Need Vermatid Snail Eradication Methods

[Hallowhead]

Howdy,

I am struggling with the appearance of vermatid snails. They started out in small groups but now it's like every inch of my rock is covered. On occasion I will go in with a butter knife and hammer them, however, they always come back. I have ~10 tiny bumble bee snails which seem to do nothing.

What else can I do? See some photos below.

 

[LAReefer4Life]

Yikes! Using coral glue in hole will help. Are you feeding a lot?

 

[Hallowhead]

Yikes! Using coral glue in hole will help. Are you feeding a lot?

I feed half a frozen cube a day.. and one spin from my eheim pellet feeder. I've read that this contributes to the larger outbreaks. Should I cut back to every other day?

 

[Hallowhead]

Also very aware of the bubble algae my emerald crab is protesting... I need to pick up another one

 

[ScottB]

Wow. I thought I had them bad but i bequeath my vermetid raising crown to you now. Congratulations.

I have tried most of what folks are going to share to little avail. You won't like my answer but here goes. I hope your forearms are in good shape.

After a WC, save a couple buckets of WC water and grab your bone cutters. A solid pair of needle nose pliers otherwise. Some gloves are VERY helpful for this next part unless you are a farm hand.

Remove a rock and crush every single vermetid AT THE BASE. If you do not see meat come out, you need to go deeper into the rock which is why bone cutters are superior. Once you have had enough, swish in the WC buckets and replace in display. Those corals are fine for 20 minutes out of the water which is longer than your tolerance for this work anyway.

If you have wrasses, consider them fed for the next four days as there is a lot of nutritious cleanup they can do.

Gotta warn you. For some reason this process produces a noxious smell--like a dead snail.

 

[Hallowhead]

Wow. I thought I had them bad but i bequeath my vermetid raising crown to you now. Congratulations.

I have tried most of what folks are going to share to little avail. You won't like my answer but here goes. I hope your forearms are in good shape.

After a WC, save a couple buckets of WC water and grab your bone cutters. A solid pair of needle nose pliers otherwise. Some gloves are VERY helpful for this next part unless you are a farm hand.

Remove a rock and crush every single vermetid AT THE BASE. If you do not see meat come out, you need to go deeper into the rock which is why bone cutters are superior. Once you have had enough, swish in the WC buckets and replace in display. Those corals are fine for 20 minutes out of the water which is longer than your tolerance for this work anyway.

If you have wrasses, consider them fed for the next four days as there is a lot of nutritious cleanup they can do.

Gotta warn you. For some reason this process produces a noxious smell--like a dead snail.

The smell radiates from the tank? I thought removing rock work was not ideal for the rock?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I dig them offwith a small screwdriver or pliers and assure I got the entire base and worm. Superglue gel does also work

 

[Hallowhead]

I dig them offwith a small screwdriver or pliers and assure I got the entire base and worm. Superglue gel does also work

as with anything my husbandry needs to be good - once a day until I am happy.

I just need to find a good tool that I can stick into the tank that allows me to get to hard to reach locations.

 

[BighohoReef]

We had another thread just talking about this exact problem. Though with the large amounts you have I would recommend taking the entire rock out if you can... the problem is probably worse than you think especially in spots you can't see. We had a rock at one point where they propagated under where we couldn't see it was bad... lucky they didn't spread to the other rocks. Long and short we got lucky. Here are some tips to hopefully help remedy the situation.

Here was my response to the earlier thread:
If you’ve caught these buggers early then do what most folks are saying break off as much of or as close to the base of the shell as possible. If you can put glue over the spot it’ll suffocate the worm if its burrowed into the rock or coral (I wouldn’t recommend this for SPS).

Don’t leave the remains in the water column, there is a possibility of resettling.

Bumblebee snails and a six line wrasse love to prey on these little buggers though I’ve read bubblebess with a lack of food can snack on corals though I haven’t experience that issue.

Last resort remove the live rock/plugs that are infested.

As some others have said QT is your safest bet to keep this frickers out of your tank. I’ll post some pictures of my ongoing war with them in my QT... though the bumblebees and wrasse have really done a number on them.

I did get them from a LFS live rock... that rock has been nuked with bleach and like you I’m now only ever putting dry cycled rock in my tank.

 

[ScottB]

The smell radiates from the tank? I thought removing rock work was not ideal for the rock?

