Are ribbon worms bad?

Should it come out?

 

Here's a photo:

 

I've had trouble lately keeping snails. I wonder if this is to blame.

Any opinions?

 

 

 

Deb

I've seen many small Ceriths that I knew I never added to my tanks.

 

Mike

 

Mike

 

Mike

 

The tank s going through a weird phase. I've had a foxface rabbit fish  which I originally got to control hair algae.  The tank had been fine for more than 18 months. Then, I started getting hair algae. The foxface got thinner and showed no interest.  Eventually,  hair algae was all over the place and the foxface died.

 

Meanwhile, I used to see snails & hermits crawling over everything. I also had a few emerald crabs.  About the time of the hair algae outbreak, I stopped seeing see any of them. No mexican turbos, no emeralds, hermits, snails of any kind.   I bought a bunch more and they promptly vanished as well.

I haven't put any new corals nor rock in for a very long time, so  I can't see how I could have picked up a mantis or something.  I did put in a puffer fish and a fire shrimp. I've never seen them bother anything. In fact, I haven't seen the fire shrimp for some time now.

 

So now, the tank is getting more hairy, the SPS's have mostly all died. My beloved foxface is gone. There still is the occasional hermit and snail, but not many.

 

I used to have countless numbers of copepods. Now they are rare. I think that was due to an accident I had with my topoff which got stuck and dilluted the salinity. But eight months later, the population is not recovering.   I tested my water parameters (pH, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, calcium, magnesium,  alkalinity, phosphate, salinity) and everything looks ideal. Nothing there is sticking out.

 

I am continuing with a monthly water change (10%) and hoping that this will eventually settle down.  I don't know what else to mention.

 

Cheers!

 

~John

I will post the photos as soon as I get them.

 

I don't see the hair algae as the cause of the snail loss. I think that either the snail loss is the cause of the hair algae, or the two are symptoms of some other root cause.

 

I thought that I once saw something about puffers not getting along with reefs for some reason, but I've haven't been able to find it since and don't remember what it was.  I put the puffer in with caution and didn't see anything obviously happening.

 

The refugium lights are about a year old. The tank lights are about 2 years old ( 12000 K MH).