Tube worm eating corals!

[kablamo]

Hey guys, it's been a while since I have needed to ask on this board, but in my 75 reef I noticed one particular rock with zoos and button polyps is slowly bleaching away, while all of my other rocks with the same species of coral are doing fine, Upon further inspection of what I thought was the skeleton of one of the corals I realized I had an inhabited calcerous tube.
I left it alone for a few weeks and watched the corals getting worse and becoming covered with spiderweb like stuff. I then noticed last night that the worm was eating all of the web and sucking it back in. Without hesitation I took a chopstick and broke the spiral tube down to where the little bugger was, took the rock out and smashed his face and pulled the rest of him out with some tweezers.
He had maybe 5 tentacles from his face and his body was smooth with black and white zebra like patterns on it.
Also from his face he looked like he had a similarly complex set of mouth parts like a crab or shrimp, but he was definitely a worm. Any ideas on what this could be? I couldn't get any clear pictures, but I will post what I do have tomorrow.

 

[viper_930]

Sounds like a vermetid snail. They're common hitch hikers and the web it send out is its way of catching its food. I just smash the tubes when I find them in my tank.

 

[royal gang]

:scared: :scared: :scared: i got tubes in my tank, new white ones too, looks like theyve been there for decades, theyre very pretty, nothing EVER comes out of them though, should i crush them?

 

[kablamo]

It doesn't seem like they are too big of a deal, as long as the aren't covering your corals with spiderwebs and making them bleach out. IS their web harmful to corals?

 

[rsd]

Actually... I don't know if those snails/worms are bad. My tank has had them for years... they generally keep the rocks clean from any detritus or leftovers.
If you are losing Zoas or Buttons... keep an eye out for REAL predators.
You may want to watch for sundial snails... do a search for them.
They have a flat-osh round shell that is black and white checkered patter.
Also... the hardest to see... (and the most poisonous to you) is Zoa eating Nudi's. These nudi's could easily fit on top of a pencil eraser... they are less than a centimeter long... and they are colored to look like part of the zoa. They are really hard to see.
Take a small bucket of water out of your tank... pull out a zoa rock that isn't doing well... put it in this bucket and shake the rock vigorously in the water... like you are trying to wash off the zoas.
If you see alot of little nudi's falling off the rocks... you've go problems.
DO NOT SQUISH THEM WITH YOUR FINGER!!!! These guys save all the venom and neuro toxins out of the corals they eat. Squishing them could result in one VERY bad trip to the ER.
Good luck... hope you find the real problem.
PS... check your parameters... do you dose with Iodine? Zoas don't respond well to too much Iodine. (IMO)