Help with my Hammer please!

[acrouse]

I just discovered that my hammer has 2 or 3 of the hard shell worms that put out the "cobweb looking strings" (sorry, I don't know the proper name) attached to its branches. How can I safely remove them without damaging the branches of the hammer. The worm's stringy webs are bothering the hammer because it starts to close up when the strings come out.

I have heard you can just crush them when they are on live rock and putting out all kinds of webs-but I have no idea when it comes to the hammer's branches.

Also, what do new hammer heads look like when developing on the branches-I don't want to accidently remove something good.


thanks for any and all help!

jolene

 

[GreyHawk1968]

you could try picking them off the branches. Just be careful. The hammer I have has about 20 little hammers growing out from the area where the skin meets the skeleton on the branch. They look like little polyps sticking out.

 

[theop]

They are vermetid gastropods. I'd take the coral out of the water and use a knife blade to scrape them off. They should come off pretty easily as the coral skeleton should be less porous than live rock.

 

[musty baby]

Just take some tweezers and mangle them. Won't even have to remove the coral from the tank. Depending on the size they may just pop right off of the coral's skeleton.

 

[acrouse]

Thank you for the responses, greatly appreciated. I just did not want to damage the branches.

thanks
jolene