Is garlic bad for fish?

It seems to be included in most dry foods, and there are plenty of supplements on the market with it. General effects have been studied:

Example: http://www.idosi.org/wjfms/wjfms1(1)09/8.pdf

That said, I don't know of any long term studies of the effects of garlic on marine ornamental fish.
 
Last edited:
I honestly believe that garlic would not be contained in so many well know brands of fish food such as New Life Spectrum (which is accepted to be a pretty good brand of food), if it was detrimental to the fish, long term. Ever since I've begun keeping Tang's I've supplemented their feedings of Nori with selcon, omega vit, and garlic and they all seem to be nice and healthy with rounded filled out bodies.

I've also used Garlic many other times to get my pickier eaters to finally gain the drive to eat, my new powder blue tang being one of those fish that was not actively interested in Nori without garlic.

All in all, I believe the pros outweigh the cons; or I should say the seeming pro's since it could be argued either way that it is or is not of any importance.
 
I've used it in the past when my regal tang had some pretty large spots, he became spot free overnight after eating the garlic. Since that time i have read that garlic can lead to liver damage to fish, the study was with very high doses of garlic though.
 
I think the key would be moderation. As with anything, even in humans, too much of a good thing can become bad. Most people using garlic to supplement feedings would not be feeding at extremely high dosages, maybe a drop or 2 max to induce that feeding response and gaining the additional nutrients it provides.

I would almost be tempted to use the example of vitamin supplements in people, which are observed to provide humans with better health; but even too many of these can lead to an overdose (though it's a little harder to OD on these, lol)
 
Don't actually know why my omega flake has garlic in it. They said it will boost the immune system. One thing I do know is garlic go pretty well with sausages.:lol2:
 
There is some sound research that says garlic can help a fish's immune system. But, as mentioned above, there is also concern over too much for too long. Most critters seem to love garlic, most dog food contains it too. Don't get sucked into the common myth that garlic cures crypto (ich); it doesn't, but still comes up constantly. IMO, garlic use, in moderation, may be a good thing. But, it isn't the miracle that many people claim (or wish).
 
emdr888 said:
I've used it in the past when my regal tang had some pretty large spots, he became spot free overnight after eating the garlic. Since that time i have read that garlic can lead to liver damage to fish, the study was with very high doses of garlic though.
Click to expand...

I bet the change to the tang was just a coincidence. Additives, like garlic, vitamins, etc., have only long-term-benefits and don't cause overnight changes in anything.
 
It could be coincidence, but many people use garlic for their fish. I haven't used it again because i have read that garlic can have long term detrimental effects on fish.

So just wondering if people have been feeding their fish with garlic long term say over 10 years?
 
agree with Mr Tuskfish...
I stopped using it...
Here is one article...

OK I'm a no garlic for marine fish person.

Why?

Well firstly let me give you a little background on where I’m coming from, I’m a fish disease research scientist and I specialize in fish vaccination and ectoparasite infections in fish. I don't work for, sell or am I in anyway assciated with commerical fish food production. My research laboratory has carried out many trials for fish feed manufactures on garlic, both as an appetite stimulator, immunostimulant and white spot “cure” and I shall link to some of this work published on UR and in the scientific literature.

So why not use garlic in marine fish diets.

1 Long term heart and liver lesions

Terrestrial plant lipids are well known to cause heart and liver lesions in marine fish. The problem with feeding terrestrial plant oils (not just garlic but any terrestrial plant oil) to reef fish is problematic due the nature of the lipids the fish do not possess the enzymes to digest them correctly and this leads to fatty deposits and serious pathological changes in the heart and liver of fish that are fed these lipids. Although these are not instantly fatal they cause chronic change to these organs and long term deterioration in the health of the fish. Granted much of this his work is done on farmed fish, but it is a well known phenomena and here are some of the research papers that detail this problem.

