Getting rid of Digitate Hydroids

[Luan B.]

Hello everyone,

Currently I’m facing a boom of digitates hydroids in my tank which are stinging my corals and killed 2 healthy heads on my euphylias… I wonder if anyone had success controlling them in a natural way (I’ve read about adding peppermint shrimp or banded coral shrimp as they could feed on them but I am not sure if they will) if not, any advice would be appreciated

 

[Rallic]

Halloween hermit crabs 50/50 with them so get 6 they are cheap

 

[Idech]

An army of dwarf hermit crabs did it for me.

 

[puckstopshere]

Hello everyone,

Currently I’m facing a boom of digitates hydroids in my tank which are stinging my corals and killed 2 healthy heads on my euphylias… I wonder if anyone had success controlling them in a natural way (I’ve read about adding peppermint shrimp or banded coral shrimp as they could feed on them but I am not sure if they will) if not, any advice would be appreciated

How’s this going for you? I’m going through a bloom of them and I just can’t tell if they’re actually a problem. Clearly a lot of posts say that they sting and are awful, but I can’t point to any corals or fish that seem to care remotely. Here’s an example of one in my zoas. I feel like zoas react if something sneezes near them, so this clearly isn’t a man o’ war.

 

[BriDroid]

When I had them early on in my nano, I stopped broadcast feeding and added a tuxedo urchin. The urchin didn’t seek them out, but he would mow them down as he grazed and they eventually went away.

 

[Luan B.]

How’s this going for you? I’m going through a bloom of them and I just can’t tell if they’re actually a problem. Clearly a lot of posts say that they sting and are awful, but I can’t point to any corals or fish that seem to care remotely. Here’s an example of one in my zoas. I feel like zoas react if something sneezes near them, so this clearly isn’t a man o’ war.

They are still all over my tank but somehow in less numbers, they still stinging my euphyllias, the rest of my corals don’t see to get bothered by them. Added loads of blue legged hermit crabs and a peppermint shrimp but can’t confirm if is hunting them down. Also start to rinse my frozen food and stop completely with AB+ or any broadcast food. I’ve tried everything (even a copperband that ended up not making past first month) and nothing seems to get rid of them so at this stage I’m just letting it go naturally

 

[puckstopshere]

Just thought I'd come back to this and update with my experience. Over time, as other have said, hydroids have become less of an issue. I made a couple of small changes, like making sure I rinsed frozen food and I added a few more hermits and introduced bumblebee snails. The logic there was just to do more things that would clean out cracks in the rock. I don't know if any of these things made the difference, I'm sure time also helped since for many people these just go through a cycle naturally.

But in my frustration, I also did one other thing that seems to have helped. I bought a pair of surgical scissors and I started cutting them. I read about how you have to remove the whole foot from the rock, but I couldn't get to all of the little cervices in my tank without disturbing things. What I could do was clip the ugly strings in half when they got long enough to reach, so I tried it. Since I started doing this, every decapitated hydroid has died. I have not been meticulous about retrieving the loose strings either, and as far as I can tell none have reattached.

It's not my intent to give anyone bad advice, but I've been happy enough with how well this is working that I wanted to come back with an update.