I recently got 6 small blue dempsey from Jeff Rapps and about two weeks later one of them got hex. I treated with Metronidazole for ten days with daily water changes and began feeding garic soaked food. (46 gallon tank, changed 15-20 gal daily and re-administered metro.) Any way long story short I lost the sick one, but the other five are thriving, and I have continued with the garlic for aprx. a week. I generaly take a pinch full of New Life Spectrum place it in a cup and add 1 drop of Kent Marine Garlic Extreme and then feed this garlic soaked food twice daily. My question is, is this acceptable? Am I overdoing it? or am I just giving my fish bad breath? I dont want to do more harm than good, and I greatly appreciate the help! Thanks-Mark
Feeding Garlic
- Thread starter markege3650
- Start date
well, for one, your tank is going to be horribly over stocked when those fish get bigger. they get about 11 inches long and are VERY agressive. you're going to need about a 250-300 gallon tank by the time they're adults.
The Garlic thory has been out there for a little while, I haven't been able to find good definative informatin for or against it. The big thing that comes to mind for me is that healthy fish don't need medicated. I personally would not continue feeding garlic unless there was some issue. But I cannot say that you are causing any harm by doing so either.
Also out of curiosity, did you soak the met into the food or just put it in the tank. Met for me has never done much when mixed in the water column, it does wonders when fed directly to the fish though.
Dave
Also out of curiosity, did you soak the met into the food or just put it in the tank. Met for me has never done much when mixed in the water column, it does wonders when fed directly to the fish though.
Dave
Was it Hex or spironucleous?
A relatively easy on the fish medication is levamisole hydrochloride. I used it to deworm Microgeophgus ramirezi specimens when I was actively breeding that species. I never lost a fish to the meds. And, one of the beauties of that particular med is that it is used as a bath and is taken into the fish as a routine part of the osmo regulatory process. No need for special food prep or purchase of medicated foods. It gets to the problem without any help.
I purchased it in a powder form at a farm supply store--it can be difficult to track down. I have read that it is rendered ineffective in pH levels above 7.0. I have read that it works in pH above 7.0. My pH was 6.4-6.6 so pH level was not an issue for me.
Here is a link that discusses the med a litle better than i have time for:
http://loaches.com/faq_parasites.html
A relatively easy on the fish medication is levamisole hydrochloride. I used it to deworm Microgeophgus ramirezi specimens when I was actively breeding that species. I never lost a fish to the meds. And, one of the beauties of that particular med is that it is used as a bath and is taken into the fish as a routine part of the osmo regulatory process. No need for special food prep or purchase of medicated foods. It gets to the problem without any help.
I purchased it in a powder form at a farm supply store--it can be difficult to track down. I have read that it is rendered ineffective in pH levels above 7.0. I have read that it works in pH above 7.0. My pH was 6.4-6.6 so pH level was not an issue for me.
Here is a link that discusses the med a litle better than i have time for:
http://loaches.com/faq_parasites.html
Thanks Dave, I used the Metro. as a bath and soaked my food in it, however the second day the one sick fish stoped eating. I read a few threads on here that mentioned a food by jungle that contains Metro as a main ingredient (I belive it was 1%) so I tried that and a food called Gel-Tek that has Metro and Prazi in it. The fish ignored the two store bought medicated foods and only ate the food I soaked in Metro.
Thank you too Sully, I'm not 100% on wich it was. I caught it the first day of syptoms. (hiding behavior, stringy white feces, refusal to eat) I took the fish the next day to The Aquarium Center (don't know if you've heard of it but it's the best fish store I've ever been to) they have a medical dept. there and I had the fish & excrement examined and was told it had Hex. I think I'm going to buy a microscope this weekend for further instances. Thank you also for the link on the de-wormer, I've heard of that recently. Haven't heard about the PH issue though, hope it's not so, mine is 7.4
Thanks guys!-Mark
Thank you too Sully, I'm not 100% on wich it was. I caught it the first day of syptoms. (hiding behavior, stringy white feces, refusal to eat) I took the fish the next day to The Aquarium Center (don't know if you've heard of it but it's the best fish store I've ever been to) they have a medical dept. there and I had the fish & excrement examined and was told it had Hex. I think I'm going to buy a microscope this weekend for further instances. Thank you also for the link on the de-wormer, I've heard of that recently. Haven't heard about the PH issue though, hope it's not so, mine is 7.4
Thanks guys!-Mark
The "thing" in garlic that is supposed to be good is allicin (I think I spelled that correctly). It has been proven to stimulate appetite and have all sorts of effects on different things. How much of that transfers to fish is obviously much less documented. It supposedly is somethign that internal parasites don't like.
Here are some random things I just pulled up:
I'm not sure if you can see this. I'm on a university network with full publication access to this journal, but:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/searc.../mcb/017/1996/00000096/00000001/art00006&unc=
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q="allicin"+and+"garlic"+
Garlic is supposed to be good for humans...it's in a lot of vitamin supplements and stuff. I don't see harm in fish eating it (but don't go overboard). However, I see no real reason to do it unless you are tryign to treat something (sometimes fish lose appetite when sick and garlic can help entice them to eat).
Here are some random things I just pulled up:
I'm not sure if you can see this. I'm on a university network with full publication access to this journal, but:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/searc.../mcb/017/1996/00000096/00000001/art00006&unc=
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q="allicin"+and+"garlic"+
Garlic is supposed to be good for humans...it's in a lot of vitamin supplements and stuff. I don't see harm in fish eating it (but don't go overboard). However, I see no real reason to do it unless you are tryign to treat something (sometimes fish lose appetite when sick and garlic can help entice them to eat).
I started as an extra line of defense against the Hex. attacking my other fish. It is listed as an ingredient in New Life Spectrum and the Kent Marine Extreme Garlic states that it is all natural so I figured it may be worth it to carry it on for a little while
thanks for the articles Leo, none of them have any negative things to say about garlic, but their about its effects and benefits on humans. I dont see how they would have any ill effects on fish though. Just looking for others two cents on the matter. I don't plan to feed them garlic constantly, I'll slack off soon droping back to one feeding daily for a week and then maybe every 3-4 days or so. It just makes me a little more comfortable feeding it knowing that there was some internal nasty in my tank. It's been almost two weeks now since the end of my ten day Metro treatment so I hope all is well, maybe the garlic helped tip the scale in the right direction.