Hydra, seed shrimp, daphnia and pond snails Oh my!

[Jessie]

Brought home some blue velvet shrimp and tiger snails. Within a week I’ve got pond snails, hydra, copepods and seed shrimp. It’s a new 14.5 gallon aquarium that I cycled for 6 weeks. Lots of plants, spiderwood and dragon stone. Water parameters were normal. Suddenly I’ve got lots of hair algae as well... 

     What to do? I feel like starting over is an option? Should I remove plants and treat with peroxide and replant in a bleached tank? Ugh. Not sure how to salvage with so many pests. 

[Brandy]

You don't have pests, you have a smorgasboard!! Likely the various pests came in on the plants. I would add one or 2 male guppies or endlers. They will clean up everything but the snails in under a week. Adult shrimp will not be bothered by them, but juveniles will need cover.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Brandy

[ange]

I wouldn't worry too much. Pond snails tend to level out and I find that they're useful as an indicator when something may be "off" in the tank's balance (mass population growth or die off). Seed shrimp are also an awesome food for fish if you have enough to feed them to another tank. Copepods are also an enticing live food for most fish.

Hydra can be pests. I have green hydra in my crystal red shrimp tank and they don't bother anything, they've been in the tank for months and the only thing I've caught them eating is seed shrimp. People say they can eat fry but I haven't caught any eating any shrimplets and my population definitely hasn't declined. My nerite snails aren't bothered either. They used to be very noticeable but the population diminished significantly as shrimplets started to take over and feed on the biofilm that the seed shrimp had previously used to sustain their population.

Algae is very common in new tanks as they're more vulnerable to imbalances. The most common causes are excessive light or nutrients. Have you tested your nitrates? If you're above 40ppm there's a good probability that you have too many nutrients in your water. If you're under 20ppm it's more likely (in my experience) that the issue is tied to too much light. Some shorter term solutions are otocinclus catfish (for brown diatom algae, common in new tanks as the organisms feed on silicates in the substrate), nerite snails (for green spot algae), and Amano shrimp (for thread and hair algae).

Since the tank is still relatively new I would recommend waiting and letting the populations sort themselves out. A lot of microfauna will go away over time as the primary colony (your shrimp) become more established.

[Brandy]

2 minutes ago, Aubrey said:

Honestly the only one of those that is slightly concerning is the hydra because they could potentially eat shrimplets and they are essentially immortal and actually pretty cool. 

I am not even sure they can eat that...I know they can eat brine shrimp hatchlings, but those are smaller than copepods. I have read this on the internet, but I honestly have trouble believing it, my hydra are smaller than shrimp hatchlings? Maybe there are more varieties that are bigger.

[Jessie]

Thank you everyone. I know some critters are not harmful, just surprised how quickly things went wild. My work is about to go back to 14 hour+ days. I have a manual Co2. Think it will be best to go low tech and remove it. Switch out the shrimp and get a betta. Nitrates etc. Are normal. It’s a Fluval flora and the light is very powerful! I dialed it back substantially to control algae, plants seem fine. I’m new to this and got scared things were going wrong! 

[ange]

13 minutes ago, Jessie said:

Thank you everyone. I know some critters are not harmful, just surprised how quickly things went wild. My work is about to go back to 14 hour+ days. I have a manual Co2. Think it will be best to go low tech and remove it. Switch out the shrimp and get a betta. Nitrates etc. Are normal. It’s a Fluval flora and the light is very powerful! I dialed it back substantially to control algae, plants seem fine. I’m new to this and got scared things were going wrong! 

I've definitely gassed invertebrates before because I didn't use a solenoid. We have similar schedules and sometimes it is just not meant to be 😭 Luckily for me I get a lot of enjoyment watching change over time and the reduced growth isn't much of a downfall. Mine did a great job at helping emersed plants along with their conversion which I think is the most important part.

You say nitrates are normal but normal is a spectrum, especially in tanks with a young biological filter. Having discrete information like the mg/L or ppm helps a lot with diagnostics.

