Help getting rid of Hydriods ???

jman77

jman77

New member
Hello Guys,,

I got those darn hydriods all over my 15 gallon tank and need to get rid of them. They are the ones that look like tiny feather dusters without the hard tube. I know i can scrub rock/glass and remove them, but i can't keep up with the darn things. Anyone out there have luck with removing these dam things.
 
I went on a rampage and squished the ones in mine. Everytime I saw one on the glass...squish..I didn't think I could get the upperhand but in only a week or so I don't see anymore...

Carolyn
 
squishing them will definitely not kill them

you can try to ice them or kalk paste them

oddly enough my flame angel ate all of them
 
Problem is the little buggers have mixes in with the corals.... man these thnigs are a pain in the butt... Between the hydriods and the the red hair alage in that tank it makes me want to cook ( in a pot + boiling water) all the rock in the tank. I can't seem to control the darn things...
 
jman77
You can try gluing over them with crazy glue; that will work.
Boiling the water will mean starting all over again.

If they're really imbedded, you might want to try scrubbing the rock in a seperate bucket.

I have heard of a nudibranch that will eat hydroids, I cannot remember the name of it though. I wouldn't mind having one myself, I have some hydroids as well.

I'll do a search.
 
I have them all over my tank. They seem to have stopped spreading now that my water has cleaned up some and I stopped feeding live phytoplankton to my tank.

Presently, my control method is to fill up a bucket of water from my tank (during water changes), take a few rocks out and hold them in the bucket, and then spend an hour or so with a pair of tweezers. My arms are itching from their minor stings by the time I've had my fill of this less-than-enjoyable task.

I've also tried boiling tank water and squirting it on certain locations using a baster. It seems to have had limited success -- but I can't do this near any other living things I wish to keep.

Just recently, I got a galaxea frag and placed it "upstream" from a grouping of hydroids. We'll see who wins that battle. :D
 
At one time I had too many to keep up with using tweezers. I went with a flat bladed screwdriver - pry underneath the clump of hydroids and you get most of them at once. You lose a little of the rock, but in a month you won't be able to tell that you pried rock from an area (other than the fact that the area is free of hydroids :D ).

Kevin
 
I'm loosing the battle with them in my 375g. Too much tank for me to reach them and not enough time to get them all. I swear these things are the spawn of satan.
 
I completely agree that hydroids are the spawn of satan. They are horrible!

I heard about the kalk paste thing. You are supposed to make a paste out of Kalwasser and put bits of it in places that you see the hydroids. Isn't it kind of a problem to do that because nothing will grow on top of Kalk so you have to knock the pieces off later if you can.

I have instead thought of trying epoxy. I know stuff will grow over that, so that's what is next on my agenda of things to try.

I have also noticed, as mentioned earlier, that if you can get them from the base and you grip really hard you can sometimes get a bunch at once. Seems like the grow in a little clump.
 
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/22200DSC01363.JPG

I have tried using kalk, scrubbing my rock, tangs, urchins, limpets, angels, you name it, these things always grow back. The only way I know that works is to remove the rock, put it in RO water for a few weeks and kill everything on it. Unfortunately if there is any trace of the hydroids left either on the rock or in the tank, they will grow right back. I have a 375g tank that they are just taking over. I am seriously considering removing 50-70% of my rock to kill off. I just have to figure out how to successfully remove them from the tanks back.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6341660#post6341660 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by -=DieselDave=-
Get a small soldering torch and burn them off, nothing else will work.
Click to expand...

:lmao:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6341660#post6341660 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by -=DieselDave=-
Get a small soldering torch and burn them off, nothing else will work.
Click to expand...

I hadn't tried that one. I think I'll add my heat-shrink attachment to my butane soldering iron tonight and see how it works on some of my lose rocks. :)
 
I brought out my propane torch from my copper pipe sweating kit and took it to a totally covered ~10lb rock. The crabs swarmed it when I put it back in the tank, too. A week later, the rock is now totally white and free of growth. I reckon I need to glue some zoanthids to it really quick to fill in the space.

While I was performing this operation, my wife gave me that "look" when she came out to investigate the burning seafood and caught me in the act.
 
Personally I use a pair of bent-tipped needle-nosed pliers. Take the rock/frag out of the tank and place it in a container of tank water. Place the container where you can work comfortably for some time. Once you're situated use the bent-tipped needle-nose pliers to grab the root/runner between heads and pull up gently trying to get as much of it at once as possible.

It's a huge pain, but I found it the easiest way to get rid of them on rockwork and in frags that I wanted to keep.

Never do this work in side your tank and ALWAYS rinse the pieces well (in tank water) before placing them back in the reef. These hydroids are VERY prolific and will come back from floating fragments to spread around the tank.

Just to be clear, the hydroids I'm speaking of look like those in the picture below (not the jellyfish farms above).

feather_duster_algae.jpg

060322_blue_orng.jpg


Good luck.
 
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