[Tough.nut]

I haven't seen many posts or articles about treating Hydra in a RCS Tank using rock salt. I just want to know if this is even effective? Because I have seen few posts about it on other website saying rock salt or iodine free salt with the application of 3-5g of salt for every 1 gallon of water is able to treat hydra and is safe for other aquarium inhabitants. Is there anyone here who have treated hydra before using salt? How did you do it? what steps did you take to achieve a hydra free shrimp tank?

Here are the articles for using salt to treat hydra which I found not very specific with the instructions so I'm asking for experts here.
Hydra - Crustakrankheiten.de
Hydra in a Shrimp Tank. Treatment. - Shrimp and Snail Breeder (aquariumbreeder.com)

 

[FishTankExpert]

Never ever use table salt! It contains minerals that aren't healthy for fish. use aquarium or marine salt

 

[Tough.nut]

Never ever use table salt! It contains minerals that aren't healthy for fish. use aquarium or marine salt

my bad, I meant rock salt and not table salt. I edited the thread to remove confusion. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Tough.nut]

As per this treatment goes, I already tried this in my tank and its already going for 3 days now and showing positive result. I don't know if this will be a permanent solution to kill hydra but I will give this treatment a few more days to see what's changed then post an update here.

 

[FishTankExpert]

That sounds like a good plan! I actually haven't tried rock salt before so tell me how it turns out!

 

[Doob]

How's the tank looking? I am the position as you are and I am thinking of using kosher salt, what's your dosing like?
Are the plants adapting well? If you have snails in your tank are they still doing fine?

 

[Tough.nut]

After a week of treatment, I conclude that using rock salt for treating hydra isn't a good treatment. It's a week long treatment or more. As long as you still see hydra in your tank then you continue dosing it with salt everyday until they completely disappears. Imagine the salt concentration slowly increasing each day of treatment which could be bad for your aquarium inhabitants after an extended time of treatment, which is what happened in my experience. I see shrimps color turning pale and some of my plants starts to die-off, after that observation I immediately stopped the treatment, did a 60% water change and I am now hoping they can recover. At this point, I still have hydra in my tank but there's not alot of them. Honestly, I think the salt did work. It's just not good enough to completely wipe hydra off your tank.

You might be looking for rock salt as an alternative for a more commonly used dog dewormer (Panacur-c) as a treatment just like I do. Me, I find Panacur-c expensive and is hard to find base on the side of the world I'm in so I am looking for a cheap alternative like rock salt. There are many ways to eliminate hydra, but when adding fish in your shrimp tank is not an option and rock salt isn't effective, you have no other choice than to use chemical treatment. Chemical treatment can be costly but works fast and is effective most of the times. There are a lot of Chemical treatment available in the market and here's what I find the cheapest; Fenbendazole Powder (The same chemical that's in Panacur-c but alot cheaper without the Panacur-c branding) and No-Planaria (the repack version, buying the whole pack is costly, unless you have a big tank that will be needing lot of doses).I did my own research, both are effective for killing hydra from a shrimp tank. Though it's a bit expensive than the propose rock salt, adding just a few bucks is always worth it when you can completely get rid of hydra.

 

[Tough.nut]

How's the tank looking? I am the position as you are and I am thinking of using kosher salt, what's your dosing like?
Are the plants adapting well? If you have snails in your tank are they still doing fine?

If you still want to try, which I encourage, because yours might show different result than mine;

I do 20% water change everyday and for every water I add back to my tank I add two tablespoon of salt. Continue dosing until you see hydra no more. For my setup, I have a 10 gallon planted tank with atleast 40 RCS on it, some bladder and ramshorn snail. No shrimp, snails, or plants died during the treatment. (some plants started to wither after 5 days into treatment. Not die. Can still recover)