garlic for ick

[Rhonda.J]

I just started using garlic for an ick outbreak in a reef tank. I have never used it before so does anyone have any advice? I am using in once a day. What I am doing is soaking the food in the gel from the garlic liquid gels. I was wandering how long it is safe to feed garlic to the fish. I heard you should feed for a week and then wait a few weeks and do another week. But I was thinking of going for 2 weeks just to be sure but didn't know if that was safe. The fish seem to like the garlic flavored food better. I haven't seen any ick in a few days but I am worried that it is now in the reproductive stage and will attack the fish even harder if I quit feeding garlic now. What do you think?

[organicreefer]

rhondaj,
sorry i cant help with the garlic,dont know if it works or if it just has the "placebo effect' .my best advice is (assuming you dont want to treat with meds..)keep the temp about 83,AND STABLE!feed heavily(small amounts often)with lots of vitamin soaked food(i guess rotating some garlic in cant hurt either).of course keep the water quality pristine.
imo thats about all you can do aside from netting/treating.keep em as happy as possible and they have the best chance at fighting off the ich.i wish you much luck .

[srgtkoons]

I feed garlic daily until no visibile signs, then feed every other day for another two weeks.

[Reinhold]

I've successfully used garlic-soaked food twice for Ich outbreaks. Each time, the Ich fell off in the first 2-3 days, and I continued to feed the garlic food for about 5 more days.

The first outbreak occurred when I added a Yellow Tang to the tank, and the second occurred when I added a Blue Damsel. The stress of new fish additions seems to set off the outbreaks.

[Rhonda.J]

for the advice I always enrich the food I feed with selcon. What I am doing now is enriching with selcon in the mornings and using garlic in the evenings. I was just at a loss as what to do. I have never had ick in the reef tank before so wasn't sure what to use. I have had ick in the FO tanks but of course I could use meds with just fish.
I also just added a tiny sailfin tang and the Banggais didn't like her at all and they chased her constantly. Before I knew it the scopus tang had ick.

[organicreefer]

hey rhonda ,just a suggestion :maybe you could pick up another vitamin supplement or two(zoe and combisan are the two i use along with selcon).imo varying the diet includes the supplements.cant hurt(except maybe youre wallet )again,i hope the scopus gets better,ive had more than one tang that has fought it off.

[FISHme]

I had an ich outbrake from live brine and used KYOLIC aged garlic extract. It's expensive but worth it when you figure how much you already spend on your tank / s .
I would feed the garlic only during treatment , this way you can build up the garlic in their system faster.
I used freeze dried blood worms and the fish went crazy for the stuff.
I would not think the garlic would be bad for the fish but it is for sure good for us.
It worked for me very well.
Good luck !!!!!!

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[Bughead]

Here's an interesting article. www.geocities.com/horge1218/garlic.html

[organicreefer]

ive heard soo many positive comments,that if(when )the bug hits me again ,ill certainly try it.