AH, Sargent JR, Thompson KD 1993
Terrestrial and fish oils affect phospholipid fatty acid composition, development of cardiac lesions, phospholipase activity and eicosanoid production in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).
Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 49(3):665-73

AH, Park MT, Sargent JR.1991.
High dietary linoleic acid affects the fatty acid compositions of individual phospholipids from tissues of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar): association with stress susceptibility and cardiac lesion.
J Nutr. 121(8):1163-72

J. Gordon Bell2, John McEvoy3, Douglas R. Tocher, Fiona McGhee, Patrick J. Campbell* and John R. Sargent 2004
Replacement of Fish Oil with Rapeseed Oil in Diets of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Affects Tissue Lipid Compositions and Hepatocyte Fatty Acid Metabolism
The American Society for Nutritional Sciences

J.G. Bell1, D.R. Tocher1, B.M. Farndale1, A.H. McVicar2 and J.R. Sargent1 1999
Effects of essential fatty acid-deficient diets on growth, mortality, tissue histopathology and fatty acid compositions in juvenile turbot (Scophthalmus maximus)
Journal Fish Physiology and Biochemistry 1573-5168 Volume 20, Number 3 p263-277

SL Seierstad, TT Poppe, EO Koppang, A Svindland, G 2005
Influence of dietary lipid composition on cardiac pathology in farmed Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L
Journal of Fish Diseases.

These scientific journals detail the pathology and chronic changes due to these lipids (there are many more) but there aren’t any on reef fish, mainly as they are not a major farmed species or laboratory model, however if you apply the precautionary principal to your fish (in the same way it is applied to Humans) then you wouldn’t feed your marine fish diets containing terrestrial lipids. This has a human health comparison with Trans fats, very useful in making vegetable oils butter like so common in vegetable spreads and thought to be harmless until it turns out they cause liver tumors & heart disease in rats and mice and probably in humans too. So if this evidence is good enough to ban trans fats in foods then the much stronger data in fish should be good enough to ensure you don’t feed terrestrial oils to reef fish. As I said earlier my lab (which is a fish health research lab at a leading University) is often asked to carry out feed trials for feed manufactures and we have carried out many that use garlic or garlic extracts. Unfortunately these are considered to be commercially sensitive and I cannot tell you the results of using them to control white spot (but suffice to say the companies we have carried out scientific trials have all decided not to launched garlic supplemented feeds). However I did persuade one feed manufacturer to allow me to post the growth data from their feed trial on UR. The results were, well, damning for garlic. Here is the link to the trial from my lab in this thread
http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/s...d.php?t=230961 (http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=230961)

Why do manufactures put it in their food? well clearly there is a demand for it and they are supplying that market demanded. It doesn’t mean it good for your fish it just means that they will sell more of their food if people are misinformed and think it is beneficial

2 Garlic’s Anti-parasitic Properties

The first question I have is please show me a research paper with proper controls where garlic has been shown to cure parasitic diseases in fish. I’ve just visited web of Science (a major research database) and there are no research papers that do this.

Much of the anti parasitic effects of garlic are attributed to Allacin and most work is done in humans, where it may have some benefits if purified allacin is fed, at around 400mg kg/bw every day. However in many mammals, (dogs, cats, horses etc) garlic causes a Heinz body anemia which is potentially fatal.

My laboratory has recently carried out a trial using purified allacin in clown fish

I recently picked up a MAEFS grant to look at this and the preliminary results are as follows The experiment was as follows

90 clown fish 40 on allicin, 40 not, 10 time zero samples. 10 sampled per week per group. The dose of allacin is 400ug/kg bw (a level used in humans and about 400ng/fish)

week 0 mean both groups 41.7% Hcrt
week 1 test 34.7% Hcrt control 42.4% Hcrt
week 2 test 18.8% Hcrt Controls 41.% Hcrt
week 3 test 17.2% Hcrt Controls 42.8% Hcrt
week 4 test 17.0% Hcrt Controls 40.6% Hcrt

Hcrt= haematocrit (how many red cells there are in the blood). The histology results on the organs hasn't been processed yet

