# Benefits of Garlic



## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

There have been a number of studies conducted on the benefits of garlic given to fish. It was concluded that marine bass injected with garlic had stronger immune systems than those injected with antibiotics (which suppressed the immune system) or antibiotics (streptomycin) and garlic combined (Colorni et al, 1998). Both Kent and Seachem have products containing garlic as an appetite stimulant.

I am currently mixing a small amount of crushed garlic in with mysis shrimp, daphnia and flake. I'm quite sure my rams (Microgeophagus ramirezi) have internal parasites as their rectums appear to bulge and their feces are large white masses. I also started (Seachem) Sulfathiazole as it was all I had (and could obtain at the time).

Has anyone else tried using garlic for internal parasites? If so, what were your results?


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Tabatha said:


> There have been a number of studies conducted on the benefits of garlic given to fish. It was concluded that marine bass injected with garlic had stronger immune systems than those injected with antibiotics (which suppressed the immune system) or antibiotics (streptomycin) and garlic combined (Colorni et al, 1998). Both Kent and Seachem have products containing garlic as an appetite stimulant.
> 
> I am currently mixing a small amount of crushed garlic in with mysis shrimp, daphnia and flake. I'm quite sure my rams (Microgeophagus ramirezi) have internal parasites as their rectums appear to bulge and their feces are large white masses. I also started (Seachem) Sulfathiazole as it was all I had (and could obtain at the time).
> 
> Has anyone else tried using garlic for internal parasites? If so, what were your results?


Yes, they are fantastic stuff if you manage to get your fish to eat it. They will definately flush out any internal parasites. NLS (New life Spectrum) thera have high contents of garlic in it. You might want to try that if you food flakes failed. Although, I have to admit, making your own food flakes might be much healthier for the fish as you control what kind of stuff goes into it.

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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Zebrapl3co said:


> Yes, they are fantastic stuff if you manage to get your fish to eat it. They will definately flush out any internal parasites. NLS (New life Spectrum) thera have high contents of garlic in it. You might want to try that if you food flakes failed. Although, I have to admit, making your own food flakes might be much healthier for the fish as you control what kind of stuff goes into it.



I have witnessed some of the fish eating the small chunks of garlic (especially angels and gouramis), even if they don't eat the chunks, the bbs has been soaking in water and garlic and some of the water is poured into the tank -- and what fish can say no to bbs???


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## moon (Mar 11, 2006)

I add garlic to both my beef hart and veggie mix. BH is fed to discus and veggie to most of my SA chiclids. They love this stuff and had no problems with worms.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

I have a beef heart in the freezer, waiting to be made into fish food, it'll be my first batch!  I make up the majority of our cat's & dog's food as well (raw).


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## moon (Mar 11, 2006)

My bh recepie consists of 50/50 mix bh and shrimp and fish with garlic and some greens like spinach. Blend the whole thing and add unflavoured gelatine to bind it.
I make a similar mix with peas, spinach and sea food for the veg eating fish like goephagus and SA chiclids


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## Katalyst (Jul 29, 2007)

http://www.toppits.com/cubes_products.html

Here are the garlic cubes that I use. I picked them up in the veggie section of Canadian Superstore.

I leave it out for 20 minutes to thaw usually but microwave it in a small bowl for 10 seconds in a pinch add about a teaspoon of water or less to create a slurry and then mix in flakes, pellets etc.

Its easier then crushing fresh cloves from paste so I take the path of least resistance.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Moon: Thanks for the recipe! I guess the gelatin is a must?

Kat: I've used those before, they're great! I'm using up the fresh garlic we have in the house, which now smells of garlic, even after 12 hours


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

I don't want to pry in your thread but I wanted to say that I object in the highest order to feeding beefheart or any mammal protein to fish unless it is absolutely necessary.

It's a long explanation as to why- I'm happy to get you the info if you'd like it- but basically, you don't have anything which would benefit from the extremely high protein level in the beefheart. Everything you have (that I know of) would benefit much more from crustacean and fish protein. In the case especially of dwarf cichlids, which have somewhat fragile digestive systems, and of angelfish, they will both see much greater benefits from a greater level of crustacean matter and fish milt meal- especially angels, which are mostly surface area, look absolutely spectacular on a high keratin, high omega diet.

