jonh5150
New member
I've noticed hard spike like growth on my rock and frags??????View attachment 12549
Brown spikes on rocks
- Thread starter jonh5150
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Vermetid snails, lots of them. They multiply extremely fast in all areas of your tank and sump.
Some people dont mind them, but I hate them. I remove them as soon as I see them. They do filter feed, but its with a string of mucus that can aggravate acropora. The string of mucus catches food in the water column and then they bring the mucus back to their tube. They are snails, not worms.
I remove them as soon as i see them in my new setups. Nowadays my tanks are vermetid snail free, but years ago they pissed me off because no matter how many I removed they just kept coming back.
If you were to let them start to multiply in your tank even for a month, you will probably never remove them. They will end up in every nook and crany in your filtration and it only takes a couple to constantly multiply, even if you are constantly removing the new ones. They smell bad out of water if you pop off the tubes to get rid of them.
The white feather dusters do the same, but Im fine with them since there is no mucus string, just a cute little fan.
Some people dont mind them, but I hate them. I remove them as soon as I see them. They do filter feed, but its with a string of mucus that can aggravate acropora. The string of mucus catches food in the water column and then they bring the mucus back to their tube. They are snails, not worms.
I remove them as soon as i see them in my new setups. Nowadays my tanks are vermetid snail free, but years ago they pissed me off because no matter how many I removed they just kept coming back.
If you were to let them start to multiply in your tank even for a month, you will probably never remove them. They will end up in every nook and crany in your filtration and it only takes a couple to constantly multiply, even if you are constantly removing the new ones. They smell bad out of water if you pop off the tubes to get rid of them.
The white feather dusters do the same, but Im fine with them since there is no mucus string, just a cute little fan.
Yes, the tube is hard and brittle, but the snail inside is a mushy snail.
Do this out of tank as you dont want either a dead or alive snail going back into the tank.
Grab a knife. Go down with the knife as low on the tube as you can go and push the knife sideways to scoop/pop it off. Try pop off the entire tube at once. When done right, you will pop off the entire tube with the snail still undisturbed in it.
If you just break off the tip, the snail will just remake it in a day as it lives in the bottom of the tube. You need to remove the whole tube.
If you break the tube too high and just get part of the tube you will cut the snail in half and it will smell pretty bad. This is fine (other than bad smell), just keep popping pieces off until you get everything.
Honestly, if you have that many, they are everywhere. Especially frag plugs and liverock. The tiny ones you wont see and will grow fast. They will be next to impossible to completely remove. 2-3 of them make hundreds in no-time. You can remove a hundred, but the ones you miss will multiply back faster since more new babies will live since there is more food available (the food the previous hundred were eating).
Also should mention, if you let it go for this long, you probably have corals (especially acropora bases) that have encrusted over them. A lot of times you will only see the tip of the tube coming out of the coral. Cutting the tip off does nothing. You need to break off part of the encrusting coral and find the curled tube inside and remove the whole tube (sometimes the tube is deep under the encrusting, and you need the whole tube, not 50%). Sometimes for this its easier to break off the just the tip and put a bit of glue over the hole. Most the time the glue kills off the tiny bit of encrusted coral you would have cut to get it out anyway, so it ends up the same. Also, years ago i tried the glue option. Some died, some just made a new opening.
Nothing stops these guys as they eat food particles in the water. Its not phosphates or nitrates, its just everyday food. Cutting back on food would be pointless they live on next to nothing.
There are some fish that eat them, but they are also hit or miss. They could not touch them. Also, some of the same fish that eat them are the same ones that are likely to eat coral polyps.
There are some fish that eat them, but they are also hit or miss. They could not touch them. Also, some of the same fish that eat them are the same ones that are likely to eat coral polyps.
