----- Original Message -----
From: CK
I had a Yellow Tang with Ich in my reef, and treated it with garlic. Some say garlic juice, others garlic oil, But I used a whole clove of garlic, smashed up with the side of a cook's knife, then spread onto a sheet of
Seaweed Select. I then rolled this up & put it in a veggie clip. All signs of Ich were gone within a week.
From: JY
I did not believe any of the garlic oil treatment for sick fish, and fortunately, I keep my water quality good enough to avoid any problem. However, recent postings by several people make me to think otherwise on the use of garlic.
I hope I do not have to face the ICH problem. I do not like to feed fish garlic for preventive method. However, if it works for him, it is great.
I have always thought of people selling garlic oil as another form of selling snake oil, but hey, if it is good for fish maybe I need to be more open minded.
From: TB
I've tried Garlic, it seems to work quite well. It works best if you use fresh garlic and if you can get the fish to actually eat a piece. I soak spirulina flakes and prawn in the garlic, then try to put in a few small pieces that the fish will accidentally ingest (mine won't eat it unless it's by accident). However, if you can manage to get them to do this, almost all the ick should be gone by the next day, provided the case isn't too severe.
Keep using it for a while though. Also, I've also found it best to leave the fish in the main tank as taking him out just stresses him which can make it much worse, and the stress of moving them back into the main tank can make them come down with ich again. Usually ich seems to go away by itself anyway.
From: NE
Well the bad news is I lost one fish, which was covered in it and really took a bashing coupled with a secondary bacterial infection. THE GOOD NEWS is that the no other fish is even affected and it seems to have all cleared up.
None of the recommended cures such as Kent RXB or myacin had any effect apart from to rid the visual part. However the garlic issue, along with increasing UV (i.e. slowing down flow) massive water movement and using melafix seems to have done the trick. Believe me, I have several tangs and when they get ich, whitespot, or whatever you want to call it, even copper remedies in a quarantine tank fail to work.
The night in question, following a few postings from the forum telling me to use garlic, what I did was let a cube of mysis defrost, then mixed some garlic juice from a freshly crushed garlic clove and mixed it around a bit. I then refroze it, left the fish to get hungry for a few hours, then fed. I think the frozen part was quite important, as the fish once the cube began to defrost properly and their hunger became satisfied didn't seem too bothered about the remaining. An hour went by looked at the fish and they were just left with the scarring, and we are talking about a serious bout (to the point that the last time I posted I was ready to conclude that I had lost these fish).
Today you wouldn't even think that they had been ill no markings maybe just a faint blemish on really bad fin areas. There has been no sign of it reappearing at all. I have left it to tell you about this for 3 days so that I don't speak too quickly. I think that after 3 days I'm fairly safe in saying that I have controlled this problem. I feel a great sense of achievement and would like to think all for the input on the garlic. I know you listen and read something that you think is rubbish. This does work, believe me. I did adopt quite a drastic action along with feeding the garlic, and it is experimental because some of the parameters were bordering on that of being fatal if not controlled properly. I have yet to see what the long-term effects will be and will keep everyone informed.