Caulacanthus ustulatus on my Coco Worm...what to do?

[pjewett]

Hi All,

I have what I absolutely know to be Caulacanthus ustulatus (thanks to melev's site) on the upper portion of my coco worms tube . I've tried reaching in and as gently as possible pulling it off but it grows back FAST.

Don't see it anywhere else and don't want to.....I feel like I have no choice but to sacrafice this guy for the greater good but....are there any other effective options?

The pic is from melev's site....don't have one of my coco handy but there's no question that it is Caulacanthus ustulatus.

Thanks to all.


http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg238/pjewett/caulacanthus_ustulatus.jpg

[Madfronter]

Too bad your tank is too small for a tang. They would eat that right up.

[sikpupy]

If your gonna sacrafice him, and you saw you reach in to grab it, try breaking off little peices of the tube. If the tube snaps off in little sections controllably, snap off to a little past the regrowth. The worm can rebuild the tube from there.

[anomie]

When I've had problems with macro algaes growing back, I've trimmed down the algae all I could and cover the spot with either super glue gel or epoxy. I used super glue gel on my coco worm's tube for bubble algae before with no harmful effects. Good luck. :)

[darkdruid]

Clean off as much as you can from the tube first. Then take a pair of scissors and cut a small piece from a black plastic garbage bag and wrap it around the algae covered part of the tube. Use a couple of small rubberbands wrapped around the tube, just tight enough to hold the plastic on. In a week or two the stuff will be dead from no light and no circulation, and you can take the plastic off. It looks like crap in the meantime, but it beats tossing the worm

[pjewett]

Thanks to all for the suggestions!

I think I'm going to first attempt to break off as much of the tube as I can without hurting the worm...the fortunate thing maybe is that this growth appears to ALL be within the last 1/2 to full inch of tube where the worm pops out.

If I can't get it all for some reason then I will probably try the super glue gel on what remains.

It's gonna make me sick if I see this stuff start popping out all over the place...that's why I was considering getting rid of the worm..something I really don't want to do. It's not his fault. :)