Clearly allacin causes acute Heinz body anemia in reef fish too

To assume that all fish can eat garlic with no ill effects seems optimistic, when in mammals (which as a group are far more closely related to each other that fish are) it is fine for some e.g. the great apes, but toxic for dogs and cats (see O. Yamato, E. Kasai, T. Katsura, S. Takahashi, T. Shiota, M. Tajima, M. Yamasaki, and Y. Maede Heinz Body Hemolytic Anemia With Eccentrocytosis From Ingestion of Chinese Chive (Allium tuberosum) and Garlic (Allium sativum) in a Dog J. Am. Anim. Hosp. Assoc., January 1, 2005; 41(1): 68 - 73. (which is just one of 100's of research articles on this in the field))

Each year veterinarians have to treat 100's of cats and dogs for acute anaemia in the UK due to their owners feeding garlic to them. Simply because they read on a web it does wonders for their immune system, is anti worms etc. Yet these potentially fatal supplements are still widely available in the US/UK

http://www.pet-points.com/product_in...roducts_id=557 (http://www.pet-points.com/product_info.php?products_id=557)
http://www.mysimon.com/9015-10992_8-29572306.html (http://www.mysimon.com/9015-10992_8-29572306.html)

3 Well Garlic must be an immunostimulant

In the most recent review if immunostimulants in marine fish

Ian Bricknell & Roy A. Dalmo 2005
The use of immunostimulants in fish larval aquaculture
Fish & Shellfish Immunology 19 (5) 457-472

Garlic is not referred to as an immunostimulant.

To be honest garlic has been discussed many time on UR, if you want to feed your fish garlic then nothing is stopping you, but I doubt you will see a benefit and the evidence strongly suggests you will do short and long term harm to them.

http://new.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=364571&page=2
 
I totally agree with humaguy although I am certainly not as knowledgeable as he is. I do not use it with for fish regularly although I have been known to use it as an appetite stimulant for new fish (only) during their acclimation process. On the other hand, I do use it on pizza and in salads. Mating behavior has been temporarily reduced, however.
 
snorvich said:
I totally agree with humaguy although I am certainly not as knowledgeable as he is. I do not use it with for fish regularly although I have been known to use it as an appetite stimulant for new fish (only) during their acclimation process. On the other hand, I do use it on pizza and in salads. Mating behavior has been temporarily reduced, however.
Click to expand...
Vodka dosing might help.
 
humaguy said:
agree with Mr Tuskfish...
I stopped using it...
Here is one article...

OK I'm a no garlic for marine fish person.

Why?

Well firstly let me give you a little background on where I'm coming from, I'm a fish disease research scientist and I specialize in fish vaccination and ectoparasite infections in fish. I don't work for, sell or am I in anyway assciated with commerical fish food production. My research laboratory has carried out many trials for fish feed manufactures on garlic, both as an appetite stimulator, immunostimulant and white spot "œcure" and I shall link to some of this work published on UR and in the scientific literature.

So why not use garlic in marine fish diets.

1 Long term heart and liver lesions

Terrestrial plant lipids are well known to cause heart and liver lesions in marine fish. The problem with feeding terrestrial plant oils (not just garlic but any terrestrial plant oil) to reef fish is problematic due the nature of the lipids the fish do not possess the enzymes to digest them correctly and this leads to fatty deposits and serious pathological changes in the heart and liver of fish that are fed these lipids. Although these are not instantly fatal they cause chronic change to these organs and long term deterioration in the health of the fish. Granted much of this his work is done on farmed fish, but it is a well known phenomena and here are some of the research papers that detail this problem.

AH, Sargent JR, Thompson KD 1993
Terrestrial and fish oils affect phospholipid fatty acid composition, development of cardiac lesions, phospholipase activity and eicosanoid production in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).
Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 49(3):665-73

AH, Park MT, Sargent JR.1991.
High dietary linoleic acid affects the fatty acid compositions of individual phospholipids from tissues of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar): association with stress susceptibility and cardiac lesion.
J Nutr. 121(8):1163-72

J. Gordon Bell2, John McEvoy3, Douglas R. Tocher, Fiona McGhee, Patrick J. Campbell* and John R. Sargent 2004
Replacement of Fish Oil with Rapeseed Oil in Diets of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Affects Tissue Lipid Compositions and Hepatocyte Fatty Acid Metabolism
The American Society for Nutritional Sciences

