HELP! Vermetids!

[Anthonius]

In the last two weeks my tank has had an explosion of vermetid snails! They are everywhere!!! Growing on my rocks... my powerheads... even on the back glass!!! I currently only have a clown fish, a neon dotty, and a goby in this tank along with a few hermits for a cuc and a handful of sand sifting snails and the normal batch of ceriths. Its a 40BG with a NAC7 skimmer (overkill on a 40). I run no mechanical filtration.

Currently in the mail I have a BRS Dual Carbon/GFO reactor.

at this point there is thousands and killing them 1 at a time would take forever and a year. is there a fish or cuc member I can get to kill these little punks? everytime i do a waterchange I do 5g twice a week these guys spit out their webs and the tank just looks terrible. I want to get this tank coral ready and its impossible with all these things.

:fun5::fun5::fun5::fun5::fun5::fun5:
H E L P ! ! ! !

[Anthonius]

btw... i use ro/di water & feed lightly. i hope that the GFO and carbon in my reactor will help reduce whatever these things food source is.

[bmullikin1]

got them too, seem to start out bad, then level out, not sure how to totally get rid of them, mine are toleralbe now. some say you can put epoxy over them, but w that many not very realistic. good luck.

[SushiGirl]

If there was something that ate them, no one would have them LOL. Ours boomed badly a few months after the tank was set up & are now tolerable, even though we still have tons of them.

[Anthonius]

Got my BRS dual reactor yesterday. Running carbon and GFO now. Hopefully this can starve some of the nutrients that these thing need. At the same time get rid of some algae.

[Palting]

Got my BRS dual reactor yesterday. Running carbon and GFO now. Hopefully this can starve some of the nutrients that these thing need. At the same time get rid of some algae.

Good luck, but that won't get rid of the snails. The snails pretty much eat the same things as your coral. They are not algae, but filter feeders just like fans, worms, featherdusters, etc.

You'll drive yourself nuts trying to get rid of them if they are that many. I suggest forget about them. Just concentrate on your tank and coral husbandry, and eventually the vermatids will be relegated to the darker and less visible areas of your tank. I had an explosion of vermatids when my tank was several months old. Now at 3 years old, all you see in the tank are the coral. If you look hard enough under the crevices and overhangs, you'll see thousands of them. But that's only if you look for them :). Any vermatids on the powerheads dissolve into nothing when I clean the powerheads in vinegar once every 3 months.

[SushiGirl]

Good luck, but that won't get rid of the snails. The snails pretty much eat the same things as your coral. They are not algae, but filter feeders just like fans, worms, featherdusters, etc.

You'll drive yourself nuts trying to get rid of them if they are that many. I suggest forget about them. Just concentrate on your tank and coral husbandry, and eventually the vermatids will be relegated to the darker and less visible areas of your tank. I had an explosion of vermatids when my tank was several months old. Now at 3 years old, all you see in the tank are the coral. If you look hard enough under the crevices and overhangs, you'll see thousands of them. But that's only if you look for them :). Any vermatids on the powerheads dissolve into nothing when I clean the powerheads in vinegar once every 3 months.

Exactly as with our tank.

[dmh41532]

I had an outbreak of them too. I pull out what I can (snails, crabs, coral frags, pumps) and place super glue over the vermetid. When I find some on the glass, or a flat surface, I just knock the snail off onto the sand bed and then use a net to remove them. You may want to evaluate your feeding routine. They tend to come with excessive feedings. Once I reduced my LPS corals to twice a month, the vermetids have started to disappear.

[Anthonius]

I barely feed at all is the weird part. I currently have 3 fish 1 shrimp and a small CUC in a 40B with a 20G sump. I have very low nutrient levels after several tests types including the expensive Elos tests. Unsure of where they are coming from so I knock them all off of the glass and suck them up in my water changes. However the annoying part is they have attached themselves to a few frag plugs (zoas) and ever since they seem to not open up as happily and they stopped growing as rapidly.

[dmh41532]

I had a hammer coral nearly die until I killed the vermetid attached to the coral. Are the frags too large to remove them and put a small amount of superglue gel over the vermetid's shell?

[Anthonius]

This would literally take days as there is thousands of them. I don't have a ton of coral at the moment this is a relatively new tank (6mo old) and I just have a few zoa frags which are really irritated by the vermetids and the nasty mucosal web they spit out.

[thebkramer]

I'm with Palting and SushiGirl!
I also had an explosion in my tank when it was newer.. I even went out and bought a rock with lots of vermies lol but they eventually died off.. and now I only see them in the darker areas of my tank....

[thebkramer]

dblp w/o dblp'ng :headwally:

[Anthonius]

Right on. Just so people can understand my progress in the matter I am seeing several cases where coralline from my rocks is growing up the tubes and actually sealing over the top of the snail. I scraped all of the ones off the back pane of my tank off with a razor and sucked them up with a water change. Not too much effort here but there is still hundreds on other rocks. The rock which is sealing over the tubes has some plating coralline like I have never seen.

[keithhays]

Are they good with garlic butter. :) jk..I have never been able to keep any kind of snail given enough hermit crabs. I expect a diverse population of hermits would probably help. If nothing else they will eat all the extra food. I used to have a fair number of these, but they didn't really seem cause a problem..except they tended to congregate on the backs of my rocks, I was never sure if it was the flow or light they didn't like on the front of the rocks. They are sharp little buggers if you have to pick up the rock for any reason.

[Anthonius]

I am seeing many of these completely covered in coralline algae. I dosed my mag up to nearly 1400 and kep cal and alk on the high end and they cant keep up shell growth the the coralline which covers over the top of them. I havent had any return since scraping the back glass with the razor blade and siphoning it all out.

