Efficient Hydra Removal

Hi.. maybe this is too late.. years ago I have used Gouramies to eat them, they are very efficient at it.

 

Asolene Spixi

This guy reports that Asolene Spixi (zebra apple snail) eats them. I have had no experience with either hydra or this snail.

http://www.theshrimptank.com/snailspecies/spixi.html

 

My problem is that the hydras are in with the cherry shrimp so putting in apistos would probably clean everything out.

-
S

 

I second what ghostsword said above about gouramis, four of the sparkling variety destroyed my hydra issue. What about neon tetras, or endlers if you need something smaller?

 

PP In The Aquarium

Hi S, All,

If you must rid yourself of freshwater hydrozoans, you can:

1. Pull everything out of the tank and sterilize it with Chlorine bleach
2. “Vienna” method, remove the plants and critters and raise the water temperature above 108 F (42 C) for a couple of days and do a good Potassium permanganate or bleach dip with the plants.
3. Flubenol (flubendazole) is also very effective against hydra used at 1-2 mg/l; I think Albendazole is the new version.
4. Potassium permanganate (KMnO4) at 2mg/l that is about 0.9 gram for a 120-gallon tank for four hours
5. Biological control, all the aforementioned are good, then of course you need to culture hydras to continue feeding the biological control critters. Also just about anything that eats Hydras, will if large enough, eat the shrimp.

Freshwater hydrozoans are kind of a big non-issue; most tanks have a lot of other life in them, the hydras are simply large enough for us to see. Hydras can and are a danger to fry, then so are any of the biological control critters you might introduce.

I have heard of and seen one instance where hydras may have harmed a mature Otocinclus affinis. The situation I witnessed was a poorly maintained tank, with water conditions I would have been amazed to see Ottos surviving.

The Potassium permanganate (KMnO4) treatment is explained at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa027. I have found the Potassium permanganate treatments at these levels safe for my critters down to shrimp; it will harm populations of smaller invertebrates, but then that is the idea in this case.

I recommend that you experiment first with a couple of your critters prior to treatment in the main tank. If you have never done this before be extra vigilant, err on the low side in concentrations. Should you notice any adverse reaction or just find yourself pooping uncontrollably, add whatever de-chlorinator you use at the proscribed rate.

One of the reasons I like the Potassium permanganate method is that it is also a good indicator of water quality. Take my 80-USgallon tank.

We need 2mg/l of PP so:

Grams of PP=80-gallon*0.0038*2mg/l=0.6-g PP
(if you have a scale accurate enough and are using technical grade Potassium permanganate, feel free to measure out 0.61 or 0.608 g of PP).

Dissolve the PP into a liter of aquarium water, and then pour the solution along the length into the aquarium. Note the time or set an alarm for four hours.
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The aquarium water should turn a pleasant pink or even light purple (were it not for the profanity laced replies from the Plant Guru Team, I would tell you the approximate ORP values the different colors tend to represent).

Light purple means your water quality is excellent and you can even use a little less PP the next time. Pink is also an indicator of good water quality and that the dosing is correct. Yellowish tint through mud brown indicates poor water quality and the quicker and darker it got the worse the water quality.
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If your aquarium got into the yellow to dark browns in less than four hours, add another 2mg/l dose that is another 0.6 grams of PP. Continue the process until you make it four hours in the pink. The color may, in fact should fade, to pretty much invisible, if not add some de-chlorinator to the water.

Most discover that excellent water quality tends to preclude many of the critter problems.

Back in the day as the Earth cooled, before the knowledge of water changes this is the way we removed the organics from the water. :gw Many pond keepers even unto this day use this process since major water changes may be prohibitive or even impossible.

Biollante

 

In this case I ended up with other problems. Namely the LED falling into the tank fiasco so I think the hydra/limpet problem in this tank is now sadly a nonissue. This will likely be broken down and stored for a bit until I can get things settled and going again.

-
S