Anyone else have these things?

[Mike.B]

On my tank that I kinda let goto **** theres these little hard tube things on the live rock, there only like a cm long or so and there brown. Some places theres alot of them and there like little spikes, mostly there in places that arent in direct light(sides and bottoms of rock). I dont have any pics of them but I'm sure someone knows what I'm talken about.

What are thes things and can I just break them off and reuse the rock?

 

[Paintbug]

probably going to be vermetid snails. heres some info and pics to confirm. look at Fig. 3 http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rs/index.php

and yes you can just break them off and reuse the rock or just leave them on they wont hurt anything.

 

[mr pink floyd]

i have those, they look liek feather duster tubes? right, bu ttheyre like rocks

 

[mr pink floyd]

yep those are them!

 

[bugged]

Can we get rid of them or not.

 

[Paintbug]

you can if you want. many people do. i will if they are bothering a coral. they will spit out a mucus web to catch food. sometimes that will bother a coral. sometimes they grow where the flesh from a corals polyps touches the stem of the snail and that will irritate the coral, so it wont open fully.

 

[Mike.B]

Yeah those are them. So is poor tank quality what causes them because really thats the only time I see them substantially multiply?

How can I prevent these from forming in my new tank?

Does breaking them off completely kill them?

 

[Paintbug]

i wouldnt say poor quality causes them to grow. they feed on food in the water column. if you have lots of things for them to eat then they will keep multiplying. about the only way to prevent them is to kill every one thats in your tank. without killing all the life on your liverock, thats mission impossible. i try to keep their numbers down in the front of my tank. they can have the rear, and in the caves. they do more good than harm, but they can get kinda ugly when you have a bunch of little webs floating around.

when i remove mine, i will break off the stem, and remove it from the tank. most the time you will see the snail in the tube. i would think that if you left the stem in the tank, it would just re grow somewhere. i try to remove the rock, or coral from the tank with i remove the snail, but sometimes thats not possible.

 

[Mike.B]

Well with all my new live rock I'll make sure I try and remove them before they can even get in the tank, as for the 20-30 lbs I have now I'll take a hammer to them and break them all off and use it for base rock, the more delicate place I'll kust use some pliers or wire cutters. There no match for tools!