Vermetid gastropods. Time to get mid-evil!

[3_high_low]

These things came in on my LR and have proliferated in my young SPS tank to the point where they are doing damage to my corals. I'm fed up and no longer will I just sit back while they reek havoc. I have planned a multi pronged attack against these slimy insurgents. This will not be easy as they have me outnumbered at least twentyfold and their defenses are stout. But I know I must kill the gastropods!

phase one: Recon.

I will begin the operation with a recon mission. I will stir up some debris in the tank and wait for the slime nets to come out. This will make their positions easy to identify.

phase two: Multi prong offensive.

1) I will attack their positions with precision guided injections of hot kalk paste right through their front door. The element of surprise is key, I must inject them before they slam their doors shut as the 19 gauge needle cannot penetrate their armor.

2) I will cement them over with epoxy. I can live with the white spots of epoxy all over my tank, after a while they will become covered with coraline.

3) I will physically remove as many as possible, using a pair of hemostats I will gouge them out.

Wish me luck!:smokin::rollface:

[3_high_low]

The kalk injections are not effective. The enemy is somehow able to detect the approaching needle. They have secured all entry points and repelled the attack - zero kills. Perhaps a night time operation would be more effective.

Now I will attempt to epoxy their arses shut!

[3_high_low]

No good! They are able to push the epoxy out of their holes! I may have gotten lucky and killed a couple of the large ones but there are so many of them! Too many to remove manually.

This is not unlike Bill Murray, in Caddy Shack, vs the gopher. I may need explosives!

I wonder if pyramelids snails would eat them? Or can I poison their feeding nets? Help!:o

[Jeremy Blaze]

Doing a search, I found a recommendation from Dr. Ron, to use Copperband butterflies, and or certian types of hermit crabs to eat them. Maybe bringing in some of these Allies will help with the war effort.

[3_high_low]

I filled their tubes with kalk paste. The combined effort may have a killed quite a few of them. We'll see.

I'd like to try a copperband but I doubt my PB tang would welcome that idea. Dr Ron told me months ago that the gastropods would wax and wane. He was wrong! He also said that the corals would overgrow them. That has happened in a couple of instances but the gastropods are relentless with their nets and more often than not they damage the corals and stunt their growth.

Thanks for chiming in. Anyone else with ideas?

[zanemoseley]

So what do these little fellas look like, are they the skinny tubes that go fishing for food with those strings.

[New_Noob]

"and when i get to Heaven to Saint Peters i will tell "another kalk mix reporting sire, i have served my time in hell""


:rollface:

i have ons of these, dont harm my frags? not that i know of. maybe they are lurking in th shadow, to stab me in the back>?!?!

[3_high_low]

http://home.comcast.net/~mark.boenisch/DCP_2472.JPG

Extreme left side of photo, embeded in the purple stag. You can see the two antenae. This is one that was overgrown by the coral. You can see another in the orange digitata.

I have no photos of them with their nets cast, a sight I prefer not to record:mad2:

[zanemoseley]

You may want to watch that digitata, itl looks like it may have bleached some due to getting so close to the milli. I can't really see what you're talking about but it appears its not the tube fellas that go fishing.

[3_high_low]

Sorry for the confusion. I'm not blaming the VG's for the digi damage. It is indeed the A. milli that is causing the digi to retreat.

[3_high_low]

Originally posted by zanemoseley
So what do these little fellas look like, are they the skinny tubes that go fishing for food with those strings.

Correct! More like nets, not single strings.

[ReeferMac]

Can you remove the rocks from the tank?
I have found this method 100% effective at removing all manner of pests (Brown star polyp infection like you wouldn't believe).

http://reef.myip.org/problem_solved_small.jpg

- Mac

[irishpete]

flame thrower. you guys have no limits.

[iceman16238]

Mac did u really use that? With no ill effects from the gas and potential oil in the gas? If so, i need that for some out of hand brown and green star polyps.

[ReeferMac]

It's butane powered (refillable for a few bucks, too), and burns with a very strong blue flame.. I dunno if it leaves any residue, but yes, I torched square feet worth of LR on any given 'treatment', and didn't have any troubles (other than the die-off of brown star polyps). Go over the rock in a bucket of water w/ a brush of some sort afterwards to help with that.... You can actually control the flame pretty well w/ this thing, and I could get remarkably close to corals I wanted to keep, and do very little to no harm. It was all in the angle. ;)
You knew the vermatids were 'dead' when the top popped off w/ a squirt of steam!

- Mac

[SeanT]

Medieval. :)

[Ewan]

Mac, I'll do my best to stay on your good side.

-E.

[3_high_low]

Flame thrower lol! Now that is medieval. I might try that for mushroom control. :furious:

The combined efforts of kalking, epoxying, and gouging did pretty well and most of the VG's are dead. Hooray!

[iceman16238]

Originally posted by ReeferMac
It's butane powered (refillable for a few bucks, too), and burns with a very strong blue flame.. I dunno if it leaves any residue, but yes, I torched square feet worth of LR on any given 'treatment', and didn't have any troubles (other than the die-off of brown star polyps). Go over the rock in a bucket of water w/ a brush of some sort afterwards to help with that.... You can actually control the flame pretty well w/ this thing, and I could get remarkably close to corals I wanted to keep, and do very little to no harm. It was all in the angle. ;)
You knew the vermatids were 'dead' when the top popped off w/ a squirt of steam!

