Controlling/Eradicating Vermetid Snails

Triggreef · Mar 25, 2018

I'm learning these things aren't the devil. I've actually let them grow with some corals like monti's which will just keep encrusting up the tube as it grows. Makes for easy fragging lol.

Saltyanimals · Mar 26, 2018

That's a nice "cup half full" outlook in life. lol Mine were just too closed to some high end SPSs and the web was irritating the SPSs. I have some closer to my euphyilla space and that I didn't care, because it didn't seem to both them. Tubes still look dead.! =)

Chriscrna · Mar 26, 2018

Had them on everything for about a year. Then, just like that, they completely disappeared about a year ago.

VFX_Reef_Peacekeeper · Jul 22, 2018

Ok, so I read a post yesterday on this very thing.
Melev's reef on youtube has a video about zapping apatsia with a high powered laser.
The same technique seems to work for Vermetid Snails. You can actually cook them in their shells.
I've been hammering them all day. Seems to be killing them.

Triggreef · Jul 22, 2018

Chriscrna said:
Had them on everything for about a year. Then, just like that, they completely disappeared about a year ago.

what is your fish list like? Any possible inverts that might eat them? Arrow crab maybe?

Chriscrna · Jul 24, 2018

Triggreef said:
what is your fish list like? Any possible inverts that might eat them? Arrow crab maybe?

Nothing in the tank that would eat them. I had thousands of them, and they just went away. I have an ULNS now, so perhaps that had something to do with their eradication. I wish I had a more intelligible answer, but I really don't know why they vanished.

doughboy · Jul 24, 2018

Chriscrna said:
Nothing in the tank that would eat them. I had thousands of them, and they just went away. I have an ULNS now, so perhaps that had something to do with their eradication. I wish I had a more intelligible answer, but I really don't know why they vanished.

when you say they went away, do you mean the thousands of tubes also disappeared?

HexaReef · Dec 12, 2018

Jason0101001 said:
Ok, so I read a post yesterday on this very thing.
Melev's reef on youtube has a video about zapping apatsia with a high powered laser.
The same technique seems to work for Vermetid Snails. You can actually cook them in their shells.
I've been hammering them all day. Seems to be killing them.

What kind of laser? Photon!?

w2inc · Nov 13, 2019

HexaReef said:
What kind of laser? Photon!?

Melev used something like this. It is called the Gatling laser. They are not cheap. Mine was under $150 online I believe it is 10 watts? I am sure that a 3 watt that was well focused would easily burn anything in a standard 24 inch wide tank.

The Melev used it on Aptasia. I never was able to kills those with it. It burns best on colored things. It moves right through glass and water and transparent anemones. You can boil the water around them by hitting the rock they are attached to. I cut clear plexiglass with a 75 watt laser that is perfectly focused, but I am not sure that could be done with a hand held device.

I couldn't make much of a dent in bubble algae either. You can hear both things crackle and boil, and I do think with persistence you could pull it off, but I would not call them an end all by any means.

It will easily destroy snails. I have killed several pest snails in my freshwater aquarium with it. In the reef you can boil vermatid snails and limpets with no problem. Some times I write my name in my encrusting corals when I am bored.

It is really more of a luxury toy than a tool.

w2inc · Nov 13, 2019

w2inc said:
Melev used something like this. It is called the Gatling laser. They are not cheap. Mine was under $150 online I believe it is 10 watts? I am sure that a 3 watt that was well focused would easily burn anything in a standard 24 inch wide tank.

The Melev used it on Aptasia. I never was able to kills those with it. It burns best on colored things. It moves right through glass and water and transparent anemones. You can boil the water around them by hitting the rock they are attached to. I cut clear plexiglass with a 75 watt laser that is perfectly focused, but I am not sure that could be done with a hand held device.

I couldn't make much of a dent in bubble algae either. You can hear both things crackle and boil, and I do think with persistence you could pull it off, but I would not call them an end all by any means.

It will easily destroy snails. I have killed several pest snails in my freshwater aquarium with it. In the reef you can boil vermatid snails and limpets with no problem. Some times I write my name in my encrusting corals when I am bored.

It is really more of a luxury toy than a tool.

br88dy · Feb 23, 2020

w2inc said:

What is this? Does it fry vermetids?

w2inc · Feb 23, 2020

br88dy said:
What is this? Does it fry vermetids?

It is a hand held laser. I use it for frying snails. It works great if you can get a line of sight to them. You can hear it crackle when you get the right spot.

gilberto1963 · Feb 18, 2021

SLUF681 said:
I put 2 emerald crabs in my 120 Thursday and have been keeping an eye on the to make sure they're behaving. I watched one of them eat 5 vermetid snails in about 2 minutes yesterday. Works for me!

Saltyanimals · Feb 18, 2021

Keep an eye on that spot where you saw it eat the snails to see if they return. The tricky part about vermetid snails is they can retract quite a bit to protect themselves from laser (I've tried) and whatever may be trying to eat it.