Where to go from here

[AndCoy]

As the title suggests, I really don’t know where to go from here. I bought a used 75 gallon tank without really knowing what I should watch out for. Well it looks like my rock is full of vermetid sails and hydroids. I’ll attach some pictures, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m dealing with. The corals I have in there are pretty cheap, and before putting any more in there, I was thinking I should probably just start over with clean live rock. My tank is stocked with fish so I’m not sure if I just need to try to manually clean the rock the best I can and hope for the best, or if there is a way I can pull like half the rock from one side, let it populate with bacteria then replace the other half without that stuff affecting the new rock. Don’t want to rehome all the fish if I don’t have to. I am in the process of upgrading everything on this tank, and make it scaleable to a larger tank. I want to keep tangs in the future, but wanted to get my feet wet on keeping corals before upgrading. Any thoughts?

The vermetid snails are really hard to get a picture of with a cell phone, but I can see their spider web looking stuff when I blow the rocks off and feed the fish.

 

[Kimberely]

Vermetid snails are a pain in the rump. But fairly easily managed. Seal up their tubes with a bit of cyanoacrylate and problem solved. Hydroids are fairly common in new set-ups. They die off on their own in short order.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Both ARE short lived. I had for some odd reason success in ridding of vermetid with use of Vibrant liquid while treating for hair algae.

 

[AndCoy]

Oh, I guess I was thinking they were a bigger deal than they are. Would manually cleaning them off help, or just leave them be? I just don’t want them spreading anymore than they already have.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Oh, I guess I was thinking they were a bigger deal than they are. Would manually cleaning them off help, or just leave them be? I just don’t want them spreading anymore than they already have.

Yes you can remove manually as long as removal of rock does not disturb your landscape. Use a hard bristled brush or scrape off with a paring knife

 

[Kimberely]

Oh, I guess I was thinking they were a bigger deal than they are. Would manually cleaning them off help, or just leave them be? I just don’t want them spreading anymore than they already have.

You can manually remove the vermetid snails if you like. I still remove some every few months in my tank. I'd leave the hydroids be. My hydroid outbreak only lasted about 3 weeks and haven't been back in 2 years.