Vermitid Snail Complete Overrun

[shan1101]

Hi, so my tank over the last 5-7 years slowly has been overrun by vermitid snails and due to family life getting busy I just didn’t the time to deal with them, now thousands of them this is the turning point. I either give up and close down or I make a plan and execute it.
I have a plan I want to get advice on from people who have gone through it or have some ideas as I want to try and make the process as efficient and successful as possible.
Firstly, manual removal isn’t an option as I want to be pest free 100% and also I cannot add any livestock that would kill them due to my countries very strict import laws.
I have finally come up with a bit of a plan -
I am going to restart from scratch. Remove everything from the tank completely and I will restart with brand new live rock which I will kick start myself in plastic tubs. SPS corals will be easy to sort so I’m not worried about them but, my concern is with the lps corals. I want to quarantine them all to monitor for any missed snails. I have many largish colonies consisting of 30+ heads so I will be using my dremel to frag up into single, double maybe triple head frags to make them more manageable and also use a grinding tool to buzz over the hard skeleton of the coral to remove the snails. I’m aware doing this, best case scenario I will probably remove 90% at very best. So….
My question is what is a proven method that I could dip the skeleton part of the corals into which would kill off what I have missed.
Is a 5 or 10% hydrogen peroxide mix a good idea? Obviously I wouldn’t be dipping coral tissue and it would only be the stoney part.

If anyone has some ideas I would greatly appreciate it as I am kind of desperate. This is my last ditch attempt before I shut it all down.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Euphyllia97]

I have read about the use of muriatic acid to get rid of vermetid snails. A lot of caution to use tho, so research that before you try. It will be a risk to your corals.

Anyway, Your plan sounds good. I would execute that and keep your corals in an observation tank to see if all vermetids will be killed before reintroduction in your main tank.

They might also be in your pipes, overflow. Have you already considered a way to remove them there? (Will you keep the main tank dry for some time?)

 

[shan1101]

I have read about the use of muriatic acid to get rid of vermetid snails. A lot of caution to use tho, so research that before you try. It will be a risk to your corals.

Anyway, Your plan sounds good. I would execute that and keep your corals in an observation tank to see if all vermetids will be killed before reintroduction in your main tank.

They might also be in your pipes, overflow. Have you already considered a way to remove them there? (Will you keep the main tank dry for some time?)

Thanks for the reply and also pointing out about muriatic acid, I’ll look into that.
As for the rest of my tank I think that will be easy enough to drain, clean and leave it dry for a period of time I have yet to determine.