There's totally no need to feed any of your fish beefheart. Remember that excess protein in the diet can, in itself, lead to several issues in many fish, including moderate gigantism, and malformation of the body, as well as possible digestive complications.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Hey Pablo, thanks for your input, I've heard that before and can see the validity of it.

Can you provide links to sites with this information and alternative recipes?

Thanks,


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## Katalyst (Jul 29, 2007)

Omega One I believe also makes a garlic flake. 

I've been feeding Ken's Egg Flakes and mixing the garlic in and brine shrimp garlic flakes as well.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Katalyst said:


> Omega One I believe also makes a garlic flake.
> 
> I've been feeding Ken's Egg Flakes and mixing the garlic in and brine shrimp garlic flakes as well.


I bought Omega One Cichlid Flakes on recommendation but the fish don't seem to like it all that much, they preferred Hikari community flake. I also have NLS cichlid pellets but the tetra can't eat those.

Haven't heard of "Ken's Egg Flakes" is that a goldfish food?


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## Katalyst (Jul 29, 2007)

Tabatha said:


> I bought Omega One Cichlid Flakes on recommendation but the fish don't seem to like it all that much, they preferred Hikari community flake. I also have NLS cichlid pellets but the tetra can't eat those.
> 
> Haven't heard of "Ken's Egg Flakes" is that a goldfish food?[/FONT]


Nope its an American site...

www.kensfish.com

I started using his earthworm sticks and meat wafers for several pleco's and ended up ordering quite a bit of food from him. The brine shrimp garlic flakes are a hit with the livebearers, then again they eat anything and everything.


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

Tabatha said:


> Hey Pablo, thanks for your input, I've heard that before and can see the validity of it.
> 
> Can you provide links to sites with this information and alternative recipes?
> 
> Thanks,


I encourage you to google it. In terms of alternatives feed a very high quality diet like good FRESH NLS and (we're talking angels/dwarfs) mysis shrimp, some krill, a good shrimp pellet like Omega One... tonnes of water changes. In the case of the angels, lots of delicious baby guppies

I also had a formula put together that I was planning to make into my own food. Never got around to it. A little macabre... in the end it should be pretty much the ideal diet for angelfish if I figured it out right...

You'll need Knox pure gelatin powder to hold it all together- freeze, cube, make little tiny pieces (these should maintain their shape once thawed then fed to fish)

So here goes. I did not work out the ratios precisely so this is just the rough draft... It ought to work well though..

Gelatin < as per instructions, enough to congeal *Mak'er stick
Tilapia fillet <approx 200 gram *freshwater protein, super easy to digest
Salmon Milt< approx 9"x3" *angelfish are mostly skin- salmon milt is skin
frozen cyclops (ocean nutrition brand rocks) 1 small pack 
Frozen mysis shrimp 1/2 ounce
frozen daphnia 1/2 ounce *these 3 crustaceans provide like a zillion nutrients 
approx 40gram of noori (seaweed) *is excellent for the health of the fish 
1 clove of garlic *immune system helper

grind everything to like a goo in a food processor, freeze, gelatinize, cube, feed

This would be too rich for every meal. A moderate amount fed first thing in the morning IMO _could_ do great things... Its all there in my head...

It would likely need to be tweaked to up the fiber- in any case make sure to chase it with high fiber like HBH veggie flake or something with atleast 4% fiber, and a fair bit of it


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## JamesG (Feb 27, 2007)

Maybe this is worthy of a new thread but does anyone use any other 'potent' plant tissues to treat/prevent microorganism infections in their fish?

I took a botany class in Uni. all about the anti-herbivarys that plants produce. Basically anything that gives food a really strong flavour was developed by the plant to deter/kill some organism that was doing it harm. A common example is the collection of molecules that give heat to hot peppers or even bell peppers. Garlic works on the same principle. 

Anyone know of any fish-related applications of this aside from garlic?


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Bentonite clay, which used to be a plant matter, is sometimes used to deworm cats and dogs. There is a human version or "human grade" as well, to pull out heavy metals. I did read somewhere recently, that a type of clay was used in aquariums but I forget for what reason. May very well have been parasites.


