Adverse Effects of Garlic Use?

[JamesB]

Since Thanksgiving, when I added a Regal tang, I have been mixing Kyolic garlic powder (capsule) with my Ocean Nutrition frozen cubes. The ich I expected to see never materialized (knock on wood), but my pink and black cucumber began to wither away. I also moved my 75 gal to a larger tank near the end of October. The cuke was involved in the move, but looked healthy until a couple of weeks after I started the garlic treatment.

The cuke was nearly 3 yrs old, if I remember right. My banded coral shrimp of 2-3 years also died during this time frame.

Has anyone else noticed any correlation between garlic use and invert deaths, or is it just coincidental?

Later, James.

[jlreese]

Sorry - but this is a new one for me! Why use garlic in the first place? Understanding the wide range of conditions that herbal supplements are formed under, you could be looking at any number of unknown ingredients in with the garlic. I know that the supplier will say it is only garlic but is it.....

Jody

[FishDaddy]

James,
I don't know what effect garlic may have on inverts but Horge recently wrote a comprehensive article on garlic use which we discussed on the board:
http://www.thereeftank.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001793.html
Dick

[JamesB]

Hi Dick:

That article is why I posted the question on this board. The best discussion of the article (IMO) was on this board.

Jody: Garlic has recently been proposed as a remedy (of sorts) or a prophylaxis (sp?) for crypto. The article Dick pointed out is a pretty decent summary of the "state of the knowledge." Horge recommended fresh garlic, but my fish spit it out. So, I went with the Kyolic garlic capsules as an alternative. WRT the crypto, it seems to have done what was expected of it. However, I haven't read anything about adverse effects, and wanted to raise the question.

Later, James

[This message has been edited by JamesB (edited 02-06-2001).]

[horge]

Hello James,

As the article laid out, severe damage to blood is one possible effect of an overdose.
Hemoglobin is reduced to methemoglobin (which is useless as an oxygen transporter).

It's general cytotoxicity means overdosing can rsult in tissue damage as well, though a fish gut will dodge this by coating the garlic morsels in mucus (clear, stringy fishpoop is a sign of excess, and if some blood is seen as well, then it can mean severe overdose). I've yet to hear of a fish dying from overdose, though

Hi Jody,

The very reason I wrote the article is so I could just point to it when I need to explain the how and why of garlic

I focus on treating "ich", though garlic's other applicabilities are also mentioned there. There have been only mild changes to the article since first written in December.

There HAS been a relocation. It now resides at

http://horgereef.homepage.com/garlic.html

The old address does give you a clickthrough to it, though. I've been told to make a less jargon-loaded, friendlier version... and I think I might.

hth,
horge

[horge]

BTW, I've run into that problem as well... the fish not fancying the garlic as food, though never with the tangs I ususally have ich problems with.

I just soak their regular food in solubilised garlic (which is what others do as well)

[jlreese]

Hi Guys!
Hey, thanks for the info Horge (did I spell that right?). I will have to take a good look at your paper, looks cool. So much info., so much fun, and so little time! That is why I like it. I would still caution people about the source of their garlic. Quality control and consitency has always been a nasty issue when it comes to herbal preparations.
Jody

[tdwyatt]

hmmm problems with ubb???

[This message has been edited by tdwyatt (edited 02-07-2001).]

[tdwyatt]

sorry, it looks like the cgi code reprinted the same message about 4 or 5 times, I can't delete it here... keep looking down

[This message has been edited by tdwyatt (edited 02-07-2001).]

[tdwyatt]

ditto

[This message has been edited by tdwyatt (edited 02-07-2001).]

[tdwyatt]

ditto, again...

[This message has been edited by tdwyatt (edited 02-07-2001).]

[tdwyatt]

James,
I may be way off mark, but I suspect that the problem may be food-related rather than a toxicity problem. Most toxicities occur over a relatively short period of time (please note that I said "most"), whereas problems with shortages of food occur over a longer period of time. You said that the cuke was involved in a move to a new setup...

The ich I expected to see never materialized (knock on wood), but my pink and black cucumber began to wither away. I also moved my 75 gal to a larger tank near the end of October. The cuke was involved in the move, but looked healthy until a couple of weeks after I started the garlic treatment

If this involved new or seeded sand bed, and this type of cucumber relies on sand bed infauna as a source of food (does it pick up sand and poop sand, or does it have fine, fern-line "tongues" that it captures food from the water column?), then I suspect that the food sources haven't matured enough to catch up with the cuke's size (it was in an established system where it's growth probably matched the resources it had available to it) Even if it is a filter feeder, it may still be surviving only on dissolved food/flake/mix available to it until the tank catches up in terms of water column infauna (if this is the case, you might want to go skimmerless) I don't think it is the garlic, although it is possible, as the cuke would be part of the cleanup crew for your tank, and any excess amounts of the garlic would prolly go to the bottom, and I doubt the hermits would be eating it (although they would prolly like a little shrimp scampi every now and then... ;-) Just throwing out some thoughts...

Later.


------------------
Tom <"{{{{>(
(TDWyatt)
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. -Plato