Hydra with CFB and red cherry shrimp?

Hello! We recently adopted 2 CFB newts from a local rescue. We started cycling the tank in the beginning of October, and it was fully cycled before introducing its new occupants

About a week ago I noticed a few white stringy things attached to the aquarium glass. I didn't think too much of it, because there were only a few, and we do have a tonne of live plants in the aquarium. I figured they had snuck in on the plants, and I would keep an eye on it. Today I noticed much more of them were on the glass than before. I did some googling, and figured out that I have an infestation of hydra in my aquarium!

My question is this: I have red cherry shrimp in with my CFB, and they get along great (by "great" I mean that the newts don't seem bothered and neither do the shrimp). The hydra concern me, as I don't want them interfering with any potential baby shrimp that may arrive. Can anyone suggest ways to quell or eradicate my hydra population that would not be detrimental to the newts? I'm hesitant to use OTC fish medications as their effects on caudates are not explicitly stated. Has anyone had this issue before? I'm very open to suggestions! If it weren't for the shrimp, I wouldn't be worried, but I'd love for them to breed in the tank with the newts, and would hate to see the population to slowly die off...

They are very common in planted tanks, but after an initial population explosion, they normally seem to die back down to much lower numbers. I sometimes see them in my tanks, I think they come in with WC live food. They don't seem to cause any problems though, maybe they do pick off the odd baby shrimp, but not as many as the newts do.

I don't know, Hydra could definitely decimate newly hatched shrimp...They can explode in number fast but even though they tend to die back down as you say, they will still be there, ready to take advantage of any opportunity.
Personally i would try to get rid of them by sucking them off with a thin tube, and if their numbers grow too much, i would put the newts in a temporary home and dry out the tank and its contents.

There's a joke thread about eradicating hydras somewhere, isn't there? I was going to post the link for devilment, but I couldn't find it!

Chinadog said:

They are very common in planted tanks, but after an initial population explosion, they normally seem to die back down to much lower numbers. I sometimes see them in my tanks, I think they come in with WC live food. They don't seem to cause any problems though, maybe they do pick off the odd baby shrimp, but not as many as the newts do.

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Ahah! That would make sense if they came in on the live food. I didn't notice them at all until the newts arrived and we started feeding live worms. Sneaky devils!
I'll continue to keep an eye on the population, and today I'm going to roll up my sleeves and try to remove the ones I can see stuck to the glass.
At least they're not a bother to the newts. They're actually kind of pretty, but I like my shrimp more than I think they're pretty lol!

Lately we've been having a semi-difficult time getting the newts to eat regularly (we only have 2 at the moment), but last night before I went to bed I checked on them, and one of them was munching on something in a dark corner where I couldn't really see him. I suspect it was a rouge worm that escaped my tweezers. It's good to know they're eating though! I've not seen them picking off any shrimp, but now I'm suspicious!

Azhael said:

I don't know, Hydra could definitely decimate newly hatched shrimp...They can explode in number fast but even though they tend to die back down as you say, they will still be there, ready to take advantage of any opportunity.
Personally i would try to get rid of them by sucking them off with a thin tube, and if their numbers grow too much, i would put the newts in a temporary home and dry out the tank and its contents.

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I think this will be my task for today. Yesterday I did a decent clean of the tank to remove excess organic materials, and today I will target the hydra! Thanks for your help. Hopefully it doesn't come to my having to dry out the whole tank, but we'll see!

Chinadog said:

There's a joke thread about eradicating hydras somewhere, isn't there? I was going to post the link for devilment, but I couldn't find it!

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Actually, I think I was googling last night and found that! I just tried to find it again, but couldn't lol!

At one time, I had tons of hydra in one of my axolotl tanks. This is what I did: I took out my axolotls and temporarily kept them for a couple weeks in small containers. I treated the tank with two rounds of Prazi pro, which decimated the hydra. Did a few water changes and monitored to make sure they were gone. Then moved everybody back into the tank. NO MORE HYDRA!

Now, I have used Prazi pro in my discus tank as a parasite preventative. And I also keep a number of Amano shrimp. I did not notice any ill effects from the treatment in my tank.