How long do free swimming parasite live in copper?

[RazorD]

I’m going fallow and curious about if a drop of contaminated water (ich or velvet) got into my QT how long would it live? (Copper power is at 2.00). For purpose of this question, I’m assuming only free swimming stage is transferred in water.

Does it die right away or live long enough to reset the 30 day clock?

 

[ScottR]

I’m going fallow and curious about if a drop of contaminated water (ich or velvet) got into my QT how long would it live? (Copper power is at 2.00). For purpose of this question, I’m assuming only free swimming stage is transferred in water.

Does it die right away or live long enough to reset the 30 day clock?

I’m not an expert but wouldn’t it need a host to reset “the clock”. I’d assume that any live parasite would already be on the countdown to death in its lifecycle, especially with copper. This is going off the theory that a drop of contaminated water got in your qt.

 

[ngoodermuth]

As long as the copper is therapeutic, a free swimmer will not be able to infect your fish. Also, a free-swimmer would not last very long in your DT without a fish host. It’s the encysted parasites we are waiting out for the fallow period. Once they emerge, they only have a very short window of time to find a host before they die.

You still want to avoid cross-contaminating however... to be safe and as a rule. If you pull the copper from your QT after 30 days and then a drop of water makes it to your QT with a free-swimmer inside, you will be in trouble [emoji15]

 

[RazorD]

As long as the copper is therapeutic, a free swimmer will not be able to infect your fish. Also, a free-swimmer would not last very long in your DT without a fish host. It’s the encysted parasites we are waiting out for the fallow period. Once they emerge, they only have a very short window of time to find a host before they die.

You still want to avoid cross-contaminating however... to be safe and as a rule. If you pull the copper from your QT after 30 days and then a drop of water makes it to your QT with a free-swimmer inside, you will be in trouble [emoji15]

Thanks! Yeah, I’m just thinking about the scenario where a drop of infected water falls into the QT that has copper in it and whether or not that resets the clock.