Life Cycle
The white spots that can be seen on the infected hosts are trophonts. This is the feeding and growing stage. Once it has reached maturity the trophont leaves the host. Now it is known as a tomont. The tomont becomes encysted, producing a sticky capsule. This enables it to attach to any substrate that it comes into contact with, from weeds and stones to fishing equipment, such as line and nets. Within its cyst the tomont divides many times, producing up to 3000 tomites. The tomites break out of the cyst wall and are now theronts. The theronts are heavily ciliated and actively seek out a host, without which they can survive for 2–4 days with higher temperatures lowering the time period. On finding a host the theront penetrates through the skin and develops into a trophont.
Read more about this topic: Ichthyophthirius Multifiliis
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