hydroids growing in zoas/palys, any suggestions?

Ninjapotamus · Apr 19, 2011

not sure how to deal with these things, been trying for a while. Iodine, hydrogen peroxide, coral rx dips... manual plucking. cant seem to eliminate these *******s.

they grow on both zoas as well as other surfaces. palys dont seem to be that hurt by them but small zoas close right up and wont open until i manually pluck them clean.

any suggestions on a dip or method of removal for these?

Tabasco1 · Apr 19, 2011

Tagging along to see what the solution is. Great pictures though. I know some breeders have issues with hydroids free floating in the water and killing off fry. When I was reading those threads there didn't seem to be any solution they were using to get rid of them. Just accepting the loss.

Ninjapotamus · Apr 19, 2011

high concentration iodine dips seem to hurt them the most. but they always come back. maybe i need to dip them several days in a row, but I dont know if the zoa's palys can handle it.

dougers31 · Apr 19, 2011

You could try a peroxide dip. I dipped my zoas that had some tiny blue clove polyps on them and it seemed to wipe out the cloves.... Different animal but might be worth a shot.

Ninjapotamus · Apr 19, 2011

ive done 25% perodixe dips, the hydroids dont even retract ... they sit there sizzling away totally unaffected.

MarvinsReef · Apr 19, 2011

I'm having the same issues with my main tank. they only seem to affect z's and p's. let's just say most of my z's and p's aren't in the main tank anymore. when we moved them in the frag tank, they went away by themselves. maybe coz we don't feed in the frag tank. so theory is when they're starved for nutrients or whatever their food source is, they'll go away. I feed 2-3x/day in my main tank coz of my fishes. I made doubles and triples of whatever z's and p's I like and moved them in the frag tank at my parent's house. I wanna make sure I will always have the morphs I like. some of my affected z's and p's colony / mini colony will have them for a few weeks and will have none in another few weeks. then will have some and then will have none. I kinda gave up on trying to rid them esp coz the z's and p's mentioned are on the rock work already so it'll have to be survival of the fittest. sad but that's how it is in nature.