Silicone Eater Living In Sandbed?

[liztmap]

I am resealing a tank for a guy who's got silicone damage (looks like the mice have been at it) around the bottom & sides, but only as high from the bottom as the sand level was. Is there some kind of critter that gnaws on silicone? I've never seen this before, the guy bought the tank new & undamaged about six years ago.

 

[wade1]

I've never seen that before either... but I wonder if it might be a type of chemical reaction? Maybe it becomes fairly acidic down in the sand and eventually causes problems? But then, if that were the case, more of us would be seeing this issue I bet.

Perhaps it was made from cheap silicon thats worn away?

Never heard of a bug that will do that... but you never know.

Wade

 

[John_Brandt]

Some polychaete worms can tunnel right through aquarium sealing silicone. They don't eat the silicone, they just chew through it. Heck, they can bore through coral rock.

It happened in a 150 reef I maintained about 6 years ago. I found a small puddle on the floor at the front of an Oceanic tank. I could see where the water was dripping that there were whitish tunnels bored into the silicone. One of the tunnels traveled all the way through to the outside. The hole was such a small diameter that the water just slowly dripped.

I mentioned this to Julian Sprung and he told me that a good number of European reef aquarists have had this happen.

 

[liztmap]

Oh this definitely looks like munch-marks vs. anything chemical. And I'm now led to a new set of questions: Has anyone every determined what might satisfy these worms so they don't feel compelled to destroy their abode? What about acrylic tanks, do they suffer the same fate? How many times will a hobbyist reseal his tank before HE gets "bored"?

Liz Harris

 

[John_Brandt]

Liz,

I mostly use acrylic tanks. I've never heard of worms chewing through these, and I doubt that they would.

I doubt that there would be anything to keep them from tunneling through silicone if they chose to do that. I suppose one could invent some sort of 'guard', but it would have to be something they couldn't bore through or go under to get to the silicone.