Should I be concerned about hydra?

[tmtpowers]

frozen bloodworms.. .thers alot of people gettin this stuff in ther tanks, it must be the frozen bloodworms..........

Thats funny you should say that...

I just noticed a infestation of flat worms after going a long time since I had some introduced via snails. Well the other night I noticed not just the original tank that was infested, but ALL 6 of my tanks have some of these critters in them!!! The only thing I could think of was the frozen foods!! All tanks have had frozen food in them, however, they are cleaned weekly and I make sure not to over feed.... Strange...

 

[NoчnoyGostь]

Not sure that what I had was hydra (tiny white flower-like things stiking to the glass), but my snails seemed to eat them. I once saw a snail go right through a few of the "things" and there was a clean little pass behind it with nothing left.

 

[webcricket]

Yeah, I read some larger pond snails will eat them, but my puffers would eat the snails before they could do anything, LOL.

As for the frozen food - I feed the extra bloodworms to my other tanks and I'm not seeing hydra or any other problems in them. Now I had been just dumping the bloodworms in the tank and letting the puffers eat them off the bottom (maybe overfeeding a smidge). I switched it up and today fed only a few worms at a time over the course of maybe 10 minutes so that nothing got to the bottom of the tank (where I'm seeing hydra). Perhaps the hydra were feeding on pieces of the dropped bloodworms? Or maybe they were feeding on whatever was feeding on the bloodworms?

 

[Rowangel]

frozen bloodworms.. .thers alot of people gettin this stuff in ther tanks, it must be the frozen bloodworms..........

I doubt this, I don't think such a delicate organism would survive freezing, these guys like perfect water. Actually I doubt much, if anything, would survive the freezing, partial thawing from shipping/bringing home, than freezing again that these cubed foods go through. I would suspect new plants, snails, shrimp or any foreign water added to a tank first. Often these guys are introduced to a tank or are present long before you become aware of it and all it takes is one over feeding for the population to reproduce to a point where it becomes noticeable.

 

[bigscout]

Red Ramshorn snails are said to eat them, and some gouramis will, but most fish do not. Most cures I've heard of are constantly debated as to how well they work so it seems to be hit and miss. I do know that Firemouths eat them, becuase I once had hydra in my cichlid tank. Aside form that they are not a big concern in my mind unless they start eating fry regularly.

 

[NoчnoyGostь]

Red Ramshorn snails are said to eat them...

Those are the snails I had in the tank at the time when hydra appeared. It took them about a week to clean the tank completely. (Perhaps there were also other reasons for it disappearing, not sure).