Can Fish Eat Garlic

Can Fish Eat Garlic?

Here are the pros and cons of feeding garlic to a fish. If you want to treat your sick fish and boost its immunity, feed it garlic as it is the best natural source to treat and cure it. 

Can Fish Eat Garlic? Yes, garlic is a safe and healthy vegetable, and you can give it to your aquarium fish by cutting it into small pieces, using garlic powder, or adding garlic water to the fish tank. It is anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial that can treat and cure your sick fish. Moreover, garlic increases the appetite and boosts the immunity of a fish.

Can Fish Eat Garlic?

Garlic is a very beneficial food compound that provides a lot of health benefits. For a long time, people use garlic to treat and cure many health issues in fish. It contains allicin, which is a powerful compound and is chemically very active.

Many hobbyists use garlic to treat some common fish disease that severely damages your fish health and can even kill your fish. It helps decrease the potency, severity, and frequency of your fish’s health problems. You should feed this powerful food compound to increase the quality of life of your fish.

Its pungent smell attracts fish toward food and acts as a stimulant, and your fish will enjoy the unique taste of garlic. Give it alone or mix it with typical fish feed to enhance its health-promoting capabilities.

Nutritional value

Garlic is a nutritious vegetable and contains some amount of essential nutrients. These nutrients are necessary for many biological and cell processes.

A single clove of garlic provides a considerable amount of manganese, vitamin C, selenium, fiber. All these nutrients are essential for maintaining health.

Methods to feed garlic to fish

There are several options for feeding garlic to your tank fish. You can offer it to them in liquid, paste, or oil forms depending upon your convenience and preference.

Small chunks or granules

You have to cut it into small chunks or granules so the fish can eat them. Float these granules into the water and wait for fish to come and eat them. Remember to remove the uneaten chunks from the tank. Fish like to eat cabbage, you can mix it with its food.

Garlic powder

Make garlic-powder at home by taking a peeled clove and grind it in a grinder until it turns in powder form. You can add its powder on fish-food and offer it to the fish.

Most preferable is to make fresh powder every time you want to feed it, but you can also store it in an air-tight jar in a cold place. You can also make garlic-water out of the powder by adding some powder to clean water.

Frozen garlic homemade food

Frozen-live food is the preferred meal for your aquarium fish, so adding garlic to it is a good option. Make a paste by taking a few cloves, removing the peel, and crushes them using a hard object or the back of a knife. 

Take any food such as prawns, spirulina, zucchini, peas, or other vegetables and add garlic-paste to them. Another way is to chop or dice garlic, toss them and then add to the mixture. Bind the whole garlic-food mixture using gelatin in small cubes and freeze these cubes.

Add garlic-water into the fish tank

Adding garlic-water directly into the tank is not as efficient as the other ways but helps improve water quality and fish health. Take some cloves, peel them off, and crush them using any object. Now place this paste on a cloth or mesh and squeeze it tightly to strain out the water. 

Store it in the refrigerator as you can use this garlic-water in several ways. Add one teaspoon of this water in a large tank approximately, 80 to 100 gallons tank.

Soak or dip fish-food in garlic-water

The most common and efficient way of feeding garlic to fish is to soak their traditional food into the garlic-water for some time.

For this, you have to prepare garlic water in a bowl and add food such as flakes, pellets, blood worms, shrimps, vegetables, and other food in the bowl. Keep them there for at least 30 to 45 minutes, and then add them to the tank. Fish can eat bananas, you can put them in the garlic water.

Mix garlic with peas

Peas are a common fish-food, and you can incorporate garlic with them. Take a peeled garlic-clove, roll in aluminum foil and bake it for few minutes in the oven to keep the juice in it.

Make a garlic paste and mix it with the peas, or you can add the paste inside the peas. Add this healthy and yummy mixture into the tank.

Place garlic-clove in the tank

A way to keep the tank’s environment healthy and free from pathogens is to add a whole garlic clove into the tank. You can use 2 to 3 cloves for a larger tank.

Tips for feeding garlic to a pet fish

  • The dose should depend upon the purpose of use.
  • For treating the disease, give it for 2 to 5 weeks or until the disease cures.
  • For the general health-improving purpose, feed it not more than 1 to 2 times a week.
  • Garlic-water or garlic-oil are better forms of garlic to feed your fish.
  • Add correct dosage of commercially-prepared supplements to avoid excess. Always follow the dosage instructions.
  • Homemade garlic-paste, garlic-water, or garlic-oils are much more reasonable and affordable, but you have to take care of hygiene.

How is garlic beneficial to fish?

Your fish can get a lot of benefits from this natural food compound. Garlic is an excellent immune system booster due to its powerful chemical components. Garlic can stimulate the appetite of diet by attracting them to the food.

 It also kills the intestinal worms and parasites inside your fish body. It also contains antioxidants that protect from cell damage and many inflammatory diseases. You can treat many bacterial, fungal, viral, and parasitical infections using this natural food. 

Some studies show that garlic has the potency to kill fungus, bacteria, and viruses in fish. Mycobacterium marium is a common bacterial infection, and garlic shows effectiveness against it. It is also helpful in treating and curing the most common fish disease, which is Ich diseases.

Commercially-prepared seachem garlic-guard

Seachem garlic-guard is a stimulant and flavor enhancer with the scented-odor and taste of garlic. It is suitable for freshwater and saltwater fish and contains garlic oil instead of smashed, minced, or powdered garlic. 

You have to mix it with any fish-food and serve it to them. The typical, enticing smell attracts the tank inhabitants toward itself. The product has a positive effect on fish health as it contains garlic extract. It is preferable to soak fish-feed once or twice a week.

Garlic supplements for aquarium fish

Garlic supplements are another better choice to boost the immunity and health of fish. These products are available in the market with several brand names.

They generally come in liquid form, and you can add 1 or 2 drops of it in every meal of your fish. The preferable dose is one teaspoon per 100 gallons tank. You have to correctly calculate their supplemental dosage for smaller or larger size tanks.

How much and how often to feed garlic to fish?

It is necessary to determine the right dose and amount of garlic. Garlic is pungent in taste and smell, and its high dose can irritate mucus membranes. You can not give too much amount in a single feed. Preferable is to give it once or twice a week.

When using in liquid form, add few drops to the fish feed, and when giving as a paste, add only a pea-sized amount. Also, when you soak fish-feed in the garlic water, serve a small amount. When treating a disease, give 2 to 3 feeds per day for one or two weeks until it cures.

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