Digitate Hydroid issues

[chichimom79]

First off, just a thought but we need a section for reef pests. Putting this in the invertibrate section just seems too good for these guys...
I posted back in March about having these and similar to what I've found online, I got mixed messages. For those who don't know, Digitate Hydroids look like fuzzy little white strings that extend more at night and filter feed. I can now confirm that they will irritate your coral(at least the variety I have). I have a candy cane coral that I have been rehabbing for a few months now. It was dying of algae growth at the LFS that I usually do not buy my stock from ;) It was coming back nicely until I noticed some tissue regression at the bottom of one of the heads. Then I noticed when the lights were off that a digitate hydroid was just long enough to reach that exact spot on the candy cane. Confirmation that I want these fukkers out of my tanks! The coral has been moved to a different spot in hopes of continued recovery.
Somebody please tell me something that works to rid myself of these pests!

 

[Bifferwine]

How many of your rocks are the hydroids on? All of them? Just one? Just a few?

 

[chichimom79]

All of them :( In the sixty they are not as spread out and not covering the rocks. Im going to siphon a bunch off of the sand today.

 

[Salty B]

Manual removal is the only way to get rid of them. Which basically means killing your live rock. I was reading on a different forum (dont remember which but I'll try to find it) where Ron Shimek was talking about these nasty little buggers. He was talking about how potent their sting was and it's ability to kill small bottom dwelling fish such as blenny,goby and dragonettes along with stinging corals. Sounds like its gonna be a PITA to get rid of them. Best of luck to you.

 

[KelliZackMOM]

Good luck. I just did quite a bit of reading on them because I had a small piece of rock covered with them. From what I read, they are tough to rid. Siphoning them or scrubbing the rock they are on won't rid them for good because that breaks up the cells and then they multiply. The only way to rid them for good if to kill the rock they are on. That's impossible without screwing up your tank if they are all over. You will just have to be persistant with the siphoning. I would make it a part of your regular maintenance. They will never be completely gone, but you should be able to keep the growth down and stop them from screwing with your corrals. Fortunately for me, I think I only had them on the one rock that I just got about a week ago and it was really more of a small rubble piece so I just removed it and boiled it. They do sting anything they can reach, but I guess it depends on how sensitive the fish or corral is as to whether it will kill it. I can say from experience they don't phase turbo snails. I had a turbo creeping across the rock they were on, that's how I noticed them because they were going nuts swaying all over and stretching out.