# Help with Hydra



## PickleRick (Mar 27, 2018)

Hey all!
I've setup a low tech dirted tank.. heres a pic










Plants:-
Cabomba
Jungle Val
Java Moss 
Java Ferns
some Anubias
Dwarf Sagitaria
Vallisneria Asiatica [i think]
Amazon Swords
And small cuttings of bacopa and Hygrophila.
Added some rotala twilight too..

I have 4 otos, 2 sae's and 4 rcs currently..
After i found out that i've got an hydra infestation, i read up about those pests and bought 2 mollies to eat them. But its been two weeks and not a single patch of hydra has lessened. In fact, they are spreading to newer areas.

I have also read about fenbendazole nuking those hydras, but obtaining fenbendazole at my place seems a lot of struggle as i dont have access to veterinary pharmacies and buying online is also out of option for me.

Can someone help me out with my issue?
What can i do to get rid of those hydras??
I've read that dwarf gouramis/ paradise fish binge on hydras. 
How true is it? as i dont want to introduce some unplanned fish in my aquascape.

TLDR:
Hydra problem. Mollies not helping. Cant get hold of Fenbendazole. Help..!


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## fracturedapple (Jul 7, 2016)

Hello, 

I know this is going to sound weird but I'll share my battle with the hydra. Maybe this will spark some speculation. Here I go.

I have had a hydra out break before. I was about to give up and take my tank down and reset. Until I got a hair algae out break.

At this time I just found out about the gouramis and was gonna try them but I wanted to get the algae taken care of first but the weird thing is as soon as I cured my take of algae I couldn't find a single hydra in my tank. 

I know the hydra eat micro fauna but I can still see them poking around in my aquarium. So maybe I algae snuffed them out? 

I hope something in this can help. 

Goodluck 

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## PickleRick (Mar 27, 2018)

fracturedapple said:


> Hello,
> 
> I know this is going to sound weird but I'll share my battle with the hydra. Maybe this will spark some speculation. Here I go.
> 
> ...


What did you do get to get rid of the hair algae?.. maybe I can look into using that on my tank.
Btw, I have ordered a dog dewormer containing fenbendazole thats currently in transit. Hope I get the dosage just right for my tank as I have shrimps and inverts and I dont want them to get affected by the fenbendazole.

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## fracturedapple (Jul 7, 2016)

I wish I could say the hair algae helped but I don't know for sure. For all I know the hydra could have depleted their food source and them dying off could have caused the algae bloom but the idea of fighting fire with fire would be cool. 

At that time I was still new to the walstad method and I let the fish mulm build up too much so I gently removed most of the mulm but not all of it and I removed as much of the algae as I could. Then it started to die off. 

As for the dog dewormer, I didn't know that could work. What I would do is remove any inhabitants that it may kill and when you are ready to add them back just run some carbon in the filter for a week and change it constantly to remove the chemical 

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## blissskr (Oct 9, 2007)

Panacur C fenbendazole dog wormer works. The usual recommended dosage is .1 grams of 22.2% fenbendazole powder per 10 gallons. But I've had success on hydra using half that or .05 grams per 10 gallons or .005 grams per gallon. I just crush up the powder real good in a folded piece of paper using a rolling pin and then measure out the dosage and mix it with a cup of tank water and pour it in the tank. Fenbendazole has a very poor solubility in water so it won't all be dissolved but I haven't found the powder to harm anything and it will dissolve over time. Within 24 hours the hydra will have retracted the tentacles and then start to discolor and be gone sometime between 48-72 hours at which point do water changes. I've never had any shrimp crystals, taiwan bee's, etc affected by the treatment and it also didn't bother pond snails, malaysian trumpets, rams horns or fresh water limpets but it does seem to kill nerites. Once the 72 hours are up I usually do a 20% water change every 3 days for 2 weeks before going back to normal water change schedule but that's in my caridina shrimp tanks and I think with just fish and some cherry shrimp which are hardier you could probably do 50% changes.


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## PickleRick (Mar 27, 2018)

blissskr said:


> Panacur C fenbendazole dog wormer works. The usual recommended dosage is .1 grams of 22.2% fenbendazole powder per 10 gallons. But I've had success on hydra using half that or .05 grams per 10 gallons or .005 grams per gallon. I just crush up the powder real good in a folded piece of paper using a rolling pin and then measure out the dosage and mix it with a cup of tank water and pour it in the tank. Fenbendazole has a very poor solubility in water so it won't all be dissolved but I haven't found the powder to harm anything and it will dissolve over time. Within 24 hours the hydra will have retracted the tentacles and then start to discolor and be gone sometime between 48-72 hours at which point do water changes. I've never had any shrimp crystals, taiwan bee's, etc affected by the treatment and it also didn't bother pond snails, malaysian trumpets, rams horns or fresh water limpets but it does seem to kill nerites. Once the 72 hours are up I usually do a 20% water change every 3 days for 2 weeks before going back to normal water change schedule but that's in my caridina shrimp tanks and I think with just fish and some cherry shrimp which are hardier you could probably do 50% changes.


I got a dog dewormer from Amazon and worked out the dosage you mentioned. 
Crushed the tablet into a fine powder, mixed with tank water and added it to the tank.
I'm seeing the hydras dropping their tentacles in just 2hrs after dosing. 
But the thing is I might've not crushed the tab too fine. I can see fine particles on the substrate and on rocks. See pic









Is this harmful if my fish nibble on it? Will it dissolve over time or will I have to manually siphon it out (latter is a huge pain:frown2


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## blissskr (Oct 9, 2007)

PickleRick said:


> I got a dog dewormer from Amazon and worked out the dosage you mentioned.
> Crushed the tablet into a fine powder, mixed with tank water and added it to the tank.
> I'm seeing the hydras dropping their tentacles in just 2hrs after dosing.
> But the thing is I might've not crushed the tab too fine. I can see fine particles on the substrate and on rocks. See pic
> ...


I usually crush it to a very fine powder but sometimes there's still particles that way but in my experience they have always dissolved within a day or so and I've never had to vacuum them out specifically.


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