Does Garlic help ich - Page 2

SoLiD · 01/28/2009, 02:06 AM

I typed this out on my home forum, Maast.org. I hope you all don't mind the copy and paste:

First off, please don't take this like I am picking on anyone; I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slowdog
...Garlic supplements did nothing - there is some controversy about whether the active ingredient actually ever gets to the skin of the fish....

The main purpose for using garlic is to entice your fish to eat. A fish that is eating has a better chance of survival versus one that is weakening from starvation. The other reasons that people claim to use it for have yet to be definitively proven.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slowdog
FW Dips...

Fresh water or Hypo-salinity (lowered salinity) dips work by causing osmotic shock to the Ich (aka Crypt) protozoan single cellular structure. The sudden pressure change will cause the cell wall to rupture or burst. Thus killing it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slowdog
with Methylene Blue only seemed to weaken the fish.

Methylene Blue is intended as an anti-fungal and antibacterial solution. Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) is a single celled protozoan that is considered an external parasite. Ich is not a fungus or a bacteria.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slowdog
At that point, I removed the fish and put it into the hospital tank with a JBJ UV Sterilizer thinking that would do the trick. The result was also absolutely no effect on the ick.

Ich has 4 major stages in it's life cycle. The use of UV use will mainly reduce\kill the number of "free swimming" tomites and protomonts. If the flow of water is too fast through the contact\reaction chamber the ich will not be destroyed. Most UV sterilizer manufacturers recommend 3 flow rates for eliminating different things such as bacteria, algae, and parasites. The flow rate for killing parasites is always on the slowest recommendation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by slowdog
Finally, I went with the old fashioned method and dosed the hospital tank with Cupramine. The ick was finally gone after 1 month. I resisted copper as long as I could, but in the end, it seemed to be the only thing that worked...

Copper is a heavy metal that will kill ciliated protozoan's, which is what marine and freshwater ich are.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jrodriguez
one solution is to raise the temperature to 85 degrees SLOWLY and it will get to where the bugs(ICK) will not be able to tolerate the heat so they will die. leave it at 85 for about a week or two and you will see a difference. we have done that. it did go away in about a week so we left it at 85 for another week until it was finally gone. and have been ick free for about a month and a half... hope this helps. corals, anemones, and livestock will be fine.

80F to 85F is the ideal temperature. By raising the temperature it will Shorten or Speed Up the Life Cycle of the Ich parasite. This decreases the time that the free swimming tomites will have to find a host before they Die. Lowering the temperature will slow down or prolong it's life cycle. The warmer temperature will speed up treatment time. This will also give your UV\Ozone a chance to destroy the free swimming ich in the least amount wait of time.

-David

MotherFish · 01/28/2009, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SoLiD First off, please don't take this like I am picking on anyone; I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions.

Hi Dave,
Don't worry, we're all here for the same reason... to get the best, most reliable, and helpful information we can.
In that same spirit, I just thought something should be clarified from part of your post for those that don't already know.

Quote:

Originally posted by SoLiD
Quote:
Originally Posted by slowdog
FW Dips...

Fresh water or Hypo-salinity (lowered salinity) dips work by causing osmotic shock to the Ich (aka Crypt) protozoan single cellular structure. The sudden pressure change will cause the cell wall to rupture or burst. Thus killing it.

Just so no one makes the wrong assumption, hyposalinity treatment and FW dips are not the same thing.
While a "dip" is usually a very brief (measured in minutes/hours) treatment, a proper hyposalinity treatment for Ich lasts 4-8 weeks at a very specific salinity of 1.009sg.

A FW dip will not reach and kill Ich that has encysted under the skin. (Same applies to copper, cleaner shrimps/wrasses, etc.)
FW, hypo, and copper are only effective against the unprotected free-swimming form of Ich.

Stuart60611 · 01/28/2009, 10:38 AM

I have read that a single strain of ich untreated in the display will eventually die on its own after approximately 11 months of introduction into the system because it can only reproduce a certain number of times. I know this theory was based on a study where they were trying to infect fish with ich from a culture and could not do so b/c the culture died after about 11 months.

Curious if anyone has actually experienced this? I have read ithis in several places, but I have yet to have anyone ever confirm this based on personal experience.

If this is true, one approach may simply be to keep the fish fed well, along with maintaining high water quality and wait things out. I know that this approach may not be popular with some, but it may be the only feasible option when one has a lot of fish and insufficient means of quarantining all of the fish.

