Vermetid Snails- The undefeatable pest

[Reefahholic]

This is exactly my same experience with Vermetids.


How can you be sure live rock was the only culprit? Could have come along with a coral (or frag plug if you allow those in your tank). They often do.

They could have came in on the hammer or torch, but the 50 lbs of live rock that I added seems more likely to me. Who knows.

 

[Reefahholic]

@Reefahholic well you know in my case what I did but for those that don’t. I added 15 emerald crabs, some green and some red. I wish now that I would have taken a video, but they quickly attacked the Vermitid snails when I put them in my tank, but what I really think was the game changer was when I found the mother Vermitid and killed it, it’s much thicker. I’d say about the thickness of a needle, it did take about 3 tries to get rid of it. First time I just crushed the tube as far as I could get down the rock it was on, that didn’t work because it came back out fast. Second time I crushed again and tried spearing the hole with a stainless pic, apparently it decided that wasn’t a good place for it and moved. Then one day doing a water change when the water level was down about to where I saw the mother previously, I found it again growing out of the base of a coral. So I chopped it again, got a long piece of stainless wire and poked as far as I could down in the hole, then I dumped a lot of glue down the hole and I have never seen it again. The emerald crabs took care of the rest within a couple of months, I had thousands of them too!!!!! I hope that this helps someone out .

All my 20,000 look like mothers.

I'm hoping mine disappear like some of these other guys did. There seems to be a common occurrence of them disappearing after the tank matures.

Has anybody else noticed this?

 

[Reefahholic]

That would be epic. Can you take a good video and send it to my phone? 1080 HD and fullscreen if you can. I'll post it up on my YouTube channel and tag your name with it.

I tried to post a video but can’t figure out how to do that. I actually saw a bumblebee snail eating vermitid snails. I couldn’t get close enough to get the macro pics at the time but I took a bumblebee out and put it in a bowl and added some pellets. I just couldn’t figure out how a bb snail could eat anything encased in a 1inch tube. Soon as I put the food in the container with the bb snail a long appendage comes out of the snail almost 2 inches long!! I’ll try the video again and see if I can get it to load.

 

[Reefahholic]

Bro what is that long thing coming out of the Bumblebee snail? Is this how they feed??

I may have to try them. Maybe they will attack the Vermetid snails with that sweeper thing?

 

[DMG Reef]

All my 20,000 look like mothers.

I'm hoping mine disappear like some of these other guys did. There seems to be a common occurrence of them disappearing after the tank matures.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Maturity did not help my tank. When I upgraded last year, I tore down my 5-year old reef. The back of my live rock looked like pin cushions. So many vermetids. So now I have the same problem in the new tank. Guess I'll try bumblebee snails too.

 

[Reefahholic]

Maturity did not help my tank. When I upgraded last year, I tore down my 5-year old reef. The back of my live rock looked like pin cushions. So many vermetids. So now I have the same problem in the new tank. Guess I'll try bumblebee snails too.

Can anybody else confirm for sure that Bumblebee snails do eat the Vermetids.

 

[Leadfooted]

Can anybody else confirm for sure that Bumblebee snails do eat the Vermetids.

Short answer is yes but you need to assist just like most things in this hobby. First remove as many as possible by taking rock,frags out of the tank and scrape in a separate container(only what's easy, don't got to great length). Then scrape, crush , pick or anything you can to others in the tank/system. Those of you with hundreds, thousands, just use a flat head screwdriver and shave them off as close as possible.

This opens up the shells, exposes lots of flesh and yes, it becomes a feeding frenzy for bumble bee snails. Bottom line is Bumble Bees eat them, I was lucky enough to watch/wintess in my system. BUT you need to help them, make it easier for them to reach the flesh and you need a lot of snails because they don't really hunt the vermitids, they'll eat them by chance and convenience. Make it easy for the snail and I also think some wrasse will assist when you start crushing and scraping the snails, it's an easy meal for them at that point.

Sometimes a snail has a crevice and no matter what , you can't get to it or crush it deep enough. That's when I pull out the super glue gel and seal the tube shut (and I don't go lightly). And in extreme cases, I use 2 part epoxy, and a dab of super glue gel to the bottom and smash it right on top of the area where the vermitid snail lives. (I use 2 little fishies 2-part epoxy, the same I use for attaching acro's to rock work.)

Grab some tools and get hacking you guys!

