# Hydra, to care or not to care?



## MABJ (Mar 30, 2012)

I've personally got them in a tank with shrimp, fish, nerites and ramshorns. 

I haven't cared MUCH. but I do know I will eventually treat. I have green hydra, what do you have?


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## scottytank (Feb 13, 2012)

MABJ said:


> I haven't cared MUCH. but I do know I will eventually treat. I have green hydra, what do you have?


I've got the clear, white ones. I guess that's better as they're pretty translucent and you really only see them if you're right up close to the tank. Can you kill off the green ones by blacking them out since they photosynthesize?


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## Taari (Jul 31, 2010)

I got hydra in my 40. As far as I know they are only dangerous to tiny critters like fry and little things. I didn't like them so I treated with fenbendazole and that got rid of them. My plants seemed fine, my fish seemed fine, and my MTS (which are the only snails I cared about) seemed fine.


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## MABJ (Mar 30, 2012)

scottytank said:


> I've got the clear, white ones. I guess that's better as they're pretty translucent and you really only see them if you're right up close to the tank. Can you kill off the green ones by blacking them out since they photosynthesize?


I heard the green ones were the least dangerous of the hydra, but I'm not sure. They don't seem to die during black outs. 


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## scottytank (Feb 13, 2012)

Taari said:


> I didn't like them so I treated with fenbendazole and that got rid of them. My plants seemed fine, my fish seemed fine, and my MTS (which are the only snails I cared about) seemed fine.


Did you follow the 0.1g per 10 gallons of water recipe? I'm mostly concerned about the Nerites as I've heard it can kill them. I can move them into my shrimp tank temporarily while I treat the 35G too. It seems like people have had the most success with fenbendazole.


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## Taari (Jul 31, 2010)

scottytank said:


> Did you follow the 0.1g per 10 gallons of water recipe? I'm mostly concerned about the Nerites as I've heard it can kill them. I can move them into my shrimp tank temporarily while I treat the 35G too. It seems like people have had the most success with fenbendazole.


Yes, I went and bought fenbendazole powder for deworming dogs at petsmart and used .1 gram for 10 gallons. It is not water soluble, but I found it helped to put it in a small container of water and let it soak overnight, then use a syringe to squirt the concentrated liquid onto areas where you see concentrations of hydra. It will leave white blobs all over your tank, and make it cloudy for a while. I can't remember how long I left it in before doing a big water change and putting carbon in my filter though. My more recent use of fenbendazole was to de-worm one of my fish who had camalanus worms, so the timeline on usage is getting a bit crossed with that.


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## MABJ (Mar 30, 2012)

The dosing routine is 1/10 of a package for 10 gallons. 

So when I dosed to kill planaria, I did 1/10 then I took 2/10 of the separated stuff, as I only had 2 gallons. Dosing is easy, just shake it up in your next water change fluid. 

I would remove nerites, but my snails were unharmed last time. 


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