Vermetid snail HOW to kill them help!

[Ocean Lotion]

I disagree with Reefbreeders here based on my personal experience.

I currently have a small colony of zoas that are surrounded by vermetids. The snails only release their webs when I stir up the sand bed, and even then the zoas are only mildly irritated despite being covered in webs. The zoas are multiplying normally and show no sign of tissue loss.

In my opinion it's not worth the headache of trying to get rid of them. Eventually they'll outcompete themselves and stop reproducing.

I have 2 colonies of Blasto that were irritated enough so they would not eat and starved.

 

[smartwater101]

pic to support what I said. This is not your typical irritating pest

The piece dangling is what I snipped off and fragged, which it growing nicely. Again, just showing how harmful these Vermetids can be.

Old thread... but I'm not sure what we're supposed to be looking at here. What about this melting coral indicates V snails are to blame?

 

[Leadfooted]

Old thread... but I'm not sure that we're supposed to be looking at here. What about this melting coral indicates V snails are to blame?

I meant to update that. I thought the vermetid snail was irritating the coral (Litho) to the point where it caused it to divide but I was wrong.

I've since learned is this Litho was struggling to kill off the coralline algae and attach itself to the rock. It was basically like walking on ice since the coralline's so slimy. The coral decided to naturally divide in search of a new home , perhaps with less coralline. I'll send a pic update later today. On a good note, this grafted Litho continues to poop small babies till this day as it continues to search for more rock work making lots of frags over time.

Regarding the Vermetid's in my DT, they still plague me and always irritating my softer LPS, never ending battle I presume.

 

[smartwater101]

Ive been pouring through threads about V snails supposedly "irritating" peoples corals and this the only thread I could find, where someone actually showed a picture of said irritation. Wich is why I'm asking.

I found the article by reefbuilders showing the correlation of V snails and corals. And outside of a crazy amount of claims in forums, I've seen very little that shows these things are actully pests... except for being ugly and poking me in the finger lol

Edit: replied before i posted. That was quick! Thanks.

 

[smartwater101]

I've since learned is this Litho was struggling to kill off the coralline algae and attach itself to the rock. It was basically like walking on ice since the coralline's so slimy.

Thats interesting. Ive never had a Litho. So weird it just slides right off lol

 

[doodledreads]

I made peace with these guys. They are so adapted to the tank life - they love anything that breaks down into particulate matter and that means anything we feed our tanks. Now I use a long and thin plastic rod to super glue those which are too close to my corals once a month or so. I found that they seem to increase in number for a few days when you crush them. Also feeding less will help slow them but it won't get rid of them unless you are willing to starve the rest of the tank.

 

[doodledreads]

*Repost*

 

[smartwater101]

I made peace with these guys. They are so adapted to the tank life - they love anything that breaks down into particulate matter and that means anything we feed our tanks. Now I use a long and thin plastic rod to super glue those which are too close to my corals once a month or so. I found that they seem to increase in number for a few days when you crush them. Also feeding less will help slow them but it won't get rid of them unless you are willing to starve the rest of the tank.

Ive always just let the corals grow around them. Never seen any damage or irritation. I do worry about Euphyllia getting poked but starting to wonder if its an unfounded concern.

I worry about my fingers more then anything.

 

[Leadfooted]

If you want a test on whether or not these harm and possibly kill over time and coral, put a colony of Vermetid snails around a blastomussa coral, it'll show the ill effects rather quickly. Lobo's also get very irritated by these and Micromussa lordhowensis. Most other corals in my DT don't seem to be bothered, it's the softer skin LPS that clearly can't coexist over time with Vermetid's.

 

[doodledreads]

Ive always just let the corals grow around them. Never seen any damage or irritation. I do worry about Euphyllia getting poked but starting to wonder if its an unfounded concern.

I worry about my fingers more then anything.

It may as well be, but here's my question: do you know if the coral growth when they are not close to the vermitids remains the same or increase/decrease? As per my experience, I saw there is a slight improvement in corals when I super glue the vermitids too close to them. I actually had an acan head start growing new heads once I removed the vermitid living on the frag. I think it has to do with vermitids stealing the food and nutrition from the coral instead of just irritating it. Once the coral is well established, i.e., it is large enough to fend for itself I don't think it will matter.

