Hydra and shrimplets?

[VaultBoy]

Hi everyone, I have a bit of a problem (i think...) I seem to have added freshwater hydra into my tank somehow and have noticed massive population increase at the same time as I have had blue dreams, tb, pinto and crs mischlings all release babies. For a bit of perspective, the tank is only about 3 months old but was started with mature substrate and filter media so I could cycle it more quickly as I had to get my shrimp in there asap. I am new to keeping all of the variants in this tank but have kept an RCS colony for 3-4 years so wanted to try new things in a shrimp only tank.

So my questions are...

Do I actually have a problem? Are the hydra going to eat the babies?

If they are a problem then how do I get rid of them? I dont want to introduce any fish, cant really remove all shrimp/shrimplets to heat the water enough to kill them and I dont think there are any shrimp safe medicated solutions... Please help me!

[Mitch91]

Tech den sells a product I forget the name though. I had a small number of hydra I use to scrape/suck them up with air hose. However I added some black moscows and they ate the remainder and palaria too. I know the sorce of where mine came from Thankfully. 

[Bostave]

I use internal parasite clear to eliminate hydra and it does not harm shrimps and shrimplets. Google aquotix and they will be able to ship it to you.

[anthonyd]

Hydra can be a problem if they are in high numbers or there are a very large number of shrimplets in the tank. I use asolene spixi snails in my tanks to to keep them in check, some apple snails will eat them too.

here is one of my crs shrimplet being eaten

[jc12]

I use flubendazole with good results.

[Bill88]

I'd also like to keep updated in this thread. I've noticed some in my little shrimp tank and have no idea how they got there...


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[Grubs]

I use a worming product that has fenbendazole (different to flubendazole) as the active ingredient.  I use Panacur100 (100g fenbendazole per litre) at a dose rate of 8ml per 100 litres.  You can also get Panacur25 (25g fenbendazole per litre) in which case I'd dose 32ml per 100 litres.

It clears planaria, hydra and also worms the fish.  Shrimp are fine IME.

Panacur is a livestock wormer and I think the smallest bottle is 1  litre and not cheap. You might find other worming products in smaller quantities.. or someone else on this forum will pitch in with a source.

lots of info if you google search for fenbendazole and shrimp.

Also see flubendazole (as opposed to fenbendazole).  They seem to do the same job but are different compounds.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Grubs

[VaultBoy]

Thanks for the input everyone. I really dont like medicating my tanks if it can be avoided so for now I have physically removed them where I could, given the soil a clean up and dramatically reduced feeding and ill see if the problem just goes away on its own. It is good to know that there is a shrimp safe treatment if it comes to that.

 

Ive also noticed more of my babies getting around so dont think they were too badly damaged by the pests.

Edited August 19, 2016 by VaultBoy