Help with identification

[Mike Arnold]

Does anyone know what this is? It doesn't seem to spread. Should I be concerned about it

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

pretty sure it is a colonial hydroid. small in the pic sorry.
They supposedly sting and can spread. Usually a rock that full is "infested", and should probably be pulled... in smaller groups you can use putty and glue to cover and smother them..

 

[Reefing Madness]

Colonial Hydroids.

 

[Mike Arnold]

Attempting to kill with Aptasia-x before removing rocks:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/strange-algae.232172/#post-2746508

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

go in stages. its potent stuff.

 

[dacianb]

in high nutrient tanks will flourish. I had them in the past (quite a lot on some corals bases), but faded away and vanished after a while in low nutrient system.

 

[E048]

Just take that rock out and scrub it with a brush in a bucket of tank water

If that doesn't work take a hyperdermic needle and fill it with hot vinegar, inject it into the base of the hydroid (not the mouth) that'll kill it... I got rid of mojanos and aiptasia that way.

You could also get a copperband or longnose butterfly to help depending on your tank size. Matted filefish help too but those aren't always reef safe

 

[Mike Arnold]

in high nutrient tanks will flourish. I had them in the past (quite a lot on some corals bases), but faded away and vanished after a while in low nutrient system.

This is a new tank build at the end of its nitrogen cycle; diatoms and cyanobacteria has gone away. I'm running gfo and carbon in a reactor and chemipure elite in the sump between baffles. Nitrates at 0 and phosphates at 0.04 at last test, so I'm encouraged by your post; hopefully they will fade away once the tank is fully established. Thanks.

 

[cloak]

Smothering them with epoxy is another way to eradicate these things. GL.

 

[cnseekatz]

+1 on colonial hydroid.

 

[Mike Arnold]

Just take that rock out and scrub it with a brush in a bucket of tank water

If that doesn't work take a hyperdermic needle and fill it with hot vinegar, inject it into the base of the hydroid (not the mouth) that'll kill it... I got rid of mojanos and aiptasia that way.

You could also get a copperband or longnose butterfly to help depending on your tank size. Matted filefish help too but those aren't always reef safe

Yes, removing the rocks seems like the best way to resolve this issue. I'm just so frustrated at this point. I've spend months and thousands on this build to get to this point. I purposely went with dry rock and a dsb; I took the time to properly cure the rock, to avoid pests and unknown hitch hikers, and seeded the dsb and dry rock with live rock that was in a friends tank for 15 yrs. In my ignorance, I thought the colonial hydroids were some kind of star polyp.

The cycle and dsb is coming along nicely; I can already see the life developing in the sand and rocks. I've added live sand activator kits, garf grunge, chaeto etc... It just pains me to think I will have to remove the base rocks and interrupt the current cycle.

The hydroids don't appear to sting but I'm not sure about other unknown issues they will cause, so I'm going to attempt to get the tank established and hope that I can get them under control.

I thought about adding a copperband but I'm trying to build a low nutrient system and fear it will run out of food quickly; I don't want anything to die.

Thanks

 

[dacianb]

I am not expert, but I think are filter feeders. Lot of filter feeders organisms originally on live rock dies sooner or later in our tanks due to lack of nutrition (if is a low nutrient tank )

 

[Mike Arnold]

I am not expert, but I think are filter feeders. Lot of filter feeders organisms originally on live rock dies sooner or later in our tanks due to lack of nutrition (if is a low nutrient tank )

awesome. that is my goal. I'll just have to have a little more patients. Thanks