Baby hydra in my tank?

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AquaticMike

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Oct 15, 2012
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I am relatively new to the hobby and will try to give you as much background to my current situation as I can. First off my tank is cycled. I do weekly water tests and 30% water change and currently have the following water chemistry in my 10 gallon tank ammonium:0 nitrite:0 nitrate: 10ppm Ph: 6.8 Kh:4.I bought a larger filter than I needed for the 10 gallon tank and recently purchased a 30 gallon tank and as such but a filter for the 10 gallon in order to have the proper amount of filtration on the tank. The filter is an AquaClear HOB filter so I placed the biobeads and old media in the new filter so that my aquarium would still be cycled. 2 days after I performed the change I have tons of little dandelion spore like creatures on my glass and plants. Absolutely hundreds of them. They are about 1 milimeter long and have 1 leg attaching them to the glass and then multiple tentacles. I have attached a picture of them for proper identification. I think it might be baby hydra but I've never heard of them multiplying so quickly!

image-2198556868.jpg



If you could provide any help I would greatly appreciate it.

possibly relevant pieces of information. I am coming of the tail end of a diatom bloom, inject Co2 with a proper DIY Co2 system, have a moderate to heavily planted tank, stock dwarf rainbow fish and RCS.

Thanks in advance!
 
I have the same thing going on in my tank. I vacuumed and did a 10% water change every other day for a week and a half. It look like they where dying. So started 10% change weekly until now two weeks later.... And it's back.

I have the same 10gal tank with plastic plants. Two dwarf flame gourami, one golden dream killifish one tetra: don't know the name but really small .75 in and yellow and orange, a rubber mouth Pleco, and a bamboo shrimp. It may be over stocked and that could be part of the problem.

I did change the feeding when I first noticed this problem. I was just dumping a lot of food. Now a 4tea spoon of tetramin tropical crisps twice daily and tetra baby shrimp 2-3 times a week.

If it is hydra I believe it can be harmful to the fish. Advice would help
 
If what you have in your tank looks what is pictured at the beginning of this thread then what you have is not hydra. It is a fungus of some sort. I have not found any specific detail on exactly what it is.

That being said it if you want to remove it from your tank you should decrease feeding even further and make sure to do closer to a 20-30% water change weekly at least until it is gone. Decreasing feeding does substantially hinder it from returning in your tank. Oddly enough when I recently planted a 29 gallon aquarium I somehow acquired the fungus even though I have yet to add any fish or "feed" the tank in any way.

I cleaned the glass and did about a 50% water change and they are essentially gone. This will not fully remove them, but it does a very good job and will cause them to essentially disappear if combined with decreased feeding for a period of time.

If i find more information I will let you know.

P.S. Hydra tend to be green or yellow and can grow up to 2cm long but tend to be .8-1cm long. They are very distinct. If what you have doesn't look like the picture I attached to this post then it likely is not hydra but rather this seemingly harmless fungus. If it is hydra let me know. I have dealt with that too now and have successfully and safely removed all of it from my aquariums.
 

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