J.G. Bell1, D.R. Tocher1, B.M. Farndale1, A.H. McVicar2 and J.R. Sargent1 1999
Effects of essential fatty acid-deficient diets on growth, mortality, tissue histopathology and fatty acid compositions in juvenile turbot (Scophthalmus maximus)
Journal Fish Physiology and Biochemistry 1573-5168 Volume 20, Number 3 p263-277

SL Seierstad, TT Poppe, EO Koppang, A Svindland, G 2005
Influence of dietary lipid composition on cardiac pathology in farmed Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L
Journal of Fish Diseases.

These scientific journals detail the pathology and chronic changes due to these lipids (there are many more) but there aren't any on reef fish, mainly as they are not a major farmed species or laboratory model, however if you apply the precautionary principal to your fish (in the same way it is applied to Humans) then you wouldn't feed your marine fish diets containing terrestrial lipids. This has a human health comparison with Trans fats, very useful in making vegetable oils butter like so common in vegetable spreads and thought to be harmless until it turns out they cause liver tumors & heart disease in rats and mice and probably in humans too. So if this evidence is good enough to ban trans fats in foods then the much stronger data in fish should be good enough to ensure you don't feed terrestrial oils to reef fish. As I said earlier my lab (which is a fish health research lab at a leading University) is often asked to carry out feed trials for feed manufactures and we have carried out many that use garlic or garlic extracts. Unfortunately these are considered to be commercially sensitive and I cannot tell you the results of using them to control white spot (but suffice to say the companies we have carried out scientific trials have all decided not to launched garlic supplemented feeds). However I did persuade one feed manufacturer to allow me to post the growth data from their feed trial on UR. The results were, well, damning for garlic. Here is the link to the trial from my lab in this thread
http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/s...d.php?t=230961 (http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=230961)

Why do manufactures put it in their food? well clearly there is a demand for it and they are supplying that market demanded. It doesn't mean it good for your fish it just means that they will sell more of their food if people are misinformed and think it is beneficial

2 Garlic's Anti-parasitic Properties

The first question I have is please show me a research paper with proper controls where garlic has been shown to cure parasitic diseases in fish. I've just visited web of Science (a major research database) and there are no research papers that do this.

Much of the anti parasitic effects of garlic are attributed to Allacin and most work is done in humans, where it may have some benefits if purified allacin is fed, at around 400mg kg/bw every day. However in many mammals, (dogs, cats, horses etc) garlic causes a Heinz body anemia which is potentially fatal.

My laboratory has recently carried out a trial using purified allacin in clown fish

I recently picked up a MAEFS grant to look at this and the preliminary results are as follows The experiment was as follows

90 clown fish 40 on allicin, 40 not, 10 time zero samples. 10 sampled per week per group. The dose of allacin is 400ug/kg bw (a level used in humans and about 400ng/fish)

week 0 mean both groups 41.7% Hcrt
week 1 test 34.7% Hcrt control 42.4% Hcrt
week 2 test 18.8% Hcrt Controls 41.% Hcrt
week 3 test 17.2% Hcrt Controls 42.8% Hcrt
week 4 test 17.0% Hcrt Controls 40.6% Hcrt

Hcrt= haematocrit (how many red cells there are in the blood). The histology results on the organs hasn't been processed yet

Clearly allacin causes acute Heinz body anemia in reef fish too

To assume that all fish can eat garlic with no ill effects seems optimistic, when in mammals (which as a group are far more closely related to each other that fish are) it is fine for some e.g. the great apes, but toxic for dogs and cats (see O. Yamato, E. Kasai, T. Katsura, S. Takahashi, T. Shiota, M. Tajima, M. Yamasaki, and Y. Maede Heinz Body Hemolytic Anemia With Eccentrocytosis From Ingestion of Chinese Chive (Allium tuberosum) and Garlic (Allium sativum) in a Dog J. Am. Anim. Hosp. Assoc., January 1, 2005; 41(1): 68 - 73. (which is just one of 100's of research articles on this in the field))