[ajcanale]

wow I thought I was the only one that considered them pests!

[MHG]

Good luck, but that won't get rid of the snails. The snails pretty much eat the same things as your coral. They are not algae, but filter feeders just like fans, worms, featherdusters, etc.

You'll drive yourself nuts trying to get rid of them if they are that many. I suggest forget about them. Just concentrate on your tank and coral husbandry, and eventually the vermatids will be relegated to the darker and less visible areas of your tank. I had an explosion of vermatids when my tank was several months old. Now at 3 years old, all you see in the tank are the coral. If you look hard enough under the crevices and overhangs, you'll see thousands of them. But that's only if you look for them :). Any vermatids on the powerheads dissolve into nothing when I clean the powerheads in vinegar once every 3 months.

I agree. Forget about them or just snap a few off during maintenance and they will slowly retreat to the less noticeable areas. Once a month I snap off as many as I can when I am cleaning my rock work... I find that I can find them better if I clean the glass or turkey baster the rocks, They start to feed then just follow the snot and "snap"

[RyanSweatt2004]

they break of real easy if you use an old clean towel to brush them off of the rocks. When I do tank maintenance for clients, I take one rock out a time and clean them this way. Its not a fix to the original nutrient problem that causes them to grow but it does get rid of all their little spikes they make.

[Spyderturbo007]

I've had some of these buggers in my tank, but only about 15 or 20 at a time. I smash them with my bone cutters and try to keep up with new ones every few days. Maybe you could just try and smash 40 or 50 every day until you get it down to where it's manageable?

[Anthonius]

At this point I am not even messing with them... This tank is having a boom of coralline algae which is fixing them in the noticeable areas. I broke the ones off the back glass with a razor and I am about to pull my powerheads out to soak in a vinegar bath one at a time.

[Anthonius]

ugh..... im about to just pull my hair out. these things are driving me frickin' nuts! I bust them all off with a screw driver... they are back with a vengeance in a couple months. just look at my poor zoanthids, they havent opened in weeks. I pull the frag once every couple weeks and remove all vermetids on the frag itself and they just come right back. Anyone ever had them this bad?

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd72/eagleANTH/IMAG0287_zps90870f27.jpg

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd72/eagleANTH/IMAG0285_zpse789ac9b.jpg

[Palting]

Sure. I've got lots of them, much worse than yours. I don't let it bother me, and they don't bother my coral. If your zoas are not opening, I suspect it is for another reason.

Here's a close up shot:
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab71/Kalawing/Snapbucket/8F6BD57C_zpsef77ecaf.jpg (http://s851.photobucket.com/user/Kalawing/media/Snapbucket/8F6BD57C_zpsef77ecaf.jpg.html)

I challenge you to find them in this regular shot:
http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab71/Kalawing/Snapbucket/2C3888A5_zps8889a84e.jpg (http://s851.photobucket.com/user/Kalawing/media/Snapbucket/2C3888A5_zps8889a84e.jpg.html)

AFAIK, they don't bother coral. Look into other reasons why your zoanthids are not opening. Parameters, flow, light, zoa eating pests......

[Anthonius]

They were fine... until the outbreak. I have sps and lps that are not affected whatsoever and from your pictures I see the same. Do you have a close up of your zoas next to them? Lighting is a 250w mh with the same bulbs I have always they are about 3 months old. Params are well within ranges acceptable for SPS let alone some zoas. Flow hasnt changed at all since they were put in several months ago and they were actually flourishing from a tiny 5 polyp frag up to id say 20-30+ and then the vermetids started and it went all down hill from there.

[SushiGirl]

I have tons of them & they don't bother my corals now that the're used to them. Instead of breaking them off, glue them shut with superglue. Once they die, break them off. No idea how long it takes them to die from that because I've not done it, but obviously you're not getting the actual worm when you break off their tubes.

[Spyderturbo007]

Those pictures are insane! I'm glad I've been keeping up with killing them every week. My zoanthids were bothered by them as well and didn't open until I killed the offending snail.

These things are one reason I will never purchase live rock again. Ever.

[Palting]

They were fine... until the outbreak. I have sps and lps that are not affected whatsoever and from your pictures I see the same. Do you have a close up of your zoas next to them? Lighting is a 250w mh with the same bulbs I have always they are about 3 months old. Params are well within ranges acceptable for SPS let alone some zoas. Flow hasnt changed at all since they were put in several months ago and they were actually flourishing from a tiny 5 polyp frag up to id say 20-30+ and then the vermetids started and it went all down hill from there.

I don't keep too many zoas. My tank nutrient level is too low for them, and I'm working on that. I do have one rock with both zoas (eagle eyes) and vermatids on it. I'll take a pic later when I get home.

I'm wondering if you messing with the rocks trying to kill the snails is actually irritating the zoas more?

[sasharotty]

Those pictures are insane! I'm glad I've been keeping up with killing them every week. My zoanthids were bothered by them as well and didn't open until I killed the offending snail.

These things are one reason I will never purchase live rock again. Ever.
Hmm, can they come in on frag plugs or sps themselves and not noticeable? I started with all brs dry rock and I have them. Not as crazy as palting but I have them.

[tommer725]

I have to agree, they dont bother my corals, and I think that your zoas are shut for another reason

[Anthonius]

shall i reduce amt of GFO and see if that helps provide them with a bit more of a nutrient level? Skim heavier instead of as wet?

[SushiGirl]

You'll just get them hidden on frags, that's how I got mine.