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## I_dude (May 9, 2008)

*Really interesting topic*

Hi,

Thanks for startign this thread.
I have been reading for quite a while about the beneficial aspects fo garlic for fish health. (Well human health too but thats a different topic)

What I find difficult is to get the fish to eat the garlic in the first place.
As I didn't know what else is included in garlic cubes I started with very thin and tiny slices of fresh garlic. No dice none of the fish went for it and I had to pull it out of the tank.

I then tried pureed fresh garlic very tiny amount. This was looked at with a lil more curiousity but only small amounts were eaten. Majority ended up on the aquarium floor with me faced with the headache of trying to clean up the small flakes at the bottom.

So do you dudes and dudettes find that mixing in the garlic with flakes is more readliy taken up by your fish?

Thanks
P.S: Does it ever feel like you are cooking your fish when you add garlic. I can't shake that nagging feeling that I am marinating my fish  I guess its the smell of the garlic even though its such trace amounts. (This last bit is a joke btw in case anyone thinks I am torturing the fish)


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## Cory_Dad (Apr 18, 2008)

There has been some research done on this and there is some experimental data that shows garlic is effective controlling internal nematodes.

You might try grinding up raw (peeled) shrimp and mixing in the garlic puree. Put the resulting mixture into a freezer bag, flatten it out and freeze it. Once it's frozen you can break off little pieces to fed your fish over a 4 week period. It's even suppose to be good for fish who don't have parasites.

Oh, I actually prefer garlic (butter) with snails over garlic with fish...


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

Tabatha said:


> Bentonite clay, which used to be a plant matter, is sometimes used to deworm cats and dogs. There is a human version or "human grade" as well, to pull out heavy metals. I did read somewhere recently, that a type of clay was used in aquariums but I forget for what reason. May very well have been parasites.


Dainichi uses this clay in their foods. I honestly think Dainichi makes the finest commercial fish feed on the planet- and I've tried em all pretty much


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

Clay can "pull out heavy metals"? That's starting to sound completely bogus.

Sample crackpot site:

http://www.thepetalternative.com/bathingclay.html

W


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

KhuliLoachFan said:


> Clay can "pull out heavy metals"? That's starting to sound completely bogus.
> 
> Sample crackpot site:
> 
> ...


Don't knock it till you try it. I also think the use of the term "crackpot" is unnecessary.


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

I work professionally in the field of analytical chemistry, particularly in heavy metals analysis in water and air, and I find the claims made about nearly miraculous "detoxifying" properties of various substances are often made with zero evidence. 

W


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

Yet Chinese herbalists have been practicing for centuries. Where do chemicals and drugs initially come from? Where did science and chemistry begin?


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

i don't think he's talking about holistic medicine. even if he was, a good deal of holistic/herbalist/traditional eastern medicinal practices can infact be confirmed with empirical evidence. 

I believe KLF was talking about this in regards to miracle aquarium treatments that we all tend to see every where (fizzing COz tablets, anyone?)

And I have to agree w/ KLF's analysis of that website. the second paragraph talks about using clay to remove radiation after chemo or x-rays....that's pretty damned suspect to me. Once exposed to radiation in any really dangerous quantity, the damage is done. Flesh is damaged, and once the radiated particles pass through solid material doing damaged, the ability to "absob" radiation by some foreign substance is greatly reduced.

I'm deducing here, i'm not a doctor or chemist, so I could be wrong.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

I just Googled "scientific studies on bentonite clay" then selected 
Scholarly articles for scientific studies on bentonite clay


There are far too many links to cite here and I'm just way too busy right now to investigate them all but I certainly will later.


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

Interesting.
from the first article:

"HSCAS clay acts as an aflatoxin entersosorbent that tightly and selectively binds these poisons in the gastrointestinal tract of animals, decreasing their bioavailability and associated toxicities."
- T Phillips - Toxicological Sciences, 1999 - Soc Toxicology, Dietary Clay in the chemoprevention of aflatoxin-induced disease .

English translation:

Toxins created by molds (aflatoxin) will become molecularily attached to the clay in an animals intestinal tract. the animal will pass the clay along with the toxins, reducing thier negative impact on the animal.

