taricha
05/29/2015, 09:32 AM
How do I keep good stuff from the new piece of live rock I've got, while getting rid of the complete infestation of hydroids?
Was looking over live rock in the bin at a LFS, saw a neat mushroom on one. Thought hey, cool. I love live rock with interesting hitchhikers. I'll get that one.
Came with all sorts of neat stuff: mini brittle stars, some well behaved asterina stars, the mushroom (which dropped off so I could move it elsewhere), a lone Zoa polyp, sponges, feather worms.
It also apparently came with a massive colonial hydroid infestation. So the rock got put into a makeshift quarantine.
I'm not putting the rock back in my tank until hydroids are gone, but I'd like to get the brittle stars, the zoa, (asterinas and mushroom already moved) and as much other life from the live rock in the tank.
options:
Starve out the hydroid rock in QT like it shoulda been cured in the first place? how long will that take? how to get the zoa out? any way to get the brittle stars out? There's a bunch of them, and a bunch of dying stars would likely slow down the curing process. I don't really have a space I'm willing to stink up that thoroughly.
Starve in QT with a couple of peppermints and an emerald crab that I have available. Hope one of the opportunistic feeders gets really desperate and decides to pick at hydroids. Hope that accelerates the hydroid removal.
Semi-selectively wipe out the hydroids with panacur - the dewormer in the QT tank. Hope it only kills a minimum of other stuff in the rock.
Give up. Kill the rock. Try to get zoa out and then sentence the rock and all its inhabitants to execution by boiling. Don't let my wife ever find out I used our stock pot for such dirty work. How do I dilute out all the nastiness after I've boiled it? Soak it for a week or so?
Was looking over live rock in the bin at a LFS, saw a neat mushroom on one. Thought hey, cool. I love live rock with interesting hitchhikers. I'll get that one.
Came with all sorts of neat stuff: mini brittle stars, some well behaved asterina stars, the mushroom (which dropped off so I could move it elsewhere), a lone Zoa polyp, sponges, feather worms.
It also apparently came with a massive colonial hydroid infestation. So the rock got put into a makeshift quarantine.
I'm not putting the rock back in my tank until hydroids are gone, but I'd like to get the brittle stars, the zoa, (asterinas and mushroom already moved) and as much other life from the live rock in the tank.
options:
Starve out the hydroid rock in QT like it shoulda been cured in the first place? how long will that take? how to get the zoa out? any way to get the brittle stars out? There's a bunch of them, and a bunch of dying stars would likely slow down the curing process. I don't really have a space I'm willing to stink up that thoroughly.
Starve in QT with a couple of peppermints and an emerald crab that I have available. Hope one of the opportunistic feeders gets really desperate and decides to pick at hydroids. Hope that accelerates the hydroid removal.
Semi-selectively wipe out the hydroids with panacur - the dewormer in the QT tank. Hope it only kills a minimum of other stuff in the rock.
Give up. Kill the rock. Try to get zoa out and then sentence the rock and all its inhabitants to execution by boiling. Don't let my wife ever find out I used our stock pot for such dirty work. How do I dilute out all the nastiness after I've boiled it? Soak it for a week or so?