Are swimming hydroids bad?

[katsreef]

It is extremely hard to get a picture or video of these because they are so tiny so I am not even going to bother attaching one. I have only seen one in my tank. It is a hydroid but it just hangs out on the glass and swims like a jellyfish if I push it off of the glass. Will this be harmful to my tank? I've been trying to catch it, but no luck yet.

 

[EricR]

Not sure but I'd definitely net and discard any you find.

My one experience was with 30 day QT of a ball of chaeto from eBay.
Found a bunch in the QT only days AFTER I had already moved the chaeto into DT (((just when I was finally breaking down QT))).

*luckily never saw any in DT but I was scared for a while

 

[lopez052308]

Do they look like this?

 

[katsreef]

Do they look like this?

yes like little snowflakes that swim like jellyfish. the one i have sits on the glass

 

[katsreef]

Not sure but I'd definitely net and discard any you find.

My one experience was with 30 day QT of a ball of chaeto from eBay.
Found a bunch in the QT only days AFTER I had already moved the chaeto into DT (((just when I was finally breaking down QT))).

*luckily never saw any in DT but I was scared for a while

im trying to but I keep losing it lol. I'll keep trying though! Glad your situation worked out, that sounds stressful lol

 

[WestMI-Reefer]

Like these?

hydroid medusa. I know me and @lopez052308 have them and have discussed our findings before.

I still have them but they seem to be declining in number. In this stage, from my experience, they aren’t hurting anything. I have read that there are thousands of types of hydroids and not all are harmful but some definitely are.

monitor and report back here what you find. Most likely just a benign hitchhiker/filter feeder. They will likely disappear over time. IMO.

 

[katsreef]

Like these?

hydroid medusa. I know me and @lopez052308 have them and have discussed our findings before.

I still have them but they seem to be declining in number. In this stage, from my experience, they aren’t hurting anything. I have read that there are thousands of types of hydroids and not all are harmful but some definitely are.

monitor and report back here what you find. Most likely just a benign hitchhiker/filter feeder. They will likely disappear over time. IMO.

Yes exactly like that. I would get a picture but my phone can never focus in it singe it’s tiny. I think I have 2 of them but right now I can’t find either. I’ll try to get a pic soon! I have a vid but for some reason I haven’t been able to post any on here in the last few days

 

[katsreef]

Like these?

hydroid medusa. I know me and @lopez052308 have them and have discussed our findings before.

I still have them but they seem to be declining in number. In this stage, from my experience, they aren’t hurting anything. I have read that there are thousands of types of hydroids and not all are harmful but some definitely are.

monitor and report back here what you find. Most likely just a benign hitchhiker/filter feeder. They will likely disappear over time. IMO.

Here is mine after I knocked it off the glass (sorry it is so hard to focus on it since it's tiny):

lil hydroid

youtube.com

 

[WestMI-Reefer]

Yes exactly like that. I would get a picture but my phone can never focus in it singe it’s tiny. I think I have 2 of them but right now I can’t find either. I’ll try to get a pic soon! I have a vid but for some reason I haven’t been able to post any on here in the last few days

Yup! I had the same difficulty getting them to focus so I use this same picture every time I refer to them haha
You have only seen 2 of them? I think you could eradicate them with manual removal like other suggested. A credit card smush against the glass should do the trick. Finding them could be difficult as they live on the sandbed as well as glass, we just can’t see them on sand. I have thousands so I’ve learned to live with them. Is your tank new like mine? They seem to populate out of nowhere in early aquariums and then go away when the tank establishes a more mature biome. Mine are losing numbers quickly now coming out of the “ugly phase”

 

[WestMI-Reefer]

Here is mine after I knocked it off the glass (sorry it is so hard to focus on it since it's tiny):

lil hydroid

youtube.com

Yup, some sort of hydroid forsure

 

[Joe31415]

Like this?

 

[katsreef]

Yup! I had the same difficulty getting them to focus so I use this same picture every time I refer to them haha
You have only seen 2 of them? I think you could eradicate them with manual removal like other suggested. A credit card smush against the glass should do the trick. Finding them could be difficult as they live on the sandbed as well as glass, we just can’t see them on sand. I have thousands so I’ve learned to live with them. Is your tank new like mine? They seem to populate out of nowhere in early aquariums and then go away when the tank establishes a more mature biome. Mine are losing numbers quickly now coming out of the “ugly phase”

I've only seen one, maybe two. My tank is 6 months old. I added new frags the other day so I'm assuming they survived the dip lol. I can't find them right now but I'll give that a try! Thank you

 

[katsreef]

Like this?

Mine looked more like a snowflake than that one IMO

 

[19Mateo83]

these just started popping up on my glass as well. They come and go with newer tanks, just the tank biology maturing and diversifying.