What this would mean for clay in your tank is a little beyond me. I bet it would work if you had some organic toxins at least untill the clay broke down in the tank, if it ever did. 

From the second article (and i'm done citing my sources, waaaaayy too much work)

"The diffusion of radionuclides in water-saturated porous media, such as compacted bentonite, is traditionally modeled assuming diffusion in the pore water and immobilization by adsorption on the clay surface. "

so clay absorbs radionuclides too. KHL, wtf are those?

The fourth article says clay will absorb chromium 3, 6 and silver.

The fifth article says cationic (group of ions having a postive charge and characteristically moving towards the negative electrode in electrolysis) material in aqeous solutions can be removed from the solution using bentonite clay

Pretty damned convincing, actually.

way to dupe us with google, tabatha.


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

There is definitely some interesting research happening there, and some encouraging results. When it comes to treating fish, I say, do whatever works.

It's when people take evidence-free approaches to healthcare and humans that I get itchy. The "crackpot" website I mentioned was suggesting that you can adsorb heavy metals out of the body with clay, something I don't believe for a moment. Various toxins can be chelated out of the body, chelation is in fact a routine type of treatment, and there are chelating compounds effective on mercury, for instance, but I doubt that clay is one of them.

A woman in my family comitted a slow suicide to breast-cancer, spending all her time and money on alternative treatments, toxin-absorbents, even people who claimed you could "suck a tumour right out of your body", etc, rather than accept the traditional western medical treatments for breast cancer. 

So I'm a bit touchy on the subject. Sorry if I gave any offence! 

W


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

*google scholar search is COOL.*

It looks like hexavalent chromium and silver adsorption onto bentonite clay is well documented. Those are heavy metals. So, Like. COOL.

I learned something. Thanks Tabatha.

W


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

KhuliLoachFan said:


> It looks like hexavalent chromium and silver adsorption onto bentonite clay is well documented. Those are heavy metals. So, Like. COOL.
> 
> I learned something. Thanks Tabatha.
> 
> W


No problem bud! 

I worked for an holistic pet food manufacturer after working at a vet for over 6 years. Learned a lot from both sides. When you're working on the holistic side, however, you really have to do your research and make sure you aren't harming other people's animals, unlike the big pet food manufacturers who only care about profits.

- t.


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

You'd be a big fan of Penn and Teller's Bullsh*t series, if you're not already, KLF.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

twoheadedfish said:


> You'd be a big fan of Penn and Teller's Bullsh*t series, if you're not already, KLF.



I've seen a few episodes, *LOVE THEM!!!*

- t.


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

I saw Penn & Teller live in vegas about 12 years ago. Shuffling giant metal playing cards that look like they were made out of deck-plating, with forklifts, on stage. They were hilarious. I would probably like the series.

W


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

Great series


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## twoheadedfish (May 10, 2008)

Tabatha said:


> I've seen a few episodes, *LOVE THEM!!!*
> 
> - t.


As a die hard lefty, some of their episodes are really painful to watch (like the recycling episode and endangered species one.)

still, it's hard to disagree with them sometimes.

anyways, back on topic. GARLIC - i'm gonna try it. CLAY - if I ever eat moldy grains, i'll ingest some. still some pretty interesting studies on the subject.


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

twoheadedfish said:


> As a die hard lefty, some of their episodes are really painful to watch (like the recycling episode and endangered species one.)
> 
> still, it's hard to disagree with them sometimes.
> 
> anyways, back on topic. GARLIC - i'm gonna try it. CLAY - if I ever eat moldy grains, i'll ingest some. still some pretty interesting studies on the subject.


the recycling episode is on the money in most ways. Recycling most of the stuff we recycle (except pop cans etc) actually does not create a net gain in materials/pollution but causes MORE and is worse for the environment. Wild.


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## Tabatha (Dec 29, 2007)

I found this on the cichlid-forum:



> *Montmorillonite* - one of the major components of bentonite and fuller's earth. Hydrous aluminum silicate with a considerable capacity for exchanging part of the aluminum for Mg and bases. High natural adsorptive power. Good CEC.


http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/plant_substrates.php​


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