Soft hydroids

[RokleM]

Dip hurt them, but didn't wipe them out.

[The Escaped Ape]

For everyone's information on my version of hydroids (and apologies for hijacking the thread slightly here), Zeospur2 did nothing. They shrivelled for a day or two and then looked happy again soon. The ZS2 did however pale out some of my zoas and killed off one tiny SPS frag I had. I'm now going for the cooking rock in the dark for months approach. It seems to have worked, but of course I won't know until I put the rock back in the tank and see if anything pops out...

[spieszak]

I don't have any good information except for a hint on where you might search for answers. The SH folks (especially dwarf seahorses) are specifically paranoid about hydriods (for good reason). Might be worth posting over on their forum, or adding seahorse to your search terms to see if anyone has some ideas on what might help.

[impur]

I have recently been dipping zoas in Melafix to see if it has any effect on the hydroids. I know it won't harm the zoas, so I have been doing 1/2 capful of Melafix in 1/4 gal of tank water for 10 min. It kills the larger hydroids. After about 24 hours the polyps are gone leaving just the stalks. I don't know if the stalks can regrow a new polyp though. At least its progress. I've had these buggers for 7 years now and I am going all out on them. If I cannot rid my tank of them, i will be tearing it down completely which I REALLY do no want to do.

I also have an email in to Carol Keen who created the product Hydroxs. I hope to be able to use this product as a dip, then move the coral to a new hydroid free tank.

Another option I am exploring is hydrogen peroxide. I know people are now dosing this in their display tanks to get rid of bubble algae and dinos, and it is very harmful to hydroids. It would be great if just doing a dosing regimine of hydrogen peroxide could wipe out my hydroids.

[650-IS350]

I dip em in HP then use tweezers to pluck them off

[impur]

I have too many to use tweezers unfortunately. What solution HP did you use? Do you think the HP kills them?

[650-IS350]

I just leave them them for 5-10 mins... I use up to 50% water/HP mix but potential to kill the polyps is there.

[impur]

Yah....i'm dipping some radioactive dragon eyes first since they grow so fast and are so available.

Thanks for the info.

[SushiGirl]

Any updates on the hydrogen peroxide dips that were tried? I have the very fine hydroids like Rokle plus digitate hydroids & am trying to transfer some corals from the reef tank with them to a clean coral growout tank, with a 10 gallon coral QT tank in between in which I can ensure treatment works before introduction into the new tank.

I cruised the seahorse forum & they all recommend a dewormer that is not reef safe, as it stays in the rock/frags for a long time, continuing to kill some inverts. I'm not looking to use any kind of lingering insecticides.

There is no way that I can sit with tweezers and a magnifying glass for hours trying to pull these off #1 because I had back surgery a little over a week ago, #2 because I only have 2 hands, and #3 because they are so very tiny & whispy.

Corals we specifically want to move are one frag of zoas, a frag of clove polyps, frag-plug sized chalice, a single eye can, a couple of bird's nest SPS, and a small piece of monti cap from a larger piece that really needs some saving.

I've also had a hard time in the past finding proper dilution numbers on the forums, so that would be helpful. With critters I can guess by them falling off, not so with hydroids.

Any help would be appreciated.

[impur]

I am using Hydroxs as a dip and its been very effective. I do 2 dips a week apart, I dip them for about 30min and pick off what I can see while in the dip. Then I am trasferring the corals to a biocube I setup and treated with Hydroxs to make sure there were no hydroids to start wiith. I've done about 8 zoa colonies, a monti digi, a green slimer, and a platygyra so far and they take it fine.

[SushiGirl]

Thanks for the response! What ratio of peroxide to tanks water are you using?

[impur]

I am not using peroxide. Using a product called Hydroxs.

[SushiGirl]

Oh, I was wondering why you were calling it that. Never heard of it other than cookies LOL. Guess I'll have to look it up.

Edit: I just went through 5 pages on google & all I found were cookies and cosmetics...can you provide more info for those of us not in the loop?

[Huntor0]

Did anyone have luck ridding their tanks of the soft hydroids? I am having a slight outbreak in some hard to reach live rock areas.

I did locate the link to the product Hydroxs but the e-mail address to place an order was rejected.

[impur]

Yes I was able to completely eradicate all types of hydroids using Hydroxs and the dip procedure I posted above.

carol.e.keen@gmail.com

That is the email I have been using to communicate with Carol.

[Huntor0]

Thanks for the update, I look forward to hearing back from her.

[impur]

No prob, good luck.

I did actually change the dip procedure from above. I dip them for about an hour now, 2 days apart, 3 dips total. I ended up finding some different type of hydroid growing out of one of the frag plugs that I had never seen before. Doing the dips this way seems to kill off that new type as well. But be sure to pluck as many as you can beforehand.

[jlaborde]

hello everyone!


having a small hydroid outbreak, wanted to see what has worked.

thanks