Hydroids on Porties?

[Anonymous]

How the heck am I going to get rid of the hydroids on my porties?
Can I use a toothbrush to scrub them off, out of the tank of course?
Any ideas at this point would be helpful. Darn things are starting to spread.

 

[wade1]

You have the little brown type or the larger yellow polyp type?

Not really sure how you'll get them off, aside from possibly trying to starve them off. Most hydroids don't live for long in our tanks with the low level of feeding we do...

Wade

 

[spsmike]

I dunno mine have been thriving for years, but I can say that they dont have a fast growth rate.

 

[SnowManSnow]

donno if joe's juice works?

 

[wade1]

Joe's would work but it would destroy the porites underneath as well. Basically, the only other option would be a natural predator that would ignore the porites. Don't know of any offhand (butterflies? shrimps? nudibranchs?)... does anyone?

 

[Anonymous]

There aren't any commonly available. Fortunately it's pretty easy to rip those leathery tubes they grow from off the rock.

 

[spsmike]

What harm do hydroids do?

 

[Anonymous]

Sting corals. Smother other stuff.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I've been so afraid to do anything that now I have a good crop of them. I think one of these days I'll try to rip them off the rock, just like pulling weeds from the garden.

 

[HClH2OFish]

I had tons of the light whitish brown ones on some LR in my 25gal...
Once I got my half black angel, they all are gone within the week.....dunno if it was coincidence or not, but nothing else in the tank changed.....

 

[Anonymous]

Last week, I pulled off as many of the hydroids as I could. But still had a ton on the rock. Today, I sucked/scraped them off with rigded thinwalled airline. I know I missed a couple of them, but it sure looks a lot better. In another tank, I shot kalk mix directly onto them. I'll let you know how that works out.