Any fish biologists out there that know how long sea lice survive on fish in fresh water? Tried "google" with results "from a few days" up to "21 days". Any expert imput on this appreciated.

avid,

I'm no biologist, however while helping one with a cutthroat project a few years back, he said that Sea Lice die in about three days (72 hours) in fresh water. So, if your fish still has Sea Lice on it, and they are still alive, ya know it's only been a couple of days since that fish left the salt. Look closely though, sometimes
the lice stay attached to the fish even after their dead.

Cigar

There's an article in this month's Salmon Trout Steelheader on a tagging study in the Rogue River. The article says that they caught fish after up to a couple of weeks in fresh water that still had a few sea lice on them. I may have the duration wrong, but it was longer than 72 hours. Pretty interesting article.

3 Days in freshwater is the commonly accepted number - if the fish is running in and out of freshwater following the tide back and forth they may live longer, however. And even if dead they may stick on the fish a bit longer. I always figure 3 days.

At the hatchery i work at we had a few fish that were very beat up and close to dying that still had sealice on them... mabye they were dead i didnt have a chance to get that close of a look at them... just thought id share.

TTT