Colonial Hydroids... Again...ideas?

[OG-Goby]

Hey all,

So I have had this rock circulating in a trashcan in my office for the last 7 years since Hurricane Irma took out my tank. the rock was bare and white like snow. I was lucky and my clowns survived the hurricane power outage (week long) but they had been living in a neglected 20gallon for the last 7 years...

ok, so Christmas time wife says "do it" and I buy a new I.M. 50EXT for my clowns. I use the rock (real live rock from the ocean that I have owned for the past 20 years or so) and hoped it would bounce back. it did.. quite well in fact, its now 25% covered in coarline and my copepod population is insane... everything is going great for the first few months until the colonial hydroids show up again. the rock looked so dead when I started, but they have been living dormant in these few pieces for all this time.

ok, so I have some hydroids on one rock, cant be that bad.. im just shocked they survived in the brute for 7 years with no light, no water changes, nothing...but they are popping out of the rockwork now.. and its really on one rock... but now its on the 2 rocks next to that, and wouldnt you know, my clowns decided to restart the breeding program and use an overhang of the hydroid rock for their "spot".

ok lovely. now I am stressing it. i started trying to cover the hydroids with epoxy which works if you cover them all, but the rock is porous and they are creeping out around the epoxy...

so I was thinking about removing these 3 rocks and drying them out and letting them really go dead and then putting them back in the tank.

I do have other dead rock that I could use to replace these pieces.. but do you think they will show up in other rocks? Am i just doomed at this point?

I am open to all ideas on how to deal with these guys. If the consensus is to dry out ALL the rock and start over, so be it... as mentioned I have a few hundred pounds of DRY rock i could start with, I just really hate to go that route if there is any hope for dealing with these things.

FWIW - I stopped feeding frozen and am feeding new life specturm for the time being, yes its pellets, but its still not broadcast feeding. I am still dosing phyto, not sure if that is related... I have removed the 2 smaller rocks and went hunting with tweezers, but that is just not sustainable long term. not to mention its the bigger breeding rock that has the bulk of the problem.

ok, give me your ideas PLEASE

g
o
b
y

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

For ideas to deal with the hydroids:

Agreed with hydroids:
I've heard smothering the hydroids with kalk paste may work, but here are some other threads with suggestions that might be helpful:

Hydroids: a reference to some strategies

Like many of us, I have had problems on and off over the years with Hydroids. The ones that have always given me the most problems are the common ones that almost look like a smaller and darker version of the beginner coral called Yellow Polyps. But the colonial Hydroid is much smaller than...

www.reef2reef.com

Hydroids - How do I eliminate- They have taken over my tank

So I have this stuff that has pretty much taken over my tank and I can't get rid of it. I'm looking for an ID and an eradication plan that is anything short of a total teardown.

www.reef2reef.com

Fenbendazole dip for blue clove polyp/hydroids.

FYI So I had more than few blue clove and what i believe are hydroids pop up on a few frags and start spreading in the frag system. I didn't want to start out treating the whole system so I picked the most populated frags to treat. I mixed 1/4 gram of Fenbendazole with 1 cup of saltwater as a...

www.reef2reef.com

Edit: A relevant link in post 7 of the link above:

Here it is! Fenbendazole use against hydroids

Hi all! Well after getting a lot of questions about the use of fenbendazol I figured I would write this up. This is for informational purposes and I will not be held liable for improper use. Fenbendazol must be used exactly as I instruct or run the risk of a tank crash. Now lets get to it! So...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[OG-Goby]

For ideas to deal with the hydroids:

Prefer a chemical free option here as I have real live rock and trying not to kill my micro fauna. I’ll try the kalk paste soon enough.

For now I am trying to isolate the rocks in a different tank and MAY try the wormer in there… setting up a few extra litte tanks does take time tho.

I did chop up one piece of the rock and removed the pieces that had hydroids.