 

[McPuff]

Bumblebee snails DO WORK! But it comes with a caveat... they only seem to eat the smaller type of vermetid. A good friend of mine saw those little BB snails doing their thing on his euphyllia and I figured I'd give them a try. Added only 12 in my 300 and noticed a big drop in the number of small vermetids in several places where I had seen the BB snails hanging out. I have purchased a few dozen more since my initial batch. I plan to buy several dozen more. I'm not sure how effective they are on the larger vermetids (there are several species) but those are much easier to manually remove.

If manually removing, I'd recommend trying to cut off the base which isn't easy. Smashing the shells will only cause them to regrow but there are certainly times when it feels good to simply be able to do that. And other times it's not possible to get the base.

As for emerald crabs, I've never seen them actually feeding on vermetids but I have ready anecdotes of this happening several times. I need to get some more of those guys anyway. They're just too fun to watch and I've never had a problem with them harming corals.

It's tempting to get a Canthigaster puffer for help in battling the larger vermetids... and because they are very cool fish. I worry that they would develop a taste for my snails and possible corals. Sure they aren't too difficult to catch but I've got LOTS of crevices and who knows how long it would take one to decimate a smaller colony of pink floyd, WD, or vihn. :0)

I have certainly seen my humu trigger (in connected lagoon) go after the vermetids, but this is only after I have chopped one off a rock or side of the container. I've never seen him go after a tube on his own so I'm not sure how effective triggers will be naturally, or until the triggers get quite large. But at that point they'll certainly eat any crustaceans you might have. :0)

 

[Ernie C]

I have had them for years. I have emeralds and bumble bee snails and i've never really seen them eating them unless i broke their tubes first. My filtration has changed over the years and I've noticed they get worse when i have less water polishing/filters on my system. I just upgraded my tank and am back to filter socks. Since my water has less free floating particles/potential food for them, i'm hoping to see a decline in their populations as i'm hoping they will starve. I also am target feeding and turning off all pumps when i feed fish to make sure they get most of the food. At the end of the day I've come to just understand they are part of my system and think of them as added biological filters

 

[DarkSky]

I've been using Marine Snow (well, a DIY version of it) to help deal with mine. It polishes your water and causes them to expel all their mucus to catch nothing of nutrient value for them. Doing that over and over will hopefully cause them to waste their energy and starve.

I've also loaded up on emerald crabs (6) and bumble bee snails (30) in a 220g.

 

[serwobow]

I tried to post a video but can’t figure out how to do that. I actually saw a bumblebee snail eating vermitid snails. I couldn’t get close enough to get the macro pics at the time but I took a bumblebee out and put it in a bowl and added some pellets. I just couldn’t figure out how a bb snail could eat anything encased in a 1inch tube. Soon as I put the food in the container with the bb snail a long appendage comes out of the snail almost 2 inches long!! I’ll try the video again and see if I can get it to load.

This is amazing! Thank you for posting this unbelievable video! I have had bumblebees in my tank for about a year hoping they would reduce my severe vermetid snail infestation. The numbers of vermetids have decreased substantially in that time, and this video shows how it is possible that the bumblebees ate them - with their large noodly appendage!

 

[Midrats]

The elongated mouthpart is called a proboscis.

 

[RayDRoot]

My Melanurus Wrasse eats snails. Also tried to crabs and other inverts.

 

[RayDRoot]

My Melanurus Wrasse eats snails. Also tried to eat crabs and other inverts.

 

[RichReef]

Once you get a single one in your plumbing it's over.

There is no recovering unless you don't have fish and never feed your coral.

BB snails have removed them from my display but they are everywhere else.

 

[Devisissy]

I have been commenting on my own post because I didn't see this one is here. I am dosing coral snow daily. I am almost on week 3 now. I have noticed their numbers, well the mucus nets I can see, are much less. I am expecting it to take many more months. This will also remove them I'm guessing from pluming as well.

 

[fish farmer]

I don't think "maturity" would be the right word to use, maybe balanced nutrient level?

I pulled an old return pipe off of an 18 year old FOWLR tank which has high nutrients, it was packed with them.

My 9 year old reef has them, also high in nutrients.

 

[rickyb]

Interesting topic.

 

[Nano sapiens]

A stable, mature and balanced system certainly is helpful. But primarily, kicking up detritus regularly and especially overfeeding with smaller food items encourages the infestations. Eliminating them completely is very difficult (I have always had a few, even in very low nutrient tanks) and isn't necessary IMO as they are a part of the natural biome.

In short, just minimize the water column particulates.

 

[Devisissy]

In short, just minimize the water column particulates.

Which is what the chalk supposedly does.

Noticed something of extreme interest last night. The vertimid snails are leaving their tubes and attaching to snails looking for food I assume. Very very weird.