- Mac
I cant take these rocks out of my tank. Can i use that in the tank?

[Jive Turkey]

Good work, Slayer. I am glad I killed the few I had back in the day.

BTW, go SOX!! I had wanted to see a Twins/ Sox ALCS, but the GDMFSOB Yankees did it again!!

[ReeferMac]

LOL@Ewan...

Iceman, not unless you can pump some oxygen down there, no. They make under-water welding kit, but not for 23 bucks at your local home hardware store. ;)

- Mac

[JoeMack]

Crazy glue seals their fate

[Wilafur]

yep, super glue gel works wonders for me.

[mrkrispy]

I have one residing in a monti and it throws nets on a a. caroliniana and a digi, doesn't seem to be a problem...

[Jadran]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=3656485#post3656485 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 3_high_low
Flame thrower lol! Now that is medieval. I might try that for mushroom control. :furious:

The combined efforts of kalking, epoxying, and gouging did pretty well and most of the VG's are dead. Hooray!

hello,

I was wondering was this the end of them? Or they slowly came back? These guys flourished in my aquarium, and I'm not to happy about it. when you observe carefully you can see the tinny little ones everywhere, on snails, bottom glass, clams, in tinny holes at rockscape....as with baby aiptasias impossible to reach and deal with every single one of them! After watching them for some time and reading up i decided to clean them up before I get myself in trouble again.. saw some damage bigger ones caused to one acro before I removed them .. so I really wouldn't like for all those small vermetids to grow big. Some natural predator would be great but, hmmm.. what is to be trusted with anemone, stonies, buttons, other snails (turbos) and clams..
Recently I risked with majestic juvenile, for now it behaves well, he nips on rocks but i cant tell with certainty it picks on vermetids

all other ideas are very welcome , too..;)

thx,

Mario

[dippin61]

you think you have it bad, this is about a 5 square inch section of my tank, now imagine the rest of a 55g...

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/81909worms2.jpg

[Stoney Mahony]

Use coral frag sheres. The ones that look like wire cutting pliers. It cuts right through the shell and kills with no mercy. I killed about 20 of them and they did not return. The fish love to eat up the guts while your crushing them. :smokin:

[easttn]

dippin61,
Those are fan worms, they are harmless. Here is a pic of the vermetid worm. Kill them with crazy glue.

Fan worm on left, V snail on right. The web does irritate SPS and can cause stress.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v461/easttn/Webspinningsnail.jpg

[dippin61]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8340636#post8340636 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by easttn
dippin61,
Those are fan worms, they are harmless. Here is a pic of the vermetid worm. Kill them with crazy glue.

Fan worm on left, V snail on right. The web does irritate SPS and can cause stress.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v461/easttn/Webspinningsnail.jpg

nope.. vermatid snails is what i have.. they just arent all slimed up atm.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rs/index.php

and vermatid gastropods arent worms ;) most commonly known as snails :)

[easttn]

Thanks, learned something new.

[dippin61]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8342781#post8342781 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by easttn
Thanks, learned something new.

heh. np. i thought they were worms up until a few days ago, when i found that article, and a couple other posts on here about them.

[exoticaquatix]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8340436#post8340436 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dippin61
you think you have it bad, this is about a 5 square inch section of my tank, now imagine the rest of a 55g...

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/81909worms2.jpg

i got these buggers on some rock i picked up froma local guy, i had a tube poke clean into my thumb, fully intact. that was more pain than any other reef tank critter has even inflicted on me. even a run-in with a lion fish.
his rock was covered in them and now they are popping up every where. thousands of them. is there anything that will kill them?....besides a friggin blow torch. ;)
-nick

[Jadran]

Well, I'm not the only one with this prob. I see... Yes these are definitely vermetids... aquarium born.... Fan worms look like this..

http://www.elegancereef.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10008/polipi_004.jpg


they were plentiful in my tank but majestic did quite a job on them.. :(

So how do we fight these bastardos ? Noticed people talk about CBB . I cant have it.. Yellow tang wouldn't tolerate it in it's 120g. I tried it before (aiptasias) .. YT is my favorite fish, I have it over 5 years and cant sell it in order to get CBB.. Somehow I hope for that little majestic to work on them once the fan worms are gone, but... remains to be seen... I saw plenty of these snails in sump too... Can also imagine them growing inside pvc pipes, pumps and so... :(

[Serioussnaps]

i found them in my tank today with their little ****ing strings coming out of them...some of them i just broke right off the rock i hope this doesnt cause them to spread.....

i know how you can kill them...muriatic acid/vinegar bath for a couple of weeks on the rocks!!11

[Serioussnaps]

i found them in my tank today with their little ****ing strings coming out of them...some of them i just broke right off the rock i hope this doesnt cause them to spread.....

i know how you can kill them...muriatic acid/vinegar bath for a couple of weeks on the rocks!!11

[exoticaquatix]

id rather have live worms AND live rocks. can i just scrape them off or do they survive that?
-nick

[Stoney Mahony]

Nope, scrape them off and they will die. I also had one go into my thumb and it broke off like a splinter. I agree the most painful freakin thing thats happened in my tank. I had do slice a hole with a razor and dig it out b/c every time you grabed a little piece with tweasers, it would break off. Now I have no mercy on them. :)

[Serioussnaps]

yeah i went to breaking those mother ****ing bastards and it works... im not gonna go for all of them just the ones that **** with me on the wrong day