How to keep your fishes from dying

[reefcrazy]

Dear Reefers,

Does anyone have experience with using garlic to boost the immunity level of fishes? I heard of this some time ago and even attempted once with some garlic pills (that you have to grind to powder) that I found to be very inconvenient and ineffective. Hence I have not been using garlic until recently when I stumbled on a product called Garlic Elxir from Ecosystem.

It comes in a small tube (a bit like ###### wash) and it's not cheap. That's why I hesitated for a while before deciding to buy. My rationale was - even if it only helps to save me one or two fishes, it would be worthed it.

I have not had a lot of luck with certain fishes like powder blue and regal tangs. Somehow, fishes that look scaleless tend to be very susceptible to white spots or ick but I do like these fishes very much as I think they are very beautiful and yet affordable. So, armed with this new weapon, I decided to give it another try. I went out and bought myself another regal tang. It lived alright but within 2 days, as I've expected, it's body started showing white spots and patches.

From what I understand, when fishes come under stress, their immunity level drop and they become more susceptible to diseases like ick. And my guess is, the less scaled fishes are more at risk because they do not have big protective scales to protect their bodies. This is just my own derivation. Perhaps some more experienced reefers can correct me here. And from what I have read so far, there are no real effective medications available for marine fishes since copper cannot be used. So the only viable alternative is to try and boost the immunity level up.

I thereby started feeding my fishes (particularly targeting the regal tang of course) with the Garlic Elixir. Fortunately, it wasn't cumbersome to use like the garlic pill that I tried previously. I just need to soak the frozen brine shrimps or pellets in one or two drops of Garlic Elxir for 30 mins each time before feeding the food to the fishes. After one week, to my great delight, I noticed the regal tang seemed to be eating better and the white spots seemed to have lessened. It's now two weeks since I started using garlic and guess what, the body of my regal tang is now completely blue without any white spots or blemishes.

I can't say for sure that the recovery is fully due to the garlic but I am just too glad that I did not loose another regal tang this time round. In fact, it's now feeding like a pig and growing rounder by the day. I am so happy with the result that I felt compelled to share my experience with all of you. If you treasure your fishes, I would recommed that you start feeding them garlic. I would welcome any reefers who have experience using garlic to contribute to this thread and share your experience with us. And btw, don't worry about the smell. The fishes either can't smell it or they actually love the smell because they all gobble the garlic-soaked food down without any hesitation.

Thank you for reading.

:thanx: