Do natural foods help with internal parasites?

[MattW]

Recently, a couple of fish from my Sawbwa colony have had stringy white faeces. I doubt it is because of a lack of food, as they are fed once a day (fluval bug bites) and the occasional frozen foods. My guess is internal parasites. I had a quick read on Reddit that soaking foods in water with garlic can help. Is this true? Or are there other natural foods I could feed them to help with the issue? Of course medication would be more efficient, but I only recently added new fish, and I have shrimp + snails in the tank, so I don't want to cause issues with those guys. Is garlic the way, or is there something else?

 

[GaryE]

I'm skeptical. About every 10 years, garlic has a fish hobby comeback. It may inconvenience some parasites, but there's a lack of proof it handles white type worms as well as prazi, or nematodes like flubendazole. And in water, it isn't a natural product. It's terrestrial

A question I have about garlic's boom and bust cycle is it has always dropped off the radar for long periods, prior to being a natural miracle cure all again. And usually, it's resurrected by someone selling a product with it included.

I've had some pizzas that would have killed any worm to the nth generation though.

Stringy poop can be parasites, but can also be bacterial. Sometimes I see it, and it vanishes. I assume it wasn't worms and the fish was able to handle whatever.