Small tube with 2 white antenna around 3mm long?

TinCanHero · Jan 27, 2023

Hello, I had a few frags a week or so ago and I've noticed a small tube within the hystrix. the opening is around 1mm wide and ive found 2 white antennae sticking out around 3mm~. Any ideas?

looking online I see references to Vsnails. However, unfortunately for me, I've had a lot of experience with these guys and it's not like any I've seen before. Usually, Vsnails don't poke anything except a web from their tube, the tubes are usually larger than this and spiral along with being a light brown through to a dark brown/burgundy color. also when on coral like this they tend to outpace even the fastest-growing SPS usually having a few mm of shell above the encrusting line. the antennae remind me of a Stomatella snail or a Turbo snail.

Thoughts?

Kind regards, TinCan

Spare time · Jan 27, 2023

Spionid I'm pretty sure. Harmless

TinCanHero · Jan 27, 2023

Spare time said:
Spionid I'm pretty sure. Harmless

I did a quick google search and it does look like one of those.

came across this thread about the boring types, I'm tempted to just frag it off to be on the safe side. I have no idea about their reproductive cycle, do they propagate quickly?

josephxsxn said:
Doing some research on Spionid Worms I found an article talking about the Boring version of these. It appears they can be very damaging as the boring throughout the core itself and can make it very brittle and attack lots of SPS corals. I know on the frag pictured originally it seems like glueing only sometimes works as they end up poping back up out of other polyps later in the frag. I have taken a good piece of it off now that appears uninfected to try and save some should I have to toss this frag.

http://wp.auburn.edu/chadlab/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Weilgus-et-al-2006.pdf

ISpeakForTheSeas · Jan 27, 2023

TinCanHero said:
I did a quick google search and it does look like one of those.

came across this thread about the boring types, I'm tempted to just frag it off to be on the safe side. I have no idea about their reproductive cycle, do they propagate quickly?

Coral Boring Spionid Worms - they’re technically harmless, but they have a tendency to grow to massive populations and look pretty ugly when they do. How fast they spread likely depends on the species and the condition in your tank, but, generally, they seem to spread moderately quickly (and then snowball to spreading rather rapidly).

Coral Boring Spionid Worms -- an ugly bane to SPS

This is not something I've ever seen before. They are extremely ugly. Mar the appearance of SPS. This is on a "Beach Bum" encrusting montipora. I would take aphasia or even montipora eating nudibranchs over this crap. I've beat those with hard work. Not sure how to eliminate these without...

www.reef2reef.com

Spare time · Jan 27, 2023

TinCanHero said:
I did a quick google search and it does look like one of those.

came across this thread about the boring types, I'm tempted to just frag it off to be on the safe side. I have no idea about their reproductive cycle, do they propagate quickly?

You can remove it. They are very difficult to NOT have get in your tank since they survive dips. The only real way to prevent them (as far as I am aware) is to QT the coral and have practically no particulate or other food they eat to be present (heavy mechanical filter with carbon).

TinCanHero · Jan 27, 2023

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
Coral Boring Spionid Worms - they’re technically harmless, but they have a tendency to grow to massive populations and look pretty ugly when they do. How fast they spread likely depends on the species and the condition in your tank, but, generally, they seem to spread moderately quickly (and then snowball to spreading rather rapidly).

Coral Boring Spionid Worms -- an ugly bane to SPS

This is not something I've ever seen before. They are extremely ugly. Mar the appearance of SPS. This is on a "Beach Bum" encrusting montipora. I would take aphasia or even montipora eating nudibranchs over this crap. I've beat those with hard work. Not sure how to eliminate these without...

www.reef2reef.com

Thank you for the information! ill be fragging this out of the tank tomorrow after work for sure! I think that is a headache i could deal without

Spare time said:
You can remove it. They are very difficult to NOT have get in your tank since they survive dips. The only real way to prevent them (as far as I am aware) is to QT the coral and have practically no particulate or other food they eat to be present (heavy mechanical filter with carbon).

It's funny you should say that as I managed to not come across them in my old system, i guess i got lucky on that front. I did have a huge issue with Vsnails thou. Vsnails are one of the main reasons im running a Reefmat and trying to aim for a ULN system.

