RCS salt tolerance? Salt to eliminate hydra

[asondhi]

I've got an approx 10g tank dedicated to plants and shrimp. 

I've begun to notice hydra on the glass in one corner of the tank. I've drastically reduced feeding but am curious what other solutions I have to eliminate the hydra without hurting my shrimp. 

I have a nerite snail and a load of bladder snails in the tank- I'd heard they can help control hydra populations- but when the hydra sting, they just pull away and go to other parts of the tank. 

Hesitant to add fish as the tank is in earlier stages and plants are not dense enough to protect shrimplets yet. 

I was thinking salt but there seems to be contradicting information on cherry shrimp and aquarium salt. Some say they cannot tolerate it at all, others say they don't care. 

[modified lung]

I can confirm spixi snails eat hydra. 

Any other kind of snail, hydrogen peroxide, or salt never worked for me.

[Guppysnail]

In a shrimp tank there are no critters you could add that will effectively consume your hydra without eating shrimplettes that I’m aware of other than the spixi snail mentioned by @modified lung however they are very hard to obtain in many states. I keep 3 types of hydra because I find them fascinating including in my shrimp tank.  Unless they populate to coat every surface they are not an issue if they do coat every surface it gets annoying to the shrimp. Chemicals that kill hydra will harm your snails. 
They best method is stop feeding powdered foods.  In a week or two the hydra will cyst up and most can be vacuumed out or just left alone as you won’t see them at that point. Here is a great video by ACO. 

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Biotope Biologist]

I have found that my fish pick at them but yeah they are extremely hard to get rid of. Especially if you have a healthy and diverse macrofauna population (cyclops, rhabdocoela, etc.) 

 

They are said to attack and eat small fry and shrimplets but I have never actually seen them successfully take down anything bigger than a couple millimeters.