No. This is not "in tank" work if you want to address the problem savagely effectively. There is no way you are going to address this without getting savage. Look at all those vermetids on the bottom edge of the rock.

If the rock & coral are out of the water more than (conservative) 15 minutes then dunk the rock and get back to work. No coral and no bacteria will be harmed in this process.

Here is what I am talking about...

 

[Hallowhead]

No. This is not "in tank" work if you want to address the problem savagely effectively. There is no way you are going to address this without getting savage. Look at all those vermetids on the bottom edge of the rock.

If the rock & coral are out of the water more than (conservative) 15 minutes then dunk the rock and get back to work. No coral and no bacteria will be harmed in this process.

Here is what I am talking about...

I am prepping! Maybe I will hit it this weekend or next week but the big guns are coming! Would you say feeding less would help as the spread as well?

 

[ScottB]

I am prepping! Maybe I will hit it this weekend or next week but the big guns are coming! Would you say feeding less would help as the spread as well?

They are filter feeders. Given the food you feed I am surprised how many you raised. I deserved them: Reef roids, reef frenzy, cyclopeeze were all in play. Perfect foods for their mucus nets.

Unless your NO3 and PO4 are high, I would advise NOT lowering you feeding.

That said, if you do go savage on them, you will have an excess of nutrient for a week or so and could lighten up a bit. There is a lot of meat in those tubes.

 

[Hallowhead]

They are filter feeders. Given the food you feed I am surprised how many you raised. I deserved them: Reef roids, reef frenzy, cyclopeeze were all in play. Perfect foods for their mucus nets.

Unless your NO3 and PO4 are high, I would advise NOT lowering you feeding.

That said, if you do go savage on them, you will have an excess of nutrient for a week or so and could lighten up a bit. There is a lot of meat in those tubes.

I am not high in No3 & PO4 so I will just go savage! I feed reef roids once a week

 

[Cherub]

i use bone cutters on them when I see them. all the way down

 

[Hallowhead]

i use bone cutters on them when I see them. all the way down

How do you guys use bone cutters ? I feel like it would be impossible to get the bone cutter close enough to the base of the snail with the various sizes and shapes of the rocks

 

[ScottB]

How do you guys use bone cutters ? I feel like it would be impossible to get the bone cutter close enough to the base of the snail with the various sizes and shapes of the rocks

Look at my second picture. The rock must be extracted. No choice with this level of infestation.

 

[DoctaReef]

Full disclosure: I haven't tried this.

I have vermitids in my tank. All super small, reddish in color and aren’t a big issue. I also have a bigger problem: Digitate Hydroids. These suckers sting Zoas, Montis, candy canes and cyphastrea to name a few....
So I went searching for a cure For them and came on Fenbendazole, a dog heart worm medication used in the seahorse hobby on hydroids for years. This stuff kills hydroids, but also wipes out a lot of your inverts in the tank as collateral... especially snails. More than one person in threads that have used it say it also killed their Vermatids along with their hydroids...
Might be worth a shot if you’re OK getting your inverts out of there for a few months. They say it doesn’t harm coral. I bought some on Amazon, just do a search for “Fish Bendazole.”
I’m just waiting to use it on my tank to see if I can get peppermints to fix my hydroids naturally before “chemical warfare.”
I’ll keep you posted if I do...

 

[Hallowhead]

I just took a look at night with lights off and almost threw up with how many there are...

My emerald crab can't get to the bubble algae because of how many there are.

I need to take care of this soon..

Instead of using water change water can I just whip up a batch of SW to swish in @ScottB

 

[Cherub]

How do you guys use bone cutters ? I feel like it would be impossible to get the bone cutter close enough to the base of the snail with the various sizes and shapes of the rocks

the pair I have are similar to these. I just chop it up with the tip.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-5-sps-coral-bone-cutter.html

 

[ScottB]

I just took a look at night with lights off and almost threw up with how many there are...

My emerald crab can't get to the bubble algae because of how many there are.

I need to take care of this soon..

Instead of using water change water can I just whip up a batch of SW to swish in @ScottB

I suggest tank water if there are corals stuck to the rock that you are dunking, but as long as the water is matched for salt and temp new SW is fine.

It is hard slow tedious work. Have good lighting in your work area. Suggest gloves.