"thorns" on rock

[motorslave]

I will be breaking off what I can and adding a few hermits. I am not considering breaking down the tank at this point.

[James Robert]

My tank is 2 yrs old, never had a problem. A;ll of a sudden, boom. Hundreds, all over the place. I;ve always had 30 or more blue and red leg hermits in there. ATthis point, I'm not going to break down tank. I;m going to research and experiment and talk to as many people as i can to solve this pest. Tank 60 gal ,sump 20, LR 60 lb, coral and fish.JRL

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Jadinop

My last experience with a population explosion of them in a frag tank involved breaking down the tank completely... ...They (tubeworms-tdw) even covered all the wires for the pumps and every bit of eggcrate and pvc in the tank. Have never seen anything like it before.

Other than large hermits possibly eating them or removing all food sources, I don't think there are any easy cures.

Actually there is a natural predator for these that will decimate them in a closed system: Copperbanded Butterflyfish, and it is not a hit or miss resolution; they will eat them until they are gone from the system.

Personally, I like them, and they are a means of keeping the particulate organics down in the tank (they are filter feeders).