hydroids

[pogi pants]

does anyone know what will get rid of a colony of hydroids?

[Tu Ku]

How big is the colony? I managed to catch them when they were only a small colony of about 10 heads or so. I pulled them out of the rock with tweasers, as well as the areas of rock all around and under the hydroids. I know some people use kalk paste, and for huge overgrown colonies I've heard of completely tearing the infected rocks down and letting them dry out. So as to cycle them and begin again.

[pogi pants]

the colony is about the size of a golf ball. with about 40-50 heads. this rock is one that i'm using to seed the rest of my rock. i have lots of rock that i'm bringing back to life after having my tank down for a couple months. how much does that kalk paste cost and does it look ugly when you put that on your rock?

[dc_909]

What kind of hydroids? Do they look like orande pom-poms or are they colonial and look like small tubes clumped together? I had the colonial and removed all my rock and tweezed out hundreds of them. The rock is back in the tank for 1 month and they are still there and multiplying. Kalk paste never helped. Epoxy over the colony.

[oct2274]

is your tank new or not fully cycled? i had hydroids, but once my tank was fully cycled they all croaked. check your water parameters and if the tank is fully cycled get your water cleaned up. maybe a better skimmer if needed. mine seemed to die once the water was nice and clean.

[Poorcollegereef]

kalk paste never worked for me, it would damage but not destroy. I normally try and cut/chisel the rock out and then epoxy as a last resort. I have never had them cycle out (tanks is 2 years old, and 7 months since the last move) and I have 0 NO3 and PO4. Kalk can also damage corals in the tank if it is small. I had some RTN on some of my SPS tips but they recovered.

I never figured this out exactly and it is only my observation. My hydroids never appeared until after my 6-line ate my peppermint shrimp. While I know that peppermints are known to eat pest anemones, I wondered why my hydroid population was non existant until after the death of the shrimp. My were the tube type.

[pogi pants]

mine look like small white feathers.
my tank is fully cycled. i used lots of live water and live sand. my protein skimmer just died on me today though...stupid seaclone!
luckily they are all on the same rock. will they overtake the tank if left alone, or will they dissappear? also, are they bad to have? finally, is there anything that eats them?

[oct2274]

like i said, i had tons of them when i first got my tank going, they basically covered 50% of my live rock. I monitored all normal things like ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, phosphates. When all those were 0 then I started monitoring things like calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, and ph. Once all that stuff was inline they all just died. I truely believe that once you have your water parameters correct they will start going away. I've heard this from others as well. Make sure you are using good test kits such as salifert, you could be getting bad readings. Also make sure you are using RO/DI water and not tap..........If you were using tap water you need to invest in a good ro/di unit and probably start exchanging water when you get one.

[pogi pants]

thanks for the info. i've been using tap water and adding chlorine remover. i don't think that's helping at all though. i'm going to be getting an ro/di pretty soon.
my water tester i've been using is made by Aquarium Pharmeceuticals inc.
i've just started working on my calcium, alkalinity, iodine, and magnesium.
i'll see how that works on getting them out.
Thanks again.