I've been having a hard time keeping corals alive for the last year. My uneducated self did not realize that all of these interesting filter feeders (vermetid snails) were actually not a good thing... ;Facepalm. I kid you not, was actually excited to see such natural looking growth all over my rock. Bit of background there, due to a series of divorce related moves I had to break down my 120 gallon tank into a few smaller tanks in order to keep rock, coral and fish alive until I could settle permanently. One tank was left to hold about half of my rock that did not have any coral growth. That rock got completely coated with vermetid. My other tank contained my primarily lps coral and fish along with the other half of my rock. No surprise now, but when I combined everything into the 120 the vermetid spread everywhere. Since then (about a year ago) almost every coral I had and have since added has died off. And only recently have I become aware that the vermetid were a likely cause.
I've been spending a good amount of time reading the various posts and articles about vermetid removal and am very much on the fence of whether I want to fight this or completely start over. While I'm contemplating this, I've recently started to see several areas of my rock begin to be coated with this white film and I have no idea what it is and if its impactful. Much like the vermetid I initially saw it and thought it had a very intriguing and natural look, but am wondering if this is my pending problem to deal with. If it is, than that's one more argument toward starting over. I'd hate to go that route and lose all the benefit of the many years worth of good bacterial growth I've no doubt built up. Despite the transitory state of my tank of recent, I've had this rock in my tank(s) for about 7 years.
I'd appreciate any insight anyone can offer.