Brown Hydroid??

[JohnPiety]

Has anyone had any success getting rid of Brown Hydroids. I have two spots on my LR, both about 1 square inch patches. The upside is that my tank has hardly any live stock in it. (one yellowtail damsel, a small ricordea mushroom, one astraea snail, and a hand full of hermit crabs). So starting over would not be that hard to do. But my LR has coralline algae and l'd like to keep it if I can. My first thought was to start over with dry rock and a fresh batch of live sand after thoroughly cleaning the tank, but I was thinking that maybe a little drastic. In the long run I would like to get this tank up and and fully stock with fish and coral, but not with a hitcher problem. Does anyone have any suggestions.

Innovative Marine Fusion 20
Cobalt MJ1200 return pump
Jaboe RW-4 circulator pump (turned way down to try and help kill brown hydroids)
Orbit Marine LED (i have the white at 10% and the blue at 10% to try and kill the brown hydroids)
IM Ghost skimmer

This is the best pic I could come up with that looks like what's in my tank
[IMG][/IMG]



This is my tank
[IMG][/IMG]

[ccampo]

Easiest way is to take the rock out and cook it.
You can also use joe's juice.

Welcome !!!

[JohnPiety]

Thanks ccampo!!! I'll do that. I was thinking even if I cook all the rock the coralline algae will reseed itself in time for the coralline algae on the hermit shells. Any do's and dont's when cooking rock. I was thinking of just boiling it in a turkey fryer for 10 or 20 minutes. Also can I put the rock right back in the tank after a thorough rinse. I'm thinking the tank will go through a mini cycle.

[Jim28fl]

I take it this is one of your first reef tanks.
There not really that bad from what i read but i have not dealt with them. I read a fresh water soak kills them. My opinion you just live with it and practice some more with this set up and remember this is a learning tank. And make sure and warn anyone you give any frags to you have them. I also see some angle fish eat them. Could be sort of fun free food. Its probably not worth a tear down n start over unless you totally bleach everything and boil it to be sure.. but everything will be dead. they could hitch hike on the snails n so forth i believe but not likely and just re seed the new set up. Also a good time to upgrade to a new bigger system if you so desire. if it a fish only cold let the paramaters get off a bit and it may kill them as well. You have more options with no corals in there i think. Good luck. If you decide to bake everything, soak the rocks real well to get the dead stuff out before you restart everything or you will have a mess. the amount of stuff i live rock its very high. the die off would be huge internally and be tons of nitrates n so forth. maybe totally new sand n dry rock is easiest. Quarintine fish n snails in the tank as a bare bottom no rocks set up for a month then add new sand n rocks could work as well. just be sure to add some sort of ceramic needs or something like a sponge to give bacteria a place to break down ammonia in the mean time.

[ccampo]

"cooking" live rock does not refer to actually cooking it. It's a process used to rejuvenate live rock that have maybe taken up too many nasties killing everything in it in the process including even coraline algae, at the end it will be just rock, not live rock any more.

There are several methods:

1. Let it dry and wash it.
2. Bleach soak method:
3. Muriatic acid method:

you can probably google "cooking live rock" and you'll see several entries where you can read.

If you need it fast, do the muriatic acid method, but note that it can release some not so nice fumes, lots of CO2 and HEAT, just make sure you do it outside if you go this route.
Letting the rock dry completely then several days soaked in 10/1 mix of FW and Bleach will clean the rock too.
I prefer Powerwashing, + Bleach soak. It takes a few days and then a few more days of changing out the FW to clean out the bleach.

[JohnPiety]

ccampo, after writing that last reply I did google "cooking" LR and quickly realized I had no idea what I was talking about. And it looks like quite a task.

Jim28fl, this is not my first tank but it feels like it. I have had a fish only tank since Nov of 2012, but made some bad decisions when purchasing equipment. Mainly my cabinet, it was a Deep Blue 36" wide cabinet. The front of the cabinet had two small doors on either side with a BIG board centered on the front. This made it VERY difficult to do any maintenance. Plus 15 gallon water changes with 5 gallon buckets was not working for me. I am sure you are laughing at me, but I needed to get realistic if I was going to continue in this hobby. So started over in Sept. of 2014 with a IM Fusion 20, which I am very happy with. Especially the water changes, 4 gallons a week, it takes me about 10 minutes not including mixing the salt.

I really appreciate all the advise. I have a lot to chew on. I think I have these expectations of having a perfect tank, but maybe I need to realize what I am dealing with... nature.

P.S. how do you become a club member, when is the next meeting? I have so many more questions besides this one, and all of the local fish stores want to sell me a fix.

[ccampo]

This month meeting is a speaker meeting, James Fatherree will be speaking, we don't know about what yet or the location, but it is going to be on Sat. Aug. 29th.
Keep visiting our site for more info about the meeting, we will post the location once we secure a venue.

[ccampo]

As far as becoming a member, you can do that at any moment, just click on the "Signup/Renew" on the left side "ORCA Club Menu", fill out the information and then pay the membership fee using Paypal.
Individual membership $20, Family membership $25 annually.