Galic Foods

[fishy55599]

why is garlic foods being sold, when they harm fish?

 

[HappyGeorge]

Who said it harms fish? Doesn't harm mine

 

[StandbySetting]

Since when did they harm fish? In fact they're good for fish, they're antimicrobial.

 

[Caprichoso]

Garlic has anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties so I guess the thought would be that it could prevent and treat these issues in fish? I dunno, I've never used it myself. I'll stick with water changes.

 

[TheHolding]

I have read it can eventually damage the fishes liver but not sure how true this is.

I feed my fish garlic fish flake food every now and then.

 

[fishguy2727]

I feed NLS Thera+A. All NLS foods have garlic but the Thera+A formula has enough to kill some parasites. Everyone I have talked to who feeds it exclusively reports a significant drop in overall health problems.

What harm does garlic do to fish?

 

[StandbySetting]

I'd be interested in reading any actual scientific evidence anyone can put forward, be it from a journal, published paper as to what detrimental effects garlic has on fish.

 

[fishy55599]

apparently it can harm their immune system and liver?

 

[fishguy2727]

Sure, here are the references to the article I wrote on garlic's properties that was published in Aquarium Fish International Magazine.

http/www.fishchannel.com/fish-magazines/aquarium-fish-international/april-2011/garlic-supplement-allicin.aspx

 

[fishy55599]

i cannot post a link as we cant have links to other forums

 

[fishguy2727]

I would love to see some research on the harm it does (and what form and dosing is required to do so).

Enough of anything can kill.

 

[StandbySetting]

I'm interested in the harm it does, I know Garlic has anti microbial properties as well as anti-fungal and anti-viral, any information from a forum that someone has posted is purely anecdotal and isn't valid, unless they've cited it with a paper or journal.

 

[fishy55599]

Originally Posted by Wombat OK I'm a no garlic for marine fish person.

Why?

Well firstly let me give you a little background on where I’m coming from, I’m a fish disease research scientist and I specialize in fish vaccination and ectoparasite infections in fish. I don't work for, sell or am I in anyway assciated with commerical fish food production. My research laboratory has carried out many trials for fish feed manufactures on garlic, both as an appetite stimulator, immunostimulant and white spot “cure” and I shall link to some of this work published on UR and in the scientific literature.

So why not use garlic in marine fish diets.

1 Long term heart and liver lesions

Terrestrial plant lipids are well known to cause heart and liver lesions in marine fish. The problem with feeding terrestrial plant oils (not just garlic but any terrestrial plant oil) to reef fish is problematic due the nature of the lipids the fish do not possess the enzymes to digest them correctly and this leads to fatty deposits and serious pathological changes in the heart and liver of fish that are fed these lipids. Although these are not instantly fatal they cause chronic change to these organs and long term deterioration in the health of the fish. Granted much of this his work is done on farmed fish, but it is a well known phenomena and here are some of the research papers that detail this problem.

AH, Sargent JR, Thompson KD 1993
Terrestrial and fish oils affect phospholipid fatty acid composition, development of cardiac lesions, phospholipase activity and eicosanoid production in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).
Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 49(3):665-73

AH, Park MT, Sargent JR.1991.
High dietary linoleic acid affects the fatty acid compositions of individual phospholipids from tissues of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar): association with stress susceptibility and cardiac lesion.
J Nutr. 121(8):1163-72

J. Gordon Bell2, John McEvoy3, Douglas R. Tocher, Fiona McGhee, Patrick J. Campbell* and John R. Sargent 2004
Replacement of Fish Oil with Rapeseed Oil in Diets of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) Affects Tissue Lipid Compositions and Hepatocyte Fatty Acid Metabolism
The American Society for Nutritional Sciences

J.G. Bell1, D.R. Tocher1, B.M. Farndale1, A.H. McVicar2 and J.R. Sargent1 1999
Effects of essential fatty acid-deficient diets on growth, mortality, tissue histopathology and fatty acid compositions in juvenile turbot (Scophthalmus maximus)
Journal Fish Physiology and Biochemistry 1573-5168 Volume 20, Number 3 p263-277

SL Seierstad, TT Poppe, EO Koppang, A Svindland, G 2005
Influence of dietary lipid composition on cardiac pathology in farmed Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L
Journal of Fish Diseases.

