Vermetid Snails - HELP!!

So, I have hundreds, if not thousands of Vermetid Snails everywhere in my tank... I have researched these, read the articles by Dr. Shimek, and read through posts on here. It seems that there may not be a simple solution for getting rid of these... but I'm wondering if folks here can share some of their experiences.

First, Copperband Butterfly fish are said to eat them, but no one knows this for sure. Has anyone seen a CBB eat these things or have a CBB take out the population?

Second, has anyone experienced them becoming immensely populated and then dieing off over time? I have had small population explosions of things in the past... I'm thinking that may be the case with these...

Also, are there any other natural predators that anyone has found to be effective?

Let me just say that I am not interested in supergluing/ epoxying these shut. There are far too many for me to spend doing that.


I know that most will say that they are due to overfeeding, however, the population of these things has exploded during a time where I feed 1-2 times a week, and the fish are sure to gobble everything up.... my light feeding schedule could not have caused this population explosion.

I've been feeding much less to combat algae, along with solid carbon dosing (ecobak) and heavy skimming, my water is in pretty good shape these days...

 

similar situation as you. i just ignore them. if i find they are irritating a coral i'll break all the little stems around it until next time...

agree, far too many, far too much trouble to super glue these all shut. I can't get to majority of them anyway.



I do not overfeed. I feed on the order of 5-6x a month.


I haven't really noticed anything negative from them though...

 

I only get rid of the large ones that are irritating coral. Use a pair of needle nose pliers to crush the shell.

 

How long have you had them? I'm just wondering if they are something that will cycle through and go away...

it's weird... in past tanks, I have had tons of spaghetti worms and none of the vermetids... I remember seeing so many folks posting about these pests and thought it was weird b/c I never had the problem with them... now they have exploded (may have coincided w/ the addition of a calcium reactor) and they're everywhere.

 

i heard that six line wrasse can eat them too, but as with all predators some will some wont

 

may be true.. but FWIW, my six line hasn't put a dent in the popluation...

 

I didn't know what they were when I saw the first one, thought it was a new cool life form popping up. Now I have literally 100's of them. I put a dab of super glue on the tip of my finger and cover the opening of all the shells I can reach. I'll never get rid of them all now but I can kill the ones I can reach. ;D

 

if I get REALLY bored one day, maybe I'll do that... ;D

I don't really care how they look... I'm mostly concerned with them irritating my corals... something seems to be irritating my plate coral and candy cane corals, and I'm thinking these may be the culprit... I also think they may have had a hand in irritating my clam to death.

 

well, FML...

I was picking up a candy cane coral frag that was knocked over by my urchin and was trying to force the frag plug into a hole in the rock, my hand slipped and stabbed my thumb straight into a vermetid... the bugger broke off into my thumb and I had to pull it out...

I cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide and put neosporin on it... I hope it doesn't get infected.