 

[Leadfooted]

Further research shows they not only harm corals but they can dramatically reduce algae grazing by fish.

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/vermetid-snails-harm-coral-reefs-with-multiprong-attack

 

[doodledreads]

There is a YouTube channel by a marine biologist who is studying them. He is pretty funny and according to him there seem to be a bloom of these not just in reef tanks but in our oceans as well. Guess the reason? Yep, us humans. All that garbage, industrial and agricultural run off is like crack to these guys and are exploding in growth. I will try to find the video.

My point is, we can only try to minimize their impact until someone better finds a solution. I have long since accepted that our reefs are going to have pests. Its all about balance. (dang, I am quite the philosopher today, aren’t I?)

 

[smartwater101]

It may as well be, but here's my question: do you know if the coral growth when they are not close to the vermitids remains the same or increase/decrease? As per my experience, I saw there is a slight improvement in corals when I super glue the vermitids too close to them. I actually had an acan head start growing new heads once I removed the vermitid living on the frag. I think it has to do with vermitids stealing the food and nutrition from the coral instead of just irritating it. Once the coral is well established, i.e., it is large enough to fend for itself I don't think it will matter.

For the most part I've left them alone for the last 20 years that I've had tanks. Never had issues with blastos/zoas or anything really. I've only ever been concerned about Euphyllia but not really sure why.

My corals grow/encrust the same with or without. A few of my SPS have the snails only on one side and neither side is encrusting at a different rate. The corals dont seem to care and just continue to grow wherever they please. Its always been this way for me and I've never seen pics of people's corals having issues because of them. (Seen a lot of pics of how ugly it can get though.)

Reminds me a lot of how people commonly thought bristleworms were the devil. Though I suppose an argument could be made about having too many snail/worms could be a problem.

 

[smartwater101]

Further research shows they not only harm corals but they can dramatically reduce algae grazing by fish.

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/vermetid-snails-harm-coral-reefs-with-multiprong-attack

Discoraging the algea eaters is an interesting side effect...

As for "impeding coral grown or outright killing coral" the only study I can find is linked by a few places, like reefbuilders, that are straight forward about it being a correlation. (These blog sites themselves never make that clear though. They do what most blogs do and exstrapolate the extreme.)

I'll have to keep digging for more studies about what specifically they're doing to coral. The algea thing is interesting. I never would have thought of that.

 

[doodledreads]

Here's the video:

 

[Leadfooted]

Old thread... but I'm not sure what we're supposed to be looking at here. What about this melting coral indicates V snails are to blame?

Update: See, litho survived the snot net and eventually was able to kill the coralline algae and attach for more growth. Litho seems to fairly resistant to the Vermetid’s unlike the others I mentioned above.

I just had to super glue under this blasto’s Skirt. It won’t have babies or grow when the vermetid’s get under the skirts.

 

[Leadfooted]

When you look close, you can see where the vermetid snail has caused this Blasto to recede, exposing its skeleton, setting it up for eventual death.

 

[tenurepro]

I want to add my experiences; I’ve had small ones since the start of my tank but had 0 issues with them bugging my acropora .

I can’t seem to square the conflicting experiences (and reedbuild article); I think perhaps there is an damaging species that gives that whole genus a bad name.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

I have witnessed the webbing from a large vermatid to cause soft tissue recession on my corals. Also have noticed zoas polyps close up only where the web is covering them. My fish do pick off the large ones so not a huge problem for me. I have not seen the small ones irritate anything.

 

[LadyMac]

I think I have these, but I never see any strings from them or anything. Just these ugly things all over my rock, living in harmony with my algae. I’ve even found them on my hermit shells. So I guess I’ll just watch them, crush the ones closest to my sickly frags. I guess it could explain why my little zoas aren’t growing.

 

[4sylvester]

Has anything changed with these guys? I tried coral snow for 2 weeks every night and it not only did not reduce the population but my snails had explosive growth during this period. I run socks and spot feed fish only. I ordered a melanurus wrasse hoping he might help keep these guys in check. I have thousands.