These scientific journals detail the pathology and chronic changes due to these lipids (there are many more) but there aren’t any on reef fish, mainly as they are not a major farmed species or laboratory model, however if you apply the precautionary principal to your fish (in the same way it is applied to Humans) then you wouldn’t feed your marine fish diets containing terrestrial lipids. This has a human health comparison with Trans fats, very useful in making vegetable oils butter like so common in vegetable spreads and thought to be harmless until it turns out they cause liver tumors & heart disease in rats and mice and probably in humans too. So if this evidence is good enough to ban trans fats in foods then the much stronger data in fish should be good enough to ensure you don’t feed terrestrial oils to reef fish. As I said earlier my lab (which is a fish health research lab at a leading University) is often asked to carry out feed trials for feed manufactures and we have carried out many that use garlic or garlic extracts. Unfortunately these are considered to be commercially sensitive and I cannot tell you the results of using them to control white spot (but suffice to say the companies we have carried out scientific trials have all decided not to launched garlic supplemented feeds). However I did persuade one feed manufacturer to allow me to post the growth data from their feed trial on UR. The results were, well, damning for garlic. Here is the link to the trial from my lab in this thread
http/www.ultimatereef.net/forums/s...d.php?t=230961

Why do manufactures put it in their food? well clearly there is a demand for it and they are supplying that market demanded. It doesn’t mean it good for your fish it just means that they will sell more of their food if people are misinformed and think it is beneficial

2 Garlic’s Anti-parasitic Properties

The first question I have is please show me a research paper with proper controls where garlic has been shown to cure parasitic diseases in fish. I’ve just visited web of Science (a major research database) and there are no research papers that do this.

Much of the anti parasitic effects of garlic are attributed to Allacin and most work is done in humans, where it may have some benefits if purified allacin is fed, at around 400mg kg/bw every day. However in many mammals, (dogs, cats, horses etc) garlic causes a Heinz body anemia which is potentially fatal.

My laboratory has recently carried out a trial using purified allacin in clown fish

I recently picked up a MAEFS grant to look at this and the preliminary results are as follows The experiment was as follows

90 clown fish 40 on allicin, 40 not, 10 time zero samples. 10 sampled per week per group. The dose of allacin is 400ug/kg bw (a level used in humans and about 400ng/fish)

week 0 mean both groups 41.7% Hcrt
week 1 test 34.7% Hcrt control 42.4% Hcrt
week 2 test 18.8% Hcrt Controls 41.% Hcrt
week 3 test 17.2% Hcrt Controls 42.8% Hcrt
week 4 test 17.0% Hcrt Controls 40.6% Hcrt

Hcrt= haematocrit (how many red cells there are in the blood). The histology results on the organs hasn't been processed yet

Clearly allacin causes acute Heinz body anemia in reef fish too

To assume that all fish can eat garlic with no ill effects seems optimistic, when in mammals (which as a group are far more closely related to each other that fish are) it is fine for some e.g. the great apes, but toxic for dogs and cats (see O. Yamato, E. Kasai, T. Katsura, S. Takahashi, T. Shiota, M. Tajima, M. Yamasaki, and Y. Maede Heinz Body Hemolytic Anemia With Eccentrocytosis From Ingestion of Chinese Chive (Allium tuberosum) and Garlic (Allium sativum) in a Dog J. Am. Anim. Hosp. Assoc., January 1, 2005; 41(1): 68 - 73. (which is just one of 100's of research articles on this in the field))

Each year veterinarians have to treat 100's of cats and dogs for acute anaemia in the UK due to their owners feeding garlic to them. Simply because they read on a web it does wonders for their immune system, is anti worms etc. Yet these potentially fatal supplements are still widely available in the US/UK

http/www.pet-points.com/product_in...roducts_id=557
http/www.mysimon.com/9015-10992_8-29572306.html

3 Well Garlic must be an immunostimulant

In the most recent review if immunostimulants in marine fish

Ian Bricknell & Roy A. Dalmo 2005
The use of immunostimulants in fish larval aquaculture
Fish & Shellfish Immunology 19 (5) 457-472

Garlic is not referred to as an immunostimulant.

To be honest garlic has been discussed many time on UR, if you want to feed your fish garlic then nothing is stopping you, but I doubt you will see a benefit and the evidence strongly suggests you will do short and long term harm to them.

a quote from a scientist on there

 

[StandbySetting]

His theory is logical, but this statement alone makes everything he states invalid from the perspective of Garlic being detrimental to reef fish:

These scientific journals detail the pathology and chronic changes due to these lipids (there are many more) but there aren’t any on reef fish.

Until any further studies are continued and published that show that plant lipids from Garlic are capable of being detrimental to a fish's health then I would continue to feed Garlic if you already are doing.

EDIT: To further add, some reef fish eat sea weed correct? Surely seaweed contains some lipids similar if not the same as those in garlic?

 

[fishy55599]

i havent started, i just got some today but im a bit unsure about it now