Will garlic be enough?

I have a couple spots of ich on my yellow tang and one on a cardinal fish, all on their dorsal fin. I don't have a quarantene tank to put them in so I started adding garlic to their food today. Will that be enough to reverse it or is garlic only for prevention? I have crabs, snails, and shrimp otherwise I'd use the ich medicine.

 

JetEngineMech,

Sorry to hear about the ich problems. I have been battling ich in my display tank for about 6 months now. I have the same problem that you do in that I have enough coral and inverts in the tank that I cannot apply any copper based medication. I have tried it all as well, I tried soaking the food in garlic, adding a UV sterilizer, using Chem- Marine stop parasite, ich attach, and simply hoping it would just go away. All have failed and I have lost a few fish because of it.

Most people here will tell you that quarantine is the only way to go. Though I have yet to be able to setup a quarantine tank I now agree that there is nothing else you can do. However on another note I can say that I have experienced that healthy fish in my tank have been able to build an immunity to the parasite. The orange shoulder tang I have was a fish that we purchased from a store that does pre-quarantine and get the fish nice and healthy before selling. That fish shows no signs of being infected by the ich in my tank, additionally the fish I do have in the tank are begging to show signs of building a natural immunity to the disease.

If you truly cannot take the fish out of the tank your best bet is to keep what you have as healthy as possible with good water conditions and variety diet

Good luck

 

So a quarantine tank doesn't have to be a minimum size? If that's true, I'll just get one of those cheap 5gal kits from the store and use it as a quarantine tank. I'm assuming I should use mostly water from the main tank to fill it so the fish aren't any more stressed out.

I think I'll keep up with the garlic though. It can't hurt, right?

 

Garlic is used to increase the appeal of food. fish take more readily to the garlic smelling food. It is not by any means a medication. the Idea is to ensure the fish are eating well so that they can fight the Ick infection themselves. I can't say I've ever lost a fish to ick, but I have had many minor out breaks. knock on wood.
In my old 75G I had a white Check Tang. It would break out if you looked at it funny. I tried everything. but the ick would come and go never really getting serious. Then I found the Ick was on a second fish and it was not leaving the Tang. I set up a small 10G Q-tank and treated with copper. NEVER saw Ick again. Everyone was Great after words

J

 

Yep, that's what I'll do. When I'm not using the quarantine tank, can I emty it or do I leave it setup and running?

 

I bought a QT just because the idea of ich scares the heck out of me.

 

I have always considered the large Rubbermaid container but always wondered how good of a protein skimmer I would need for the QT tank.

What are most of you using for filtration on your QT tank?

 

I don't think you need a skimmer for a QT. I just use the HOB whisper 20, powerhead and gonna start doing 3gal PWC maybe every 3 days. I just got my first fish today though lol. But QT was mandatory for me.