Hammer colony issues

[dpfriedman]

So I’ve had a nice colony of hammer for quite a few years now but started noticing some heads were starting to die off one by one.
I decided to dip them to see if any pests were on them and noticed these grey stringy tubes on them and also possibly some eggs on some other and need help in identifying if this is indeed what is causing my issue and what can be done to fix the problem

 

[fish farmer]

The short brown tubes are vermetid snails, the long tubes which look soft I believe are a type of worm as well as the small circular white tubes.

I have all three of these in my tank. It seems the vermetids really like setting up shop under hammers.

I lose heads occasionally on my frammer and another hammer, usually in my case they are either shaded or get too much flow.

 

[dpfriedman]

The short brown tubes are vermetid snails, the long tubes which look soft I believe are a type of worm as well as the small circular white tubes.

I have all three of these in my tank. It seems the vermetids really like setting up shop under hammers.

I lose heads occasionally on my frammer and another hammer, usually in my case they are either shaded or get too much flow.

Is there a dip available to eradicate these or a natural predator?

 

[PotatoPig]

Is there a dip available to eradicate these or a natural predator?

They can be resistant to dips as they retreat into the tubes where not much flow so the dip doesn’t get at them.

Bumble bee snail can eat them, but it’s hit or miss. I had one on a hammer frag that I manually removed prior to putting in the tank and the bumblebee, that rarely moves, was on it light lightning to scour for the remains. First time I’ve seen it do anything.

This brings us to manual removal - use pliers to crush the tubes, for their full length. You’ll know when you get to the actual snail as a bunch of goo will come out. Make sure not to use lubricated pliers - ie stainless steel surgical type pliers are your best bet here as the ones from the hardware store will often have oils on them to prevent corrosion and aid movement. If you can remove the hammer (seems you can) do this out of the tank for ease of access and inspection.

 

[twentyleagues]

I've got both. Joys of live rock! The vermatid snails are not so bad to get rid of, like said above crush them preferably outside the tank. The soft fan type worms are the worst. They are mostly on my zoas, obviously rock work too. They actually choke out the zoas as they grow up the zoas base. These things are terrible. Manual removal is difficult dips seem to work for a bit but they grow right back. I spent most of last night transferring corals to the new tank. scrub, dip, scrub, pick, h2o2 dip frag plug or small rock, place coral. Hope I got them all.

I know vermatid snail irritate corals, I am not sure other than what they do to zoas if the fan worms irritate things like hammers or torches. The euphillia I have didnt have them on the skeletons just whatever base the coral was on. Its amazing how many of these different pests and others I had in that tank. For the last year it was set up it had one inhabitant an angler that ate large meaty items and I'd typically turkey baster out his poop. There wasnt a lot of excess food floating around the tank. I'd feed the corals once a month maybe. All euphillia started with one head and most have at least 3-4 now one hammer went from 1 head to baseball size. So the hard corals were not suffering. The zoas struggled either from lower nutrients or the fan worms choking them out. What the heck were these fan worms living off of? Same goes for the huge mysid colony and amphipod colony. Must have been some poop particles still in tank after siphon.