SoLiD · 01/28/2009, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MotherFish Just so no one makes the wrong assumption, hyposalinity treatment and FW dips are not the same thing.
While a "dip" is usually a very brief (measured in minutes/hours) treatment, a proper hyposalinity treatment for Ich lasts 4-8 weeks at a very specific salinity of 1.009sg.

A FW dip will not reach and kill Ich that has encysted under the skin. (Same applies to copper, cleaner shrimps/wrasses, etc.)
FW, hypo, and copper are only effective against the unprotected free-swimming form of Ich. [/B]

I was refering to FW & HS "Dips" not "Hyposalinity Treatment". I was also trying to Keep Things Simple for my previous readers. Non the less, thanks for expanding on my statement. Your information was factual and informative. Thanks Again.

MotherFish · 01/28/2009, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Stuart60611
If this is true, one approach may simply be to keep the fish fed well, along with maintaining high water quality and wait things out. I know that this approach may not be popular with some, but it may be the only feasible option when one has a lot of fish and insufficient means of quarantining all of the fish.

You're referring to Burgess & Matthews' failed attempt to keep an active culture going for research.
However, that approach has a few major flaws.

Ich usually results in fatality by two methods.
One is infection of the open wounds left behind by the exiting parasite, and the other is by suffocation when the parasites infest the gills in too great a number.
One flaw is that your fish may not be lucky enough to avoid either of those situations for the 6-12 months to develop a "partial immunity" or degeneration of the Ich cell line.

Another flaw is that in Burgess & Matthews case, they were keeping 7 isolates in a controlled environment, basically quarantine tanks specifically for the breeding of Ich.
In that isolated environment the individual cell lines degenerated and became unviable after 11-12 months.
This is very different from the typical aquarium environment where new fish, corals, and inverts would be coming and going over that 11-12 months possibly bringing in new cell lines of Ich, especially if there was no QT procedure in place for any of the new additions.

As for personal experience with how long they can survive, I have had systems that were treated with alternative "reefsafe" methods that appeared to work initially, but left a low-level infestation of Ich which survived for over two years before eventually flaring up and causing a problem again.
Of course, these were regular display systems and weren't completely isolated systems like Burgess & Matthews used in their research so I don't think it can be used to prove or disprove the theory.

In any case, keeping an empty hospital or quarantine tank stashed away for new arrivals or sick fish really isn't that expensive or difficult when you consider all that we go through and how much we have invested.
I would definitely advise anyone in the hobby to seriously consider an extra 20 to 55g tank (or even a rubbermaid tub) and a cheap sponge filter to setup and use as a QT when the need arises.

stuccodude · 01/28/2009, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Freed
Numerous people are amazed by it and then spread it as a cure, which it isn't. Then others see this "cure" and follow it as gospel. If they would study the actual FACTS about ich and the only proven cures, they would realize that garlic is a total myth at this point in time.
This is why it's so frustrating to try to help people when so much misinformation is being spread as actual fact.

you have to understand when a person like myself gets ich bad and treats my tank with kents garlic extreme and within days its gone and its been over 2 years then im gonna relay the message especialy to somone who doesnt own a qt tank or cant catch a fish, you ever tried to catch a firefish, i aint gonna happen. i truly believe in garlic, its proven mosquitoes dont like to host people with garlic in there system, maybe same goes as ich?

Stuart60611 · 01/28/2009, 01:14 PM

Motherfish:

Ya, if you are constantly adding things to the system you could certainly bring in a new strain of ich with any new addition. It would be interesting, however, to know if you do not add a single thing to the system after the introduction of ich whether the ich can, indeed, survive beyond the approximate 12 month period. I agree that certain fish would likely not survive the 12 month waiting period, such as many angels or tangs. However, for example, my experience has been that triggers, rabitfish and hawkfish, to name a few, seem to tolerate ich pretty well and often keep the infestation subclinical and rarely die as a result of the infestation. If you house these kind of fish who also often require large quarantine tanks, it may make some scense to wait things out if the ich would eventually die on its own within a reasonable time.

MotherFish · 01/28/2009, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by stuccodude
you have to understand when a person like myself gets ich bad and treats my tank with kents garlic extreme and within days its gone and its been over 2 years then im gonna relay the message especialy to somone who doesnt own a qt tank or cant catch a fish, you ever tried to catch a firefish, i aint gonna happen. i truly believe in garlic, its proven mosquitoes dont like to host people with garlic in there system, maybe same goes as ich?

