Does Ick live in a cannister filter

[Sky042]

Wondering if ICK lives in a cannister filter.
I'm preparing to fishless cycle my 54G corner bow and need a bacteria culture. I'm planning on using media from my Fluval 304 thats currently on my 46G Bow Front.

However at the moment I'm treating my 46G for ICK. and I don't want to take media from it and dump ick into my 54.

Anyone help?

 

[The-Wolf]

yes, from what I've read, the ich parasite can live for several weeks without a host.

 

[Sky042]

yes, from what I've read, the ich parasite can live for several weeks without a host.

Yeah but from what I understood it like living on the gravel.
I'm just wondering if it also lives in the filter.

 

[andywg]

All you ever wanted to know about ich (and plenty you didn't) is right here.


The relevant piece is here:

The released tomonts swim for 2 to 6 hours before settling on a substrate. (Nicholl and Ewing found that a light substrate was preferred to a dark one.) Some biologists count this brief interval as a fourth life stage (in which it is susceptible to medication, by the way, according to Dr. Peter Burgess, the resident "fish doctor" at Practical Fishkeeping magazine). Quickly it attaches to a substrate and encysts, as the reproducing stage. This life-stage doesn't eat. Its metabolic clock is now ticking; it is spending its stored energy to divide and divide again within the short-lived cyst. The tomont's time-span remains temperature-dependent: at common aquarium temperatures it's a matter of hours to days. (In a chilly koi pond in early spring, the cyst may persist longer.) Ultimately hundreds of mobile tomites burst from the cyst, even as many as 2000. They quick sprout cilia and start actively swimming about in search of a host. The fully developed "swarmers" are now called theronts (Greek ther- denotes a critter). The tomites'/theronts' metabolism is also temperature-dependent, but they must find a host within a very few days or perish: at 68oF none survived after 55 hours, according to Schaperclaus.

From reading that I would think that the actual organism survives less than 3 days though there are studies that suggest in a cool pond it could last up to 4 full days.

So long as you don't put fish in for a week or so there shouldn't be a problem, though I may get shot down here...

HTH

Andy

 

[Sky042]

Well since it's a fishless cycle they'll have to endure like 14 days of life without anything to attach to at like 82f and a few days of high ammonia levels.

 

[Bignose]

andy beat me to it, but ich as we know it today cannot, cannot, cannot live for very long at tropical temperatures for more than a few days without a host. This dormant ich myth comes from a similar marine parasite that can live dormant for months, but not ich. A lot of the dormant ich myth also stems from people who stop medicating as soon as the spots come off -- thereby missing a significant part of the population of parasites. Then is comes back in a month or so and they start bemoaning the neverending parasite. But if you treat for long enough, every organism will die and it cannot rise up from the dead -- it will only come back if the organism is reintroduced.

Skeptical's page (linked above) has all this info. I would encourage everyone to read up on some of the latest scientific research about the organism and quit spreading old rumors and myths.

Modern ich is scary enough (strains able to thrive at temps 90 deg F and above and strains that do no come off the fish) without having to exagerate its claims.