Challenge: Find a place where Vermetid Snails don’t exist.

[Reefahholic]

Excluding freshwater...

I’m talking about typical places were we order corals and inverts.

Does such a place on earth exist with marine life w/o Vermetid snails. Again, I’m not taking about the deepest depths of Antarctica.

I’m trying to figure out a place to get live sand or mud where I can avoid them. It’s a huge gamble, but I need the bio diversity in my new tank that will be 100% dry rock to avoid a lot of the pests. I’ll probably be unsuccessful at keeping everything out, but hopeful I’ll be lucky enough to avoid Aiptasia, Bubble Algae, and Limpets. Yes some pests are harmless, but for me they’re all annoying and I want to keep out as many as I can.

IMO, Vermetid’s are nearly impossible to keep out of a system. You need to get extremely lucky to avoid these guys.

There’s some precautions that I’m taking to avoid them, but it will most likely result in failure because their microscopic.

One thing I’ve thought about lately since I live 20 minutes from the beach is to grab the sand under the top layer. I haven’t noticed many were I collect local marine life, but I haven’t looked very carefully. I will be looking hard here soon. I’ve noticed the mud under the jetties is loaded with life.

If you guys see anything or know of anywhere that’s Vermetid free let me know. I researched the other night and they were just about everywhere. I looked at a bunch of research and world maps. Not only that, there’s several different species.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I like the idea of grabbing some beach mud. It would be totally welcome in my tank but I'm not sure that it's the way to go in a 100% "pest" free tank..

 

[Reefahholic]

I like the idea of grabbing some beach mud. It would be totally welcome in my tank but I'm not sure that it's the way to go in a 100% "pest" free tank..

Yeah true that. I know eventually I’ll probably end up with some pests that make it in and at that point I’m just gonna have to tolerate it.

The plan is to cycle the rock with Dr. Tim’s One and Only. I may add a few different bacteria’s because maybe some will have an extra species. I’m gonna feed them with Ammonium Chloride.

Then once the cycle is completed I will start to “carefully” add bits and pieces of diversity. It only takes one speck of coralline algae to populate a tank, but that same spec could have a microscopic Vermetid sitting on it. Or an Aiptasia. I’m not sure if Aiptasia as truely microscopic, but I’ve seen them extremely tiny. Almost invisible to the naked eye. My logic is that adding the most minimal amount will increase my chances of avoiding some of these pests.

I also want to add some sponge. This is usually seen on rocks in established systems. It only takes a small amount to get it started. I’ve looked at it under a microscope and it looks pretty clean. I think it’s the harder dead surfaces that attract the bad guys.

My plan for live sand is going to the beach and grabbing it away from the rocks. Right at the shoreline it “appears to be” fairly clean. Haha. I hope. I’m going to try to remove the top layer of sand were Vermetid’s will settle and get the sand 2+ inches below and bag it.

My last effort will be grabbing some established mud the same way I get the sand. If you are interested to see if this works, check out my YouTube channel as I will be uploading several videos very soon. Tank is about to be built as we type.

 

[DWill]

Good luck keeping vermetids out your tank. I think that a near impossible task. I’ve found controlling them isn’t too difficult though. Look at everything that isn’t dry and clean before it goes in your tank. Get rid of anything that even looks like one.
If you see anything in your tank that you even think might be one put bumblebee snails in right away, don’t hesitate and don’t wait. You can always take the bumblebee snails out, getting rid of vermetids not so much.