Garlic in pond to threat parasites

[Magzire]

Anyone done this or have any experience?

 

[Lisak1]

What's your thought? I know people put garlic in their fish food - koi love it. But I don't know if they use it for parasite treatment... although it works in humans to rid your gut of certain parasites.


Are you thinking of feeding it to the fish or introducing it to the water somehow?

 

[Faebinder]

Like vampires, parasites are not really bothered by garlic. You'd need a lot of garlic to kill parasites.

Lets put it this way.. if it really worked, doctors would be prescribing it for parasitic infections.

 

[Jhn]

My experiences with garlic come from the saltwater/reef keeping world. Where it's uses/benefits are anecdotal. I.e. I added garlic to my fish food over a few days and ich disappeared from my fish. Maybe it was because of the garlic maybe not. The active ingredient in garlic is allicin, which does have some antibacterial/ protozoan benefits.

Dosing it in the pond water to me would be a bad idea. One it would be expensive, just to add the amount of garlic extract to the pond water to be effective would be expensive. The idea is you add enough that it coats the fish, and tricks the ich trophonts into not attaching to the fish.

Adding it to the food ....ehhh, there is some evidence that it damages the fishes liver if used long term as a preventive. Not sure how effective it would be to treat parasites, as the fish digest it, how much actually gets into their blood stream and is not just processed out of their body.

I use beta glucan ( can be found at GNC) soaked foods (a few times a week) as an immunostimulant in my saltwater tanks and have done so for a very long time. Has been years, since I lost any fish to illness/disease. Now that being said I don't feed my pond fish anything but pellets etc.

 

[Lisak1]

if it really worked, doctors would be prescribing it for parasitic infections.

Hmmm... I'm not so sure about that. Modern medicine relies heavily on modern pharmaceuticals. There's no money to be made from prescribing a good dose of garlic, so no one does the research, so no one finds if it works, so no one prescribes it. However, that still doesn't mean it doesn't work. Lots of things work that doctors don't prescribe... and lots of things would get better all on their own without doctors getting involved at all. (Not a big fan of a lot of our current medical practices.)

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Garlic is considered to be one of the best probiotics around for strengthening the immune system in all animals and does have some positive effect in treating internal parasites and bacterial issues. I have never seen any documentation on it being used or being effective as an external anti-bacterial, anti-viral or anti-parasitic agent.
Even if it was, can you imagine the quantity of garlic required for even a small pond?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Add cheese to their diet.it is also proven to be a great probiotic.The darker yellow the cheese the better.

 

[Lisak1]

I think garlic is considered a prebiotic - it supports the probiotic activity in the gut.

 

[Magzire]

Some interesting points. I did hear it did wonders for ich, better than most medicines. Obviously there is no proof for that.
I did slice a whole garlic bulb earlier and added to the filter. Definitely can smell it in the water. However I need pounds of garlic to have any effect?
Something tells me it's a good idea to add garlic, just like adding salt.

 

[Magzire]

What's your thought? I know people put garlic in their fish food - koi love it. But I don't know if they use it for parasite treatment... although it works in humans to rid your gut of certain parasites.


Are you thinking of feeding it to the fish or introducing it to the water somehow?

Will try that later today. I'll add it to their skrimp which they go crazy for. Interesting to see if they will still eat it.

Crush the garlic and add water with chopped skrimp for 10 mins? Or just rub it in?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

I think garlic is considered a prebiotic - it supports the probiotic activity in the gut.

I believe that you are correct. I keep getting the two mixed up.
Point is garlic bolsters the immune system.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Something tells me it's a good idea to add garlic, just like adding salt.

That was a sarcasm, right? I truly hope so..
If you are going to put garlic and salt in the pond water, why not include celery, onion, and bell pepper. If the fish die just place them in a pot along with the pond water and they are ready to cook.

 

[Magzire]

Die from what?
If it's good against ich why not add it to prevent it happening in the first place? Since it's natural antibiotic and not harmful.
Bell peppers, good idea!!

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Die from what?
If it's good against ich why not add it to prevent it happening in the first place? Since it's natural antibiotic and not harmful.
Bell peppers, good idea!!

Fish die from many different causes, like humans and all other animals.

It hss only been proven effective against internal parasites. Ich is external. When treating Ich you are not targeting the attached parasites but rather the unhatched cysts that are floating in the water column. It takes a strong oxidizer to eliminate them.and disrupt the parasites life cycle.

 

[moby]

Garlic for Koi, just think what their breath will smell like the following morning....naaaaasty!