guys... i need some help. been into the saltwater fish for little over 3 years. I have a two tank 500 gallon setup with a central filtration system located in my basement. anyway. i have these microscopic snail looking creatures that multiply daily it seems! i dont know what they are, but have been told they are not snails! My aggressive tank has zero accept in the overflows. My reef tank has them everywhere. they literally are cover every square inch of rock and are moving to the glass. ill include some pictures, but does or can somenody help me with what they are and how to control them!
snail looking creatures
- Thread starter matthorvat
- Start date
They are small tube worms (if that's what I'm seeing in the pics, hard to tell) nothing really to worry about I've had tanks that had a lot of them too. Scrape them off the glass with a razor.
from reefs.org
Spirorbidae (------ror-bid-day)
I think spirorbids are the worm about which I field the most questions, because their tiny calcareous tubes are almost ubiquitous among reef aquaria, and they are so small that unless one looks carefully, you cannot see the crown worm itself, just the circular spiral of the calcareous tube. I usually receive questions to the effect of, "There are tiny calcareous spirals all over the glass and rocks in my tank. Are they egg masses of snails or something?" If you take any hand lens and look carefully at those spirals, you will most likely see a tiny set of pinnules and a tiny operculum which both resemble the structure the serpulid tubeworm, Hydroides dianthus.
Like the sabellids and serpulids, these worms have two distinct body regions: a tentacular crown which projects from the tube for feeding and respiration, and a soft, fleshy body which remains permanently within the safety of the tube. The tightly-coiled, calcareous tubes attach permanently to any available hard substrata, and the anterior end of the tube is sealed by an operculum similar to that of the serpulids when the worm withdraws into its tube. Serpulids, however, do not grow in the characteristic coiling pattern of the spirorbids (which may coil to the right or left -- sinistral or dextral -- depending on the species) which is unique to the spirorbids.
Once again, these worms are virtually harmless. These animals brood their larvae in either the operculum itself, or within the tube until ready to metamorphose, and then release very short-lived planktonic larvae. These larvae often settle within minutes (and almost always less than an hour) of their release, and can therefore spread rapidly within a reef aquarium. This generally happens early in the life of the aquarium, and in a well-maintained, clean aquarium, the initial population explosion of these small worms quickly slows and they are almost never a problem in any aquarium. If the population continues to climb to the point that all surfaces in the tank become encrusted with these worms, it likely indicates a high suspended organic problem, and you should be more concerned with your water quality than the presence of these polychaetes, per se.
from reefs.org
Spirorbidae (------ror-bid-day)
I think spirorbids are the worm about which I field the most questions, because their tiny calcareous tubes are almost ubiquitous among reef aquaria, and they are so small that unless one looks carefully, you cannot see the crown worm itself, just the circular spiral of the calcareous tube. I usually receive questions to the effect of, "There are tiny calcareous spirals all over the glass and rocks in my tank. Are they egg masses of snails or something?" If you take any hand lens and look carefully at those spirals, you will most likely see a tiny set of pinnules and a tiny operculum which both resemble the structure the serpulid tubeworm, Hydroides dianthus.
Like the sabellids and serpulids, these worms have two distinct body regions: a tentacular crown which projects from the tube for feeding and respiration, and a soft, fleshy body which remains permanently within the safety of the tube. The tightly-coiled, calcareous tubes attach permanently to any available hard substrata, and the anterior end of the tube is sealed by an operculum similar to that of the serpulids when the worm withdraws into its tube. Serpulids, however, do not grow in the characteristic coiling pattern of the spirorbids (which may coil to the right or left -- sinistral or dextral -- depending on the species) which is unique to the spirorbids.
Once again, these worms are virtually harmless. These animals brood their larvae in either the operculum itself, or within the tube until ready to metamorphose, and then release very short-lived planktonic larvae. These larvae often settle within minutes (and almost always less than an hour) of their release, and can therefore spread rapidly within a reef aquarium. This generally happens early in the life of the aquarium, and in a well-maintained, clean aquarium, the initial population explosion of these small worms quickly slows and they are almost never a problem in any aquarium. If the population continues to climb to the point that all surfaces in the tank become encrusted with these worms, it likely indicates a high suspended organic problem, and you should be more concerned with your water quality than the presence of these polychaetes, per se.
