To rid tank of hydra

[rivkah]

While looking though this site, and reading older posts, I saw a very humorous post about how to rid your tank of hydra.

Gouramis... what seems like a million years ago, when I started keeping fish, hydra was a major problem... the solution was to put a gourami in your tank. Within a couple of day all the hydra was eaten, and the gourami was some kind of happy, fat and sassy.

[Eva]

Hydra can be exterminated with higher temperatures for a short period of time or with fenbendazole. The fish solution is very attractive of course, but what if you don't want to keep the fish afterwards? For newt keepers, adding fish to their tanks is not really an option anyway.

[Niels D]

Snails like Planorbarius corneus, Lymnaea stagnalis, Physa marmorata and a couple of other species are known to eat hydra, but it takes a while or a whole lot of them to get rid of an infestation. In time you'll hardly see any hydra if you've got enough snails in your tank.

[rivkah]

Oops,

sorry for not checking so that I could respond in a resonable manner...

Eva, after the fish has done it "job", fed on the hydra, most pet stores will take them back in trade. Also rarely will you receive total credit for price paid, consider it a "rentle fee". If you have a good relationship with you local fish store - they may just "lend" one to you.

gouramis are a labrinth fish (same as betta, paradice, etc), which means they are actually air breathers not water breathers.... and can live in all kinds of conditions which most other fish can not. Most grow too large for most newts to even think about eating, and will not harm smaller newts. Who knows... maybe a newt keeper can grow to 'love' or at least like fish, especially usually ones.

Again, sorry for late response.

[BAKS]

From a UK perspective, trying to return a fish too many stores solely on the grounds that you've finished with it now would get you told that they're a shop, not a rental service. lol

Best way to deal with hydra is to not get them in the first place. Not so easy I know if feeding live foods regularly, however if you soak all new plants overnight in carbonated water this will kill any on the plants (as well as dragon fly eggs and larvae and planaria) without leaving traces of anything toxic behind.

Beyond that, I'd back the fenbendezole method (Panacur). I actually used this to eradicate planaria in some of my shrimp tanks back when I was into freshwater shrimp breeding. I blogged on the method I used to dose for anybody interested http://ukshrimp.co.uk/viewblog/viewpost/82.

Ade

[Michael Shrom]

Originally Posted by BAKS

Beyond that, I'd back the fenbendezole method (Panacur). I actually used this to eradicate planaria in some of my shrimp tanks back when I was into freshwater shrimp breeding. I blogged on the method I used to dose for anybody interested http://ukshrimp.co.uk/viewblog/viewpost/82.

Ade

Have you tried Panacur in a salamander tank? When I tried it the salamanders did not do well.