Any help with hydroids?

[benmorrow1978]

Hey there, thanks for looking! I've got a 75g reef tank with what I would call "good" water quality. 150 or so pounds of LR, lots of xenia, star polyps, a brain coral, sun/flame coral, frog spawn, etc etc etc. I've got a few cleaner shrimp, a bicolor blenny and a fat and super cool black clown with an orange belly. I've NEVER seen a clown like mine, I've searched and searched the internet. I've got just a few snails and crabs, but I'm going to quarantine more for a few weeks very soon. I've got a little bit of cyano that I need to rid myself of, but otherwise it looks pretty good.

I've got hydroids. I won't say a ton, but some. Maybe 7-10 colonies. I pick them with tweezers, even torched some, but they seem to keep popping up. I've heard peppermint shrimp have worked for some so I've got one quarantined that I will be putting in the display in about 2 weeks. Anyone have any other ideas? I'll take all the help I can get! Thank you!

0 Ammonia
0 Nitrite
0 Nitrate (must be all the rock)
pH 8.3
SpGr 1.024
Temp 79F
barely detectable phosphates
working on increasing calcium levels (currently just over 300mg/L)
Alkalinity is 4.5

[Jessie Nicoletti]

for a 75 gallon get yourself 6-8 i dont think its as importatnt to qt inverts as it is to fish and since your adding them to take care of a issue i would just go with a simple aclimation maybe 3 days in qt if u must.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

you can try smothering them with kalkwasser paste. cover em up completely and do the same for the rest as they pop up. What kind of hydroid are they (colonial, digitate, etc...).
I had what I believe (from opinions posted here) to be a hydroid of some type. I think they hitchhiked on the shells of some of my cerith snails because thats where i first spotted them. I removed all the snail that had them and a few weeks later, I noticed some growing on the substrate and a few colonies on the rock work. I decided to leave them because I saw my snails come in contact with no ill affects. after a month or two, the colonies started to die off and now (six months later) I have just a few cerith snails with colonies on their shells. Ill post a pic of them later on. I'm not advising to do nothing though. My case was probably the exception, not the rule. I'd bet that hydroids are harder to eradicate than majano or aptasia (although I haven't had either yet). Let me bust out the camera and snap a few shots.

[reeferbill]

Hi Ben ; Like FoMoCo Suggested to use Kalkwausser if you have something similar like seachem calcium powder make a paste and shoot it into and all over the hydroids. This is the fastest way but if you put a half dozen of peppermint shrimp in they will eat thm but it will take longer.Happy Reefing and Good Luck!!! I love this hobby......

[benmorrow1978]

Sorry it's taken me so long to write back. I was holding out for Lee to chime in! Where are you Lee?

Seriously though, thank you for the advice. I've been manually removing them with tweezers every weekend. Certainly not winning the race, but I'm not losing either.

To answer your question, I am mainly concerned about colonial hydroids, I may have a digitate or two, but they aren't overcoming my tank.

I know I should start another post or search first, but has anyone had luck with Berghia Nudi's in controlling aiptasia?

[MyNameIsJoe]

No experience with Berghia Nudi's here, but I have red that there are certain types of nudi's that do eat zoanthid polyps. So, just be careful and make sure you get the correct nudi's.

Hydroids.... I have two small colonies in my reef tank. I use kalk paste and smother them. This seems to work, but they eventually grow back. I then just smother them again. They never seem to spread beyond those two small colonies, maybe the kalk is keeping them in check.

Aptasia..... I also use the kalk paste on these guys. all I do is squirt the kalk paste on the oral discus of the aptasia, and they eat the stuff up. The aptasia then proceed to shrink and disappear. They pop up every now and then in different spots, but i just blast them with the kalk.