hyrda in red cherry tank

[Aiden123]

Hi, I have a 10gal red cherry shrimp tank with 2 horned nerite snails to held with algae control and I think they look quite nice.
This is my first shrimp tank and I have fell foul of the beginner mistake of overfeeding and I have took steps to rectify this. However as a result of the overfeeding I have an infestation of hyrda which has unfortunately claimed the life of one of my berried females. I have done some research and found that fenbendazole can be used at 0.1grams per 10gallon with a dose every 12 hours to get rid of the hydra but it is known to kill nerite snails.

My plan to reduce the harm to my shrimp and hopefully save my lovely snails is as follows:
1- remove the snails for the whole of the treatment
2- dose at 0.05 grams per 10gallon
3-dose every 12 hours
4- after 36hours do a 50% water change
5- if there is any hydra left repeat steps 2, 3 + 4
6- once all hydra is eliminated add carbon to filter to hopefully get rid of any left over fenbendazole
7- after a week of no treatment and further water changes I hope to reintroduce the snails

Do you think this is an acceptable way to get rid of the hydra with minimal effect on the shrimp and snails and is there anything else that I can do?
I just want to get rid of the hydra as quick as possible with minimal harm to my shrimps and snails.

[talldutchie]

Sounds like it should work.

[genocidex]

i just had the same problem, my hydra cleared up with 3 doses of that over 3 days, sadly it didnt kill off my snails (darn!) but i didnt measure out any doses so im not a help there lol. if i had to guess i used about 1/3 gram each dose lol

[Aiden123]

From searching the internet the most common dose appears to be 0.1gram per 10 gallon but there has been mixed success with it, some report no shrimp deaths at all and others had their whole colony wiped out. That's why I'm contemplating doing half the dose , firstly to protect the shrimp and secondly so that the snails can be introduced as soon as possibly as I love those little things :p

[genocidex]

adding carbon after the treatment would help take it out of the water

[Aiden123]

Good thats what im hoping. It was going so well, started off with 10 shrimp with two of those berried, the after they gave birth another 6 got berried. On that note whats the stocking limit for a 10gallon since I will have loads in a few weeks at this rate?

[Indian Woods Angels]

You only need a very small amount of anything with fenbendazole to kill hydra. In my rainbow fry hatch tanks I had a ton of them. I used one small flake of angels plus fenbendazole flake the size of a pea of diameter crushed. They filter fed upon this crushed flake. This tiny amount on a flake killed all of the hydra in a 10 gallon tank. One dose. I had snails present, no shrimp. None of the snails seemed bothered. Do some trials, you don't need much fen ben at all.

[Aiden123]

Thats good to know, I want to use as little as possible

[Indian Woods Angels]

I just added it once and within3 days all hydra were very dead. They actually pull in the tentacles within an hour or so. Then done for.

[Aiden123]

What dose did you do?