And this is exactly how the myth about garlic or other home remedies gets spread.

The natural lifecycle of Ich causes it to drop off the fish after a few days of feeding, giving the appearance that whatever remedy you are using worked, when all that's happened is the next phase of it's normal lifecycle.

Between naturally aquired partial immunity, and the fact that even under ideal conditions only 5-20% of the free-swimming form of Ich find a host, you could very easily keep a low-level infestation in your tank for years and not notice it until the situation changes enough for the infestation to become a full-blown epidemic.

That is exactly the case I mentioned above from my own experience just before you posted.
Before I actually researched and understood about Ich I tried using several "reefsafe" treatments, some garlic-based, which mistakenly appeared to work.
Unfortunately it wasn't until two years later that I learned the hard way that what I was seeing was just one of the natural forms that a low-level infestation can take, and that the garlic itself was no cure in any way.

In all of the thousands of research experiments on Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon Irritans) since it's discovery over a hundred years ago, there's not one documented case that has found any evidence that garlic killed or cured Ich... of course, the cold, hard facts will in no way stop well meaning hobbyists from spreading the rumors that garlic, ginger, pepper, or voodoo dolls happened to miraculously cure their own particular case.

Freed · 01/28/2009, 02:20 PM

Mother, you ever feel like this when people won't listen to fact and proven documentation?

MotherFish · 01/28/2009, 03:08 PM

Yes, Freed, but then I take a deep breath and remember that

A) it took me years to learn the hard way,

B) even those that stubbornly oppose the facts are still trying to be helpful in their own way, and

C) this is a newbie forum so combatting massive amounts of misinformation with an equally massive amount of patience is a requirement.

(btw, I love that "priceless" quote in your footer.)

greenbean36191 · 01/28/2009, 04:58 PM

Quote:

It would be interesting, however, to know if you do not add a single thing to the system after the introduction of ich whether the ich can, indeed, survive beyond the approximate 12 month period.

Yes. Burgess and Matthews were the only ones to ever encounter this limitation in their work. Other researchers have been unable to duplicate these results. It's not something I would even remotely count on happening.

atblj5 · 01/28/2009, 08:28 PM

Can anyone tell me that Garlic does not help the slim coat of the fish ,I was told it does help the fish in that way.

MotherFish · 01/29/2009, 12:16 AM

Yes, I can definitely tell you that it doesn't help.

It has not helped in my 30 years of personal experience.
It has not helped in any scientific experiments from our current crop of noted marine biologists experts and authors from Burgess/Matthews to Moe and Sprung.
It has not helped according to any verifiable research results from the last 100 years since Ich was first discovered back in the 1890's.
I don't know what you want to hear, but the causes and cures for Ich are the same as they were before you or I were born.
Read the sticky at top or some of the articles that your fellow reefers are trying to steer you to and you'll be just fine.
Best wishes!

01/28/2009, 02:06 AM	#26
SoLiD -=Snake=- Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Corpus Christi, TX Posts: 999	I typed this out on my home forum, Maast.org. I hope you all don't mind the copy and paste: First off, please don't take this like I am picking on anyone; I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions. Quote: Originally Posted by slowdog ...Garlic supplements did nothing - there is some controversy about whether the active ingredient actually ever gets to the skin of the fish.... The main purpose for using garlic is to entice your fish to eat. A fish that is eating has a better chance of survival versus one that is weakening from starvation. The other reasons that people claim to use it for have yet to be definitively proven. Quote: Originally Posted by slowdog FW Dips... Fresh water or Hypo-salinity (lowered salinity) dips work by causing osmotic shock to the Ich (aka Crypt) protozoan single cellular structure. The sudden pressure change will cause the cell wall to rupture or burst. Thus killing it. Quote: Originally Posted by slowdog with Methylene Blue only seemed to weaken the fish. Methylene Blue is intended as an anti-fungal and antibacterial solution. Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) is a single celled protozoan that is considered an external parasite. Ich is not a fungus or a bacteria. Quote: Originally Posted by slowdog At that point, I removed the fish and put it into the hospital tank with a JBJ UV Sterilizer thinking that would do the trick. The result was also absolutely no effect on the ick. Ich has 4 major stages in it's life cycle. The use of UV use will mainly reduce\kill the number of "free swimming" tomites and protomonts. If the flow of water is too fast through the contact\reaction chamber the ich will not be destroyed. Most UV sterilizer manufacturers recommend 3 flow rates for eliminating different things such as bacteria, algae, and parasites. The flow rate for killing parasites is always on the slowest recommendation. Quote: Originally Posted by slowdog Finally, I went with the old fashioned method and dosed the hospital tank with Cupramine. The ick was finally gone after 1 month. I resisted copper as long as I could, but in the end, it seemed to be the only thing that worked... Copper is a heavy metal that will kill ciliated protozoan's, which is what marine and freshwater ich are. Quote: Originally Posted by jrodriguez one solution is to raise the temperature to 85 degrees SLOWLY and it will get to where the bugs(ICK) will not be able to tolerate the heat so they will die. leave it at 85 for about a week or two and you will see a difference. we have done that. it did go away in about a week so we left it at 85 for another week until it was finally gone. and have been ick free for about a month and a half... hope this helps. corals, anemones, and livestock will be fine. 80F to 85F is the ideal temperature. By raising the temperature it will Shorten or Speed Up the Life Cycle of the Ich parasite. This decreases the time that the free swimming tomites will have to find a host before they Die. Lowering the temperature will slow down or prolong it's life cycle. The warmer temperature will speed up treatment time. This will also give your UV\Ozone a chance to destroy the free swimming ich in the least amount wait of time. -David __________________ -David 40 Gallon Breeder on Steroids!!! Current Tank Info: Where you'll find an Acan and Orange Ricordea Garden in Bloom... Last edited by SoLiD; 01/28/2009 at 02:13 AM.