Spare time · Jan 27, 2023

TinCanHero said:
Thank you for the information! ill be fragging this out of the tank tomorrow after work for sure! I think that is a headache i could deal without

It's funny you should say that as I managed to not come across them in my old system, i guess i got lucky on that front. I did have a huge issue with Vsnails thou. Vsnails are one of the main reasons im running a Reefmat and trying to aim for a ULN system.

I would avoid ULNS as its very easy to starve the corals to death. ultra low n and p are fine though if you have heavy input and heavy export. You can prevent vermatids via coral QT. I heavily inspect corals, and if they have vermatids, I don't buy it. I also dip, then rinse the base or plug in peroxide via a dip or brush, scrub the stony parts of lps, then put in bare qt. I currently have no vermatids. and I absolutely hate them so I am glad haha

TinCanHero · Jan 28, 2023

Spare time said:
I would avoid ULNS as its very easy to starve the corals to death. ultra low n and p are fine though if you have heavy input and heavy export. You can prevent vermatids via coral QT. I heavily inspect corals, and if they have vermatids, I don't buy it. I also dip, then rinse the base or plug in peroxide via a dip or brush, scrub the stony parts of lps, then put in bare qt. I currently have no vermatids. and I absolutely hate them so I am glad haha

Same here regarding Vsnails, I HATE them, and if I'm honest I'm actually pretty fed up with how little vendors seem to care about them. personally, I rank them as one of the worst pests you can get. I've had a lot of the nasties over the years and always found a way to deal with or live with them. However, Vsnails broke me and my system and I just couldn't control them no matter what I did (and I tried everything!).

I'm on my second tank now and I've done everything I can to ensure I don't have Vsnails bar QT (although I have a spare tank I used for QT towards the end of my 1st system I don't have the room in my new place to set it up (fluval evo) HUGE MISTAKE!

I've had a few new coral shipments in from well-known UK sellers and I've fragged what I can off of the plugs, dipped, and used peroxide on the bone, and scraped anything off that looked odd that couldn't be fragged off.

but sure enough, around 2 weeks after my 1st shipment, I noticed a tiny baby growing on a torch skeleton. I removed the torch and fully removed the Vsnail but since then I'm finding more and more popping up every week.

I spend around 3hours just going "grid by grid" through my tank every weekend looking for them and every week I'm just finding more and more.

Last night I did this week's scan and I almost cried, to be honest. I found 24 in around 20mins and that was without doing a "millimeter by millimeter" search. I honestly don't know where to go from here, I'm up almost 10 times the numbers from last week and the previous weeks. and they are popping up in harder places to deal with them. it really is heartbreaking.

jimmypencil · Feb 14, 2023

TinCanHero said:
Same here regarding Vsnails, I HATE them, and if I'm honest I'm actually pretty fed up with how little vendors seem to care about them. personally, I rank them as one of the worst pests you can get. I've had a lot of the nasties over the years and always found a way to deal with or live with them. However, Vsnails broke me and my system and I just couldn't control them no matter what I did (and I tried everything!).

I'm on my second tank now and I've done everything I can to ensure I don't have Vsnails bar QT (although I have a spare tank I used for QT towards the end of my 1st system I don't have the room in my new place to set it up (fluval evo) HUGE MISTAKE!

I've had a few new coral shipments in from well-known UK sellers and I've fragged what I can off of the plugs, dipped, and used peroxide on the bone, and scraped anything off that looked odd that couldn't be fragged off.

but sure enough, around 2 weeks after my 1st shipment, I noticed a tiny baby growing on a torch skeleton. I removed the torch and fully removed the Vsnail but since then I'm finding more and more popping up every week.

I spend around 3hours just going "grid by grid" through my tank every weekend looking for them and every week I'm just finding more and more.

Last night I did this week's scan and I almost cried, to be honest. I found 24 in around 20mins and that was without doing a "millimeter by millimeter" search. I honestly don't know where to go from here, I'm up almost 10 times the numbers from last week and the previous weeks. and they are popping up in harder places to deal with them. it really is heartbreaking.

great lol i started a new tank recently and have vowed to avoid aiptasia at all costs which has been succesful but now it looks like i have vermatid snails

and they dont sound fun. any luck with bumble bee snails? im planning on ordering some. i have one isolated acan frag with v snails it looks like and when i get home from work i will manually remove, but like aiptasia it sounds like its too late to avoid the outbreak! this hobby can be humbling.