Hydroids!!

[jfenton954]

Can't find a pest thread but there has to be a way to get rid of hydroids except Kalk paste or taking the rock out to kill them!!!! I have way to much rock to practice either one of these methods. Does anybody know if there is a reef safe predator? There has to be..

 

[Troylee]

Superglue or epoxy is all I know... Hth

 

[KLR]

Lots of scrubbing with wire brushes controlled mine. But what killed mine was a salinity and alk spike by accident. I think there are some natural predators but I am not sure what exactly they are.

 

[UCedumacasion]

Caribbean Peppermint shrimp eat them in my experience but they can also eat corals so I'd take the rocks out and put them into a ten gallon with a grip of them and let them go to work. Do you have any idea where they came from? Did you get anything Caribbean (zoas/palys/rics?), that's where I got mine last year

 

[Dave3112]

Boiling RODI water and a turkey baster are working for me.

 

[MattL22]

Tooth brush!

 

[jfenton954]

Don't really know where they came from but there has to be a predator that's reef safe or they'd be over taking to the oceans wouldn't you think?

 

[mcarroll]

Don't really know where they came from but there has to be a predator that's reef safe or they'd be over taking to the oceans wouldn't you think?

Sadly this is about my position on vermitid snails....my tank was overrun with them (well, still is) and I rhetorically asked the same question: How come the ocean isn't rife with them??

The answer is that our tanks are weird. We provide the perfect environment for an out-of-balance ecosystem. Lack of correct predators, too many of some nutrients, too few of other nutrients, lack of competing species...there are a lot of factors like that which would contribute.

Try the methods described above for some control, but don't expect a permanent solution. (wish there was an easy control for vermitid spikes....once they spread, they own)

-Matt

 

[jfenton954]

So basically your saying I'll never get rid of them?

 

[Heckeng]

Dave had the best suggestion. I just went through this too and was very nervous I would have to remove my rock from the tank. As one last common sense thing to try, I boiled some water and turkey basted the hydroids. That worked perfectly. Much easier that scrubbing or kalc etc. just make sure you don't burn a nearby coral.

 

[SDguy]

I've had both vermitid snails and hydroids (various kinds). Eventually, they all die off on their own with proper tank maintenance/husbandry, IME. Just like various algae blooms, IMO it's all part of the tank establishing itself.

 

[CalmSeasQuest]

Although expensive and requiring significant safety precautions - Hydroids literally disintegrate with just a couple second laser strike. They are by far the easiest pest to eradicate that I've found in testing lasers thus far.

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/reef-discussion/74420-use-lasers-controlling-pest-algae-corals.html