Is this wire-like stuff worm???
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Looks like an invasive tube snail cluster. They come in many sizes and those have needle-like tubes that stab and bleed you when you bump into them, ime.
Remove the coral from the plug, glue them onto another fresh rock or plug and toss those, imo.
Remove the coral from the plug, glue them onto another fresh rock or plug and toss those, imo.
yep ^, depending on the price of the coral I would probably chuck it personally because I hate vermetid snails with a passion. I would usually remove the coral from the plug but those look like zoas and very hard to do. If you go that route please where gloves, mask, and eye covering just as a precaution against palytoxin. It is something that can poison you so just be aware
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Excellent points @dedragon !
If you can't pop them off the plug, scrape the plug with a butter knife (or similar scraping tool) and cover the area around the coral with superglue.
I also noticed this was your first post on here
Welcome to Reef2Reef!
If you can't pop them off the plug, scrape the plug with a butter knife (or similar scraping tool) and cover the area around the coral with superglue.
I also noticed this was your first post on here
Welcome to Reef2Reef!
thanks for the advice. I am a newbie and do not have the tool to cut the plug, but i did use scissor to cut off all the "wires".. not sure if it works...
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Yes, that may have got em! Keep an eye on the plug for their return if they duck and covered safely! It they do reappear, pull the frag out and scissor them again!
Also, fyi a lot of plugs come with "hitchhikers", often pests. Many folks toss the plugs and put their frag in place or onto new plugs. I have used a regular hack saw, ruined some bi-pass cutters (it was worth it) and have a dremmel and hammer(s) that I have used to remove corals from rocks. Keep your eyes out for useful tools that can be used because not everyone wants to get a bandsaw! A toothbrush, wire brushes, teeth cleaning tools, can all be employed for these opperations, and as was mentioned it is wise to wear eye protection when cutting or scraping things. Some of these animals produce toxins that can blind or kill with mishandling.
Also, fyi a lot of plugs come with "hitchhikers", often pests. Many folks toss the plugs and put their frag in place or onto new plugs. I have used a regular hack saw, ruined some bi-pass cutters (it was worth it) and have a dremmel and hammer(s) that I have used to remove corals from rocks. Keep your eyes out for useful tools that can be used because not everyone wants to get a bandsaw! A toothbrush, wire brushes, teeth cleaning tools, can all be employed for these opperations, and as was mentioned it is wise to wear eye protection when cutting or scraping things. Some of these animals produce toxins that can blind or kill with mishandling.
While may be tube worms, which you can scrape off in a small container of tank water, pics best under white lighting with coral submerged
cutting the tube in have or just the tops wont do it. You have to crush them entirely, including the base or super glue over the openings of each tube to make sure they are dead. If you dont get them they will multiply all over and give you a much worse problem as these look to be the colonial and fast spreading type of vermetid.
If not (and I know it sucks to do) but just chuck the frag plug entirely. This will depend on the zoa frag cost but most around me go for $10-$30 for a frag plug with multiple polyps. Did you get this from lfs or and online source?
As mentioned earlier, Take a paring knife and scrape off the remainder. It takes less than a minute and worth it
I took advice...removed the rock from the plug and found an aiptasia hiding there too. Lucky me.
I got it from online source `https://reefloungecoral.com/`. This is the first time I ordered corals from online. and surprisingly, not only it has the vermetid snails but also aiptasia. I used my finger nail to break out the little rock which has the tubes imbedded. It looks clean right now. But not 100% sure if I got all of them.
again, thanks yall for all the good advices!
I would write them a message asking what happened and if they would even give some money back because of the pests. In no way should an online coral shop be selling anything with that much vermetids or aiptasia on it. It shows that they both are running pretty pesk ridden tanks as well as not checking the frags before they send them out. Something like this can be expected of coral shops that just import corals, chop them up and sell them out (many lfs will do this) but not high end coral retailers
I highly doubt that they will do any refund since they did not even reply my email from yesterday when I asked for that tube thing.
luckily, I do not have any expensive corals in the tank or I will lost sleep for months...
I guess the lesson learned from this is that... do not order online...
I wouldnt not order corals from online, but it is best to only order from places with good reputations. I do not know about reef lounge but there are plenty of good online coral shops like TCK corals, arc corals, and pieces of the ocean to name a few. Reef lounge not responding to your emails and shipping you very easily identified coral pests shows that they just arent one of the good ones tbh
Next time...if you wanted to, you can get the zoas off with an exacto knife; work the knife on the rock/plug itself, not the zoa. Kind of "micro-chiseling" just in front of the flesh. Time consuming but doable. Good luck!
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