01/28/2009, 02:20 PM	#34
Freed It's what it's Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: 41° 2' 45" N 85° 8' 43" W Posts: 7,579	Mother, you ever feel like this when people won't listen to fact and proven documentation? __________________ Freed Current Tank Info: 180gal(1120 watts of MH/VHO light), 60gal "sump", Deltec 601 calcium reactor, Euro Reef CS8-3+ skimmer, 20 gallon QT

01/28/2009, 10:38 AM	#28
Stuart60611 Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 2,979	I have read that a single strain of ich untreated in the display will eventually die on its own after approximately 11 months of introduction into the system because it can only reproduce a certain number of times. I know this theory was based on a study where they were trying to infect fish with ich from a culture and could not do so b/c the culture died after about 11 months. Curious if anyone has actually experienced this? I have read ithis in several places, but I have yet to have anyone ever confirm this based on personal experience. If this is true, one approach may simply be to keep the fish fed well, along with maintaining high water quality and wait things out. I know that this approach may not be popular with some, but it may be the only feasible option when one has a lot of fish and insufficient means of quarantining all of the fish.

01/28/2009, 01:14 PM	#32
Stuart60611 Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 2,979	Motherfish: Ya, if you are constantly adding things to the system you could certainly bring in a new strain of ich with any new addition. It would be interesting, however, to know if you do not add a single thing to the system after the introduction of ich whether the ich can, indeed, survive beyond the approximate 12 month period. I agree that certain fish would likely not survive the 12 month waiting period, such as many angels or tangs. However, for example, my experience has been that triggers, rabitfish and hawkfish, to name a few, seem to tolerate ich pretty well and often keep the infestation subclinical and rarely die as a result of the infestation. If you house these kind of fish who also often require large quarantine tanks, it may make some scense to wait things out if the ich would eventually die on its own within a reasonable time.

01/28/2009, 03:08 PM	#35
MotherFish Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 208	Yes, Freed, but then I take a deep breath and remember that A) it took me years to learn the hard way, B) even those that stubbornly oppose the facts are still trying to be helpful in their own way, and C) this is a newbie forum so combatting massive amounts of misinformation with an equally massive amount of patience is a requirement. (btw, I love that "priceless" quote in your footer.)

01/28/2009, 08:28 PM	#37
atblj5 Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: N.H. Posts: 382	Can anyone tell me that Garlic does not help the slim coat of the fish ,I was told it does help the fish in that way.

01/29/2009, 12:16 AM	#38
MotherFish Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 208	Yes, I can definitely tell you that it doesn't help. It has not helped in my 30 years of personal experience. It has not helped in any scientific experiments from our current crop of noted marine biologists experts and authors from Burgess/Matthews to Moe and Sprung. It has not helped according to any verifiable research results from the last 100 years since Ich was first discovered back in the 1890's. I don't know what you want to hear, but the causes and cures for Ich are the same as they were before you or I were born. Read the sticky at top or some of the articles that your fellow reefers are trying to steer you to and you'll be just fine. Best wishes!