Quick ick question

[Iamfish]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will keep a very close eye on the other tank, I highly doubt it could get to the other tank since it has actually been more like a week since I used it in the infected tank, I am just got very paranoid after reading how easily it can spread.

 

[pops]

What salt does, is increase the osmotic pressure (create imbalance) on the outside liquid pressure of new emerging ick protozoa, this pressure forces them to lyse, in others words, lose their insides to the water that surrounds them. Their normal fresh water pressure tolerance is under 3ppt salinity.
A salinity of over 3 ppt forces the liquid to rupture the cell wall to lyse (blow out their guts) similar to what we would do in outer space without a suit.
Heat makes their life cycle speed up, allowing the osmotic pressure to destroy the new ick when vulnerable.
This is also what happens to some bacteria when meds are added to the water, the med compromises the cell wall, killing the bacteria.
Hence the name for Lysol.
Just to be safe, putting your siphon in a bucket of bleach water after use on the infected tank, will kill anything in a short time, then completely dry it. This is good practice before using on another tank, or even on the infected tank to "not" reintroduce dormant ick.
If it smells of bleach, add new water and use a dechlorinator.

Duanes this is news to me and not heard of it before. Thanks.

 

[duanes]

Duanes this is news to me and not heard of it before. Thanks.

The cell walls of ick, are very similar to Cryptosporidium, and Giardia, like being in body armor, very tough and resistant to simple outside forces.
This is why chlorine is not enough to kill Crypto in drinking water plants. why even stronger oxidizers like ozone are used. I became acutely aware of how invulnerable these beasts are while working in a drinking water plant, and how similar fish parasites like ick, and velvet are (velvet has a similar 3 stage life cycle to ick in which the stage on the fish, is encased in an almost impermeable natural kevlar like shell (cell wall).