I have hydra in my tank, as I posted in a recent thread, and I have been doing lots of research to see what the causes and problems could be. Well, here are some bits and pieces of info that I came up with:
1. I can kill them off with a very low dosage of fenbenzadole (a dog de-wormer) with no side effects to the tank
2. they feed off copepods so they often have a population outburst after a copepod outburst (don't know if I have those in my tank or not!)
3. they like live foods, like fry, and kill them by stinging with their tenacles
4. they are harmless for most fish (esp. gourami who like to eat them) but are unsightly
5. my over-feeding habits probably contributed to the hydra population growth (it's in both of my tanks and i just introduced brine shrimp so i'm guessing they are eating leftovers?) One other correlation of when the hydra appeared is that I started doing larger and less frequent water changes.
If I kill them with fenbenzadole, am I masking a larger problem with my tank? Should I leave them alone and let nature take care of them? Or are they actually correcting a problem with my tank that, without the hydra to keep it in check, will get out of control.
1. I can kill them off with a very low dosage of fenbenzadole (a dog de-wormer) with no side effects to the tank
2. they feed off copepods so they often have a population outburst after a copepod outburst (don't know if I have those in my tank or not!)
3. they like live foods, like fry, and kill them by stinging with their tenacles
4. they are harmless for most fish (esp. gourami who like to eat them) but are unsightly
5. my over-feeding habits probably contributed to the hydra population growth (it's in both of my tanks and i just introduced brine shrimp so i'm guessing they are eating leftovers?) One other correlation of when the hydra appeared is that I started doing larger and less frequent water changes.
If I kill them with fenbenzadole, am I masking a larger problem with my tank? Should I leave them alone and let nature take care of them? Or are they actually correcting a problem with my tank that, without the hydra to keep it in check, will get out of control.