Each year veterinarians have to treat 100's of cats and dogs for acute anaemia in the UK due to their owners feeding garlic to them. Simply because they read on a web it does wonders for their immune system, is anti worms etc. Yet these potentially fatal supplements are still widely available in the US/UK

http://www.pet-points.com/product_in...roducts_id=557 (http://www.pet-points.com/product_info.php?products_id=557)
http://www.mysimon.com/9015-10992_8-29572306.html (http://www.mysimon.com/9015-10992_8-29572306.html)

3 Well Garlic must be an immunostimulant

In the most recent review if immunostimulants in marine fish

Ian Bricknell & Roy A. Dalmo 2005
The use of immunostimulants in fish larval aquaculture
Fish & Shellfish Immunology 19 (5) 457-472

Garlic is not referred to as an immunostimulant.

To be honest garlic has been discussed many time on UR, if you want to feed your fish garlic then nothing is stopping you, but I doubt you will see a benefit and the evidence strongly suggests you will do short and long term harm to them.

http://new.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=364571&page=2
Click to expand...

Read this before and on a quick look it does seem garlic is bad. But the argument against this is that the test used such high levels of the active component, it really isn't relevent in the way hobbyist uses garlic in their feed.
Almost anything too much in a pure form is detrimental to life.
Take too much vit C every day and you can get serious gastro Intestinal problems.
 
just curious, if that is how you feel, why did you ask the question and begin this thread?

it is not the concentration but the fact that garlic is a terrestrial plant and its oils, lipids, are harmful...

there are many, many more articles out there that report the same...the above cites papers as early as 91...

the last sentence in the above sums it up...

"To be honest garlic has been discussed many times, if you want to feed your fish garlic then nothing is stopping you, but I doubt you will see a benefit and the evidence strongly suggests you will do short and long term harm to them."
 
I've (sort of) followed the garlic conversation for years. I'm convinced that garlic use benefits from the natural tendency to blame, or praise what ever is around at the time. If you use garlic and have a healthy tank; it must be the garlic. I doubt it. While long-term garlic use seems to be harmful; short term use has been so distorted by myth that who knows what it does? A big, and over-looked, effect of garlic has resulted in the totally mistaken, but widespread, belief that garlic cures protozoan parasites (ich, etc.) I wonder how many fish have died when the hobbyist was convinced that garlic was a cure for parasites; thus delaying real treatment? This garlic myth has resulted in almost a daily new thread on the disease section of our forum.
 
humaguy said:
just curious, if that is how you feel, why did you ask the question and begin this thread?

it is not the concentration but the fact that garlic is a terrestrial plant and its oils, lipids, are harmful...

there are many, many more articles out there that report the same...the above cites papers as early as 91...

the last sentence in the above sums it up...

"To be honest garlic has been discussed many times, if you want to feed your fish garlic then nothing is stopping you, but I doubt you will see a benefit and the evidence strongly suggests you will do short and long term harm to them."
Click to expand...

I started this thread as i'm still unsure, but as there is a hint that it may do damage ...i'm not using garlic. However on UR somebody is making a good case for garlic, and i have had a good response from using garlic in the past.

I ask on this forum, as i'm sure America has stricter laws on what is put in pet food and with the amount of litigation that goes on....wouldn't manufacturers be forced to not sell products with garlic if it is proved to be harmful to fish?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
New 55g setup. Advice for fish appreciated
Replies
6
Views
271
Uncle99
Uncle99
M
Choosing Between Innovative Marine and Waterbox for a 200-Gallon Mixed Reef – Your Input Wanted!
Replies
6
Views
3K
griss
griss
JeannineC
Fish suggestion
Replies
19
Views
2K
rwbroadnax
R
LJA
Fish addition order
Replies
2
Views
427
OrionN
OrionN
Tamara Marshall
Comprehensive Article About Black Ich- Manta Systems Article
Replies
0
Views
97
Tamara Marshall
Tamara Marshall
Back
Top