[Brandy]

I would encourage you to just keep the shrimps and maybe wait out the ugly duckling phase. I have found shrimp to be incredibly resilient, and mine thrive on benign neglect. If you opt to add a basic small fish or two, that will clean up the rest of the free food, and the whole set up can be remarkably low maintenance. I think you have a normal situation for a new tank. You can back off on the CO2 maybe, depending on your plants...But yeah, best thing to do is be patient. It will sort itself out.

[Jessie]

I’m learning a lot. It’s serious business this aquascaping! I got a water testing kit but it started badly.The PH reagent was faulty. Twice! The aquarium supply store was baffled. I don’t really trust the kit at all now.  It was reading 5.5. Even for my tap water. I am planning on removing the Cuba as it won’t do well without Co2. All other plants should be fine. Brandy you are right I need to add some clean up crew. I may be moving in January so worried about adding more inhabitants and moving the tank. 

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[Daniel]

Finding biological diversity in our little ecosystems is not only one of the pleasures of keeping an aquarium, it is also the warning sign of a very healthy aquarium albeit one without a top predator in the food chain.

As @Brandy just suggested, adding a fish will result in a very happy well fed fish.

Sometimes we strive for something as biologically pure as a golf course and have to suffer when a wildflower meadow breaks out in our putting greens and fairways. It is tempting to break out the herbicides and kill everything, but I would resist that temptation.

 

[Jessie]

2 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Sometimes we strive for something as biological pure as a golf course and have to suffer when a wildflower meadow breaks out in our putting greens and fairways. It is tempting to break out the herbicides and kill everything, but I would resist that temptation.

Thank you! Boy did I need to hear that. It’s funny I never use pesticides on my garden and try hard to companion plant. But aquariums scare me as I read all the issues and fluctuations that happen. I’ll head to the store tomorrow and get some new friends! 😊

[Jessie]

Thank you everyone for your patience and knowledge. I’m learning to quote and tag. Never been on a forum before. 😳🤗

[Maggie]

Hi Jessie, green hydra and some little wormy things (that turn out to be harmless but I don't know the name) came in with my snails, too. At the time there were no fish but when I put my rasboras in there, they (having quite the appetite despite being well-fed) went glass-skimmimg a few times and voila - they chowed down on the hydra from what I can see! I'm 99.9% positive they also found any worms. Everyone on here calmed me down when I freaked out about the hydra. I came pretty close to dosing with panacur (even ordered it online), but didn't want to upset the fishless cycle that I spent 2 months working on. I'm so glad I held back and didn't dose the tank. 

[Ken Dyer]

I remember the same terror when I was getting started and all the horror stories you can find on the internet that anything but a "perfectly sterile" aquarium is going to harm your animals. Over time you'll come to enjoy or at least not fear the little bonus critters. Now I intentionally move pond snails to tanks and culture my seed shrimp / copepods as if their numbers drop I now panic over that and always want a colony somewhere else to go back to.

Must say my sparkling gouramis are a big fan of little micro fauna as well... the same way I am a fan of a cheese burger 😉 

[GardenStateGoldfish]

Pond snails will eat the hydra do that is solved, id love some seed shrimp in my tanks so cool, I keep pond snails in all my tanks they normal out to whatever the food supply is.

[Tonik]

I had some crazy hair algae for a few weeks.  I bought a new light and was playing around with the settings and the algae exploded. I have Amanos and swordtails who seem to enjoy eating it, but they couldn't keep up.   I ended up reducing the light intensity and duration (to 5 hours), and within a week it was much more manageable and now almost gone.  The plants also seem healthier, so I think the light was way too intense for a while.

 And I will agree with other commenters that my tank has never seemed healthier... the extra unplanned organisms do help! 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Tonik

[Steph’s Fish and Plants]

Does anyone know if hydra will eat celestial pearl danio fry? I’m raising some up in a 20 long rn and I noticed today a new outbreak of hydra, I haven’t dealt with it before and I’m worried. There’s nothing in the tank rn that’s big enough to eat the hydra. My water is also a bit cloudy. I’ve been over feeding baby brine and vinegar eels for the fry and to try and get some infusoria growing in the tank. I turned my HOB back on, I turned it off because it was too much flow for the fry. I’m gonna put the adult CPDs back in next week, will they eat the hydra? I’m new to hydra and breeding egg layers.