Pest problem- Purple shelled sesille worms

[drainbamage]

Wish I had a better way to describe these buggers-and if noone has a clue what I'm talking about I'll take a pic, but hoping to find some solutions.

These little fellers are fairly small, and form a tight ball shape, purple in color, seemingly calcerous (hard enough to require razor blade, snips, or a tough fingernail to pry them off or break them in half) and attach themselves to the rockwork and base near the flesh of corals. They don't seem like feather dusters as I never see a crown poking out, but like feather dusters they're able to grow their tube out, especially noticeable when they grow under a coral.
At first I wasn't too concerned about them, but i've noticed now that anytime they're near a coral, the growth of the coral is extremely retarded, or completely stopped. I've actually "saved" several chalices that were receding and declining by doing nothing other than removing any of these worms that were attached near the coral. Even zoa's have trouble growing in the presence of these guys which is something I find extremely weird.

So anyone know what I'm talking about, and have any solutions to get rid of them? Right now it's just manual removal which is extremely tedious :cry:

 

[Troylee]

Vermemtided snail maybe??? I have a couple of those stupid things that spit these big webs out to catch food... I have tried suckif them out of the shells with turkey basters etc and noLuck...

 

[Jcr's Reef]

Sounds like vermitids. Thew spew webs to catch food. That what they are doing? You can take superglue or putty and cover the holes

 

[skinz78]

Yeah sounds like Vermetids to me too, I just snip them off with my fragging shears and then feed the snail to my fish.

 

[drainbamage]

Yeah sounds like Vermetids to me too, I just snip them off with my fragging shears and then feed the snail to my fish.

Any fish in particular go after them? The tank they're most overrunning is the one tank that doesn't have a coris wrasse of any sort in it-but the green coris in the other tank hasn't eliminated them entirely either, though the population is much reduced comparitivley

Googling Vermatid, got this image as one of many, and this is the buggers I'm dealing with. Never see much of a netting coming out, but never seen them feed so very likely.

 

[Troylee]

I would just putty over the pita that's a great idea skins I'm gonna do that today I got a couple huge ones I don't care for lol...

 

[fab1971]

Most of my chalices just grow right over them. I especially see them spit out their strings or webs right after I do a water change or late during feeding time. When checking out my frags I just break them off with my fingers. Not much of a pest to me. They don't bother any of my frags or impede growth so I don't pay them much mind.

 

[SDguy]

I had gobs of them for a little while. Died out on their own.

 

[skinz78]

I just cut open the shell and dig the snail out, any of my fish will eat them like hotcakes.

 

[Reef lvr]

Deff superglue the opening, it works great!!

 

[drainbamage]

my 20L is setup with no fish, I'm thinking that's how they were able to overwhelm the tank, by rough estimate I'd guess 4-5 hundred of them in the 20L, and they definitley severely hamper the growth of anything in the tank, especially the small chalice frags.
Anytime I pull a frag to move it or whatnot, I just use a pair of bone cutters to either pop them off whole or break them in half and smash the worm (yea, I'll admit it's satisfying)- but they're all over....too many to putty or glue up. Suppose a melanarus is in order as soon as I upgrade the system and move the pregnant pipefish to their new home (a macro-algae/mangrove farm)

Thanks for the replies though guys, not sure how you all feel, but at least knowing what the pest is makes it a heck of a lot easier to deal with for me at least.

 

[Reef lvr]

WOW didn't know you had that many.. Geez i think i would have to pull the rocks and scrape.. My wife had couple dozen in her RSM, then after 6 months or so they went away, if any tries to come back i glue the poo out of it!! Wish you luck!!

 

[drainbamage]

WOW didn't know you had that many.. Geez i think i would have to pull the rocks and scrape.. My wife had couple dozen in her RSM, then after 6 months or so they went away, if any tries to come back i glue the poo out of it!! Wish you luck!!

Yea, it's my chalice grow out tank, and I feed the tank REALLY heavy-downside is the pest critters have pleanty of free food and sorta spawn like crazy (same tank I used to have the massive planeria problem in.) Combine it with a rather old-school hippy philosophy of "live and let live" and instead of nipping them in the rear-end when I started noticing them, I let them get out of hand (just like the planaria...and Ma thought I was smart and would eventually learn my lesson). My own fault, just gotta start knocking them back into control. Except since it's the chalice tank I'm reluctant to do too much work on the tank and risk ticking off the oh-so-delicate drama queens....yes, at this point I'm just whining/ranting.