trophont on the fish = the fish were fully immune. Fish that were exposed after 6 months only got a mild survivable infection. This however indicates that the acquired immunity is not permanent but would require regular exposure to the parasite to boost/maintain immunity.
Also, immune fish are actually toxic to the theronts, meaning any theront that tries to feed of an immune fish is actually killed off and not just deflected off to go and infect another fish with no immunity.
I had a clear case of full acquired immunity with a baby Maldives Regal Angel. In QT it survived a serious ich outbreak after hyposalinity treatment. When I transferred it later to my main system which still had a low level ich infection going at that time the fish never showed a single spot or symptom while all the other Regals there still sported a few spots once in a while (I put one of the Regals under the microscope to confirm that it was actually Cryptocaryon and it was).
Now, all this is not to be taken as advice to do nothing. If your fish have a serious and increasingly intense Cryptocaryon infection, a real treatment will be required.
Chrispeters
New member
Started my tank with a watchman goby , powder blue tang , n a sail fin tang , powder blue died inch sail fin had a touch of it but survived . Every other fish I bought 2 tomato clowns pearls ale butterfly , 4 clarkia clowns , bi color angel , yellow box fish all got inch within a few days and died , got a small hospital tank caught my sailfin put him in with some copper but could not catch my goby with striping my whole tank down , so gave up and returned sailfin back to main rant with the boxfush and angel both died within a week , sailfin was always ok .then read on here about the ginger trick added a sacrificial damsel and dosed their food with ginger , damsel survived , and have since added two clowns cleaner wrasse and a lipstick tang who have all been spot free for six weeks now think I have cracked it ?
Chrispeters
New member
Sorry damn predictive txt ��
nereefpat
New member
Tripod1404
Active member
Basically this. I dont think ich can kill a otherwise healthy fish kept under non-stressing ideal conditions. It is known for quite some time that fish can be vaccinated against cryptocaryon;
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1050464812004780
http://ntur.lib.ntu.edu.tw/bitstream/246246/161524/1/29.pdf
Low levels of cryptocaryon infection is more or less the same as vaccination.
Last edited:
