Getting rid of Hydras using Fenbendazde in a shrimp tank

First, I apologize to the Moderators I am not sure where to post this thread.

I've been doing research online how to kill Hydras in a shrimp tank and people been recommending Fenbendazole that has no ill effect on shrimps. Has anyone ever used it before in their shrimp tank?

 

I have not, Actually the last time I had hydras believe it or not, I used pond snails....they love to eat them.

 

It is a common anti-parasitic med; if you have furry pets you may have heard it referred to as Panacur (goopy white stuff). However you need pure Fenbendazole, as Panacur likely has binding agents that would be bad to put in a tank.

You may find this link helpful:

 

I've been doing research that people use Safe Guard (dewormer) and has zero effects on their shrimps and fish. Considering I don't have any shrimps in the tank, I dose with Safe Guard Fenbendazole. I don't plan to add shrimp for another 3 weeks or so.

 

Did you remove the shrimp/have you not added them yet? Is it just an empty tank? If so I wouldn't be too worried about it; you can do water changes / add carbon once the treatment is finished and before you add shrimps.

 

No shrimps...I was waiting for the dirt to cycle be super cautious until I had my colony of yellow shrimps and I also got another yellow shrimp colony from Daac recently. I want those Hydras, Planaria, Deritus worms and any other hitch hikers in the tank.

Next time, I am going to quarantine plants like I'm doing now....I've been ordering on ebay (Anubias, Java Fern, Java Moss, Flame moss and more coming). I think I am going to add some Fenbendazole in that quarantine bowl of plants. I did check an LFS today and inspected their plants and guess what, they have Hydras on them. I never inspect plants now I do ;-). I've learned my lesson.

 

Eek maybe I should be more careful.. I've never quarantined plants before. I have hitchhiker snails, but I have a pair of assassins and they need to be fed! I've read about doing a brief bleach dip for new plants, but I wonder if that would take care of things like hydra? Also, I didn't know they were big enough to be seen.

 

The ones at the store are definitely noticeable. At first they were diatoms so I didn't really do anything until I notice the tentacles. I sucked that sucker out and now they are everywhere..plants, glass walls, ruin structures, heater, everywhere.

Inspect, Inspect, Inspect......I've learned my lesson. I didn't even know what they were until now. They can even kill fry and shrimplets.

 

I know they have little stingers on their tentacles, so I sure hope I don't get any. They at least seem more fun / less gross than the planaria I'm dealing with now :/ Where did they even come from anyway?

I'm planning on buying a few plants tomorrow (anubias coffeefolia, jungle val) so I'll have to be more careful when I add them.

Good luck with the Fenbendazole treatment!

 

Thanks...I will let you know in three days ;-)

 

those little stingers are really not that bad to begin with and will only damage fry. I am never a proponent of chemicals, with all of my planted tanks I have plenty of pond snails and can never seem to irradicate them from anywhere so might as well use them. Yeah there a bit annoying but oh well ill deal especially now that I have found a use for them.

As for QT of plants, I always give my new ones a peroxide dip and quite often they spend about a week in a bucket to see what shows up. Granted I still put them into the fertilizer program but its not in a show tank.

 

those little stingers are really not that bad to begin with and will only damage fry. I am never a proponent of chemicals, with all of my planted tanks I have plenty of pond snails and can never seem to irradicate them from anywhere so might as well use them. Yeah there a bit annoying but oh well ill deal especially now that I have found a use for them.

As for QT of plants, I always give my new ones a peroxide dip and quite often they spend about a week in a bucket to see what shows up. Granted I still put them into the fertilizer program but its not in a show tank.

I'll start doing the peroxide dip from now on.

Promising results so far. I did some direct application on fenbendazole onto some hyrdas this morning using an eye dropper and I notice the tentacles have retracted and some have shrunken.

 

Well that is good news glad it seems to work for ya!

I like the peroxide dip over bleach cause the worse that happens with a little excess peroxide in the tank is it becomes water lol.

 

I did the bleach dip with zero success. Actually it worked so well that my vals melted during the dip.

 

That's the problem with the bleach dip, it really does hurt everything even the good stuff.

 

Yeah, it destroyed my moss tree that I made, but I got string algae plus pond snails and I was transfering to a new tank and didnt want any hitchhikers....well, I no longer have that moss tree. Lesson learned.

 

Just an update: Day 3....hydras are all dead ;-). Will do my water change tomorrow.

 

Wow. I didn't even know that was a thing we could get in our tanks. Haven't seen one of those buggers since bio lab.

 

Wow. I didn't even know that was a thing we could get in our tanks. Haven't seen one of those buggers since bio lab.

me too...but I had a lot of them. Got them from the plants.

 

Where did you get the Fenbendazole? Amazon? That link I posted up there says it works for planaria too, which I have.. I generally prefer natural treatments as I don't want to harm my shrimpies, but if I can't get them to go away I may look into this more.

 

PetSmart ;-) I did research on TPT site and another shrimp keeping site and many members had success using Fenbendazole with shrimp and fish in the tank with zero casualty. It will kill Nerite snails though.

My Hydras and Deritus worms are gone. I haven't see any planaria also.

I used .1ml dosing for 10 gallons.

 

Interesting! I wouldn't expect Petsmart to carry something like that. I do have a pond snail, a ramshorn, and an MTS in there.. is it only toxic to nerites?

 

Interesting! I wouldn't expect Petsmart to carry something like that. I do have a pond snail, a ramshorn, and an MTS in there.. is it only toxic to nerites?

Fenbendazole is Safe-guard

That is what the consensus said about killing Nerite snails but other snails were safe. I can say I have one living pond snail in the tank I treated and it is still alive.

The trick is proper dosage, they say you must use .1ml grams of fenbendazole for 10 gallons and each packet is 2grams. I just divided one packet in twenty even piles and just used one pile.

Just checked my tank, no hydras, worms, or planaria ;-) They all use to be visible too.

 

According to the website, they also have 1-gram packages, so I may get one of those. I wonder if there are any binding agents or something that would be bad for a fishtank? I wouldn't want to jeopardize my little shrimpies.

 

I didn't see the 1 gram package... ;-)

You can try googling "Killing Planaria with Fenbendazole" and see the results. That is what I did and read a lot of postings that people made about their results. I initially didn't want to treat with chemicals, but from what I read it was harmless. Some have treated with fish, shrimps and snails in their tank without casualty.

I didn't want the Hydras because I heard they can over take a shrimplet. I don't know about Planaria though.

 

Yeah, I think hydras can sting tiny fry and shrimplets. I've read that planaria can also overtake shrimplets, but it must be those almost-microscopic ones because they're pretty slow compared to the shrimps.

I'll have to look into it next time I'm at Petsmart, thanks for the idea

 

If you want, I have two extra packet. I can send you one for free only if I can just put it in an envelope and mail it. I don't know if there is strict regulation sending drugs over the mail.

 

If you want, I have two extra packet. I can send you one for free only if I can just put it in an envelope and mail it. I don't know if there is strict regulation sending drugs over the mail.

That would be awesome!! I don't think there is; I used to work at an animal hospital and I've sent prescriptions through the mail, and safe-guard isn't even a prescription.

Sending a PM with address!

 

thread closed.