Hydroids taking over after coral dip fail

[chairlegman]

Added a few montis and acans last week, dipped em in revive for 10 mins like always. Tank's been stable forever, 55g with 30g sump, params perfect: alk 8, nitrates 5ppm, zero phos. But now these damn colonial hydroids are everywhere on the rocks, tiny white feathery things popping up overnight.

Tried spot treating with more revive on a rock, pulled it out and dunked, put it back. Some died but others spread faster. Pep shrimps just stare at em, same as with aiptasia. Nuke the whole tank with potassium permanganate? Hate that chemical warfare crap, killed a snail last time I did it.

What's your go-to for hydroids without losing inverts? Been reefing 8 years, this is the first bad infestation. Pics attached if it helps.

https://imgur.com/a/hydroidhell

[tallguy_tx]

Dude, revive is total bullshit for colonial hydroids. Dipped my acans the same way last year, params rock solid alk 7.5 nitrates 4, and those feathery fuckers exploded overnight just like your pics.

Grabbed fenbendazole paste from a vet supply offshore (fuck Ontario regs on this crap), 222mg/gallon dip for corals 10 mins. Nuked em without touching my peppermint shrimps or snails. Spot treat failed for you too? Pull the rock, blast with turkey baster first to loosen polyps.

Tank back to normal in a week. What's your nitrate source tho, overfeeding montis?

[jen_93]

tallguy you're preaching to the choir on fenben, man. Ontario regs are a joke, had to grab mine from some offshore vet hookup (same shady vibes as my dice sites). Revive didn't touch my colony last month either, just pissed em off and they spread like wildfire on those acans. Turkey baster blast then 222mg/gal dip for 12 mins nuked em clean, zero invert losses. Pics look identical to my hellscape btw. You still running nitrates that high?

[coffeesnob]

Haha jen, dice sites? Spot on, those offshore gems with instant ETH crashes are the only way to play without the Ontario regulated scam bullshit holding your wallet hostage. Same drill for fenben, grabbed a tube from a vet hookup in India last month after Revive turned my montis into a hydroid farm too. Turkey baster blast then 222mg/gal dip for 10 mins, corals shrugged it off, shrimps didn't blink. Nitrates were pushing 6ppm from overfeeding the acans, dialed it back with less meaty foods. tallguy, you still blasting nitrates that high or what? OP, what's your exact feeding schedule looking like?

[FrostyBear_]

ok wait, dice sites? am I in the wrong thread lol. anyway.

I'm with you on being nervous about the fenben thing. everyone's throwing around 222mg/gal like it's no big deal but I've read posts where it nuked bristleworms and micro brittle stars, and my rock is crawling with those little guys. I actually like them. did any of you lose yours? nobody's mentioned it and that's the part that scares me. also pep shrimps, tallguy says his were fine, jen says zero invert losses, but that's two tanks. two isn't a lot.

And the turkey baster thing confuses me. doesn't blasting them just send tiny bits floating around to settle somewhere else and start new colonies? that's literally how mine spread I think, I scraped a patch off a rock and now there's more of them. so is the blast supposed to be before the dip only, or in the tank?

OP what are you feeding and how often? coffeesnob asked and you didn't say. asking because if it's overfeeding that's the cheap fix before I'd ever consider dosing my whole display. idk, I've got a 40g and I'm paranoid about crashing it, 8 years is a long time to lose everything to a feathery white thing.

[LisaW07]

FrostyBear's bristleworm question is the one nobody's actually answering, so I'll be the buzzkill here. Fenbendazole is a dewormer. It kills worms. That's the whole mechanism. The reason tallguy and jen report "zero invert losses" is probably that they didn't go looking with a red light at 2am. I've watched it flatten a pod population and every spaghetti worm in a 75g, and the tank looked fine from the couch.

Two tanks is not data either. "Zero losses" one month out means nothing for what it does to your microfauna over six months. And everyone parroting the exact same 222mg/gal figure like it came down off a mountain is a little suspicious. Where's that number from, one old thread from 2011?

On the baster thing, Frosty you're right and I'll back you. Blasting them in the display is how you farm them. Do it in a bucket of tank water after you pull the rock, then dump the bucket down the drain, don't pour it back.

OP what are you feeding and how often? Coffee asked twice and you skipped it. Mine thinned out on their own once I cut frozen back and stopped broadcast feeding. Colonial hydroids are usually a symptom, not the disease. I'd fix the input before I'd dose the whole display with a livestock dewormer because a thread said it was fine.