Freshwater Hydra?

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Siggy75

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I'm a beginner and everything has been going swimmingly (excuse the pun), but I woke this morning to find hundreds of white specs on the glass of the aquarium. They are about 2mm wide and on close inspection they are hanging on by a thread. I think I can identify tentacle like structures but the are very small. After searching on the net I'm convinced they are Hydra.

I've got a 60L tank with just 4 platies at the moment. The cycling is going well and ammonia and nitrates are both 0, but I may have been over-feeding a bit.

I don't really want to add any chemicals to the water. My next fish is going to be a dwarf gourami and I've read that they might be able to control them. Anyone got any thoughts on ths? I haven't got any live plants yet but I have got a piece of Mopani wood. Could this be the source of the problem?
 
The only time I had freshwater hydra, I managed to get rid of them by squirting boiling salt water directly at each individual one with a pipette (syringe will do too). It takes a few treatments, which need to be small because it is dangerous to change the salinity of the aquarium water quickly. You would also need to do daily waterchanges to remove the salt after the treatment so that it doesn't build up. Luckily, platys are one of the species which can tolerate some in the aquarium. You can use aquarium salt, marine salt or rock sea salt (without any additives) for the treatment, but not table salt or just rock salt. Since it sounds like you're doing a fish-in cycle ( :( ) the water changes will have more benefit than harm anyway.

When I had hydra, they came in on some plants that I had bought, so were not related to feeding (which was low anyway).
 
As said, harmless to platies, which will eat some too (gouramis would eat even more :)).

It's common to get blooms of various micro-critters like hydra in a new tank so don't worry about it, totally natural. They will thin in numbers and eventually when you have more fish eating them/their food they will disappear, just give it a month or two :good:.
 
As said, harmless to platies, which will eat some too (gouramis would eat even more :)).
Salt is harmless to platys.

I wouldn't consider hydras to be harmless though, as they will sting the fish and the other person's hands when they get too close. If a hydra manages to get a fish's eye, the fish will most likely become blind.
 
In my experience a sting to a fishes eye wont result in blindness, and no matter how hard I try, I consistently fail to feel hydras sting on even the most sensitive skin between my fingers.
In any event, they will thin out in numbers and disappear on their own anyway as I mentioned. While essentially benign at low levels, I cant see sodium chloride having a positive effect on a growing freshwater bacteria colony.
Personally I would just keep up regular water changes and let nature take it's course :good:.
 
Thanks for your comments. I've done a large water change with a bit of a scrub of the glass and it's looking a lot better for now. I've also picked up a lovely Red Dwarf Gourami, so I'm going to see how it goes, but I'm feeling a lot better about it now.

Yes, I am doing a fish-in cycle (thanks to my gross impatience) and I'm taking it nice and slowly. It is going really well so far and I'm constantly changing my mind about what fish I want, so it's probably been a good thing for me. I'm getting quite attached to my cheeky little Platies.
 

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