Weird worm

Stephane Cote

Active Member
Hey guys... I need a bit of help... And pics seem impossible.

I was looking for my emerald crab thats been missing for a few days. So im searching at night when the lights go off and ive spotted this thing.. Never seen it before and its very hard to get a sneak peek at it reacts to light and it very quick to retreat. Im basically camping it now.

It pops out very so often to grab a piece of sand and retreats very quickly. Its in a little gap in the rock on the sand bed. It looks like its at least 2-3 inches. Looks brown in color and wormish. Has long antenna things in the front.

Im trying really hard to get a pic but its near impossible. Cant see anything

Any ideas?
 

PSU4ME

JoePa lives on!!!
Staff member
PREMIUM
Eunicid worm? Take a look on google......the antenna things are what got me thinking that.....and they are lightning fast.
 

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
I'm with Bryan on the guess. Sounds a lot like an Eunicid worm. They are meat eaters so keep this in mind.
 

Stephane Cote

Active Member
as much as i hate to admit it i believe we have a positive ID.

looks like i need to strip part of the tank to get to it. and i know where it's at at least. seems i can't touch it so gloves is a must.

sigh. last thing i wanted to do is start striping my tank :\
 

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
I wouldn't want one of those in my tank either. I'm afraid I'd tear it down if I had a positive ID on a Eunicid worm. Be sure to take pics of it once you catch the meat eating rascal.
 

Stephane Cote

Active Member
I don't think it's that big yet but i have still yet to locate. I THINK its in one of the rocks i pulled but i can't spot it anywhere. It's probably wedge deep into the rock. I put it in a rubber made bin with RO water (no salt) and will put a jet to circulate the water. worse case ill cure that rock.

now tonight ill go around with a red light, apparently they don't see that light so i maybe to spot it (if it's still in my tank)

steph
 

PSU4ME

JoePa lives on!!!
Staff member
PREMIUM
Yeah I heard that you can also pour seltzer water on the rock to get them out. Would really help if you knew where in the rock it was though! Good luck!
 

Stephane Cote

Active Member
yeah tarts my prob. i think it's in this rock (as it was burrowing underneath it). and i put it in RO water. i see a lot of dead bristle worms, but no other worms :( i may have killed it in the rock. OR it's still alive and I'm killing everything else in the rock :\

Edit: OR it's not even in that rock :\

edit#2: I have a soda pop maker and made some sparkling water.. poured it all on the rock and.... nothing.
 

Stephane Cote

Active Member
trueeeee but if it was bigger i'd probably have more lucking finding it.

I tried injecting vinegar into some holes in the rock... nothing came out.

I REALLY hope it didn't run off somewhere else in the aquarium. OR i hope it died. lol
 

Stephane Cote

Active Member

yeah saw that before. and no. it's not. the worm i spotted was dark chocolate brown and within rocks, not i sand. So far, the rock is still in the rubber made bin with RO (small amount of salt) water and a jet and i have not spotted it since. I've been looking randomly at night (with a red light) in both my DT and the bin....nothing. I hope i killed it.

Funny thing is, it's been there for a while i just never saw it. it constructed structures out of stuff like sand and bits of shells.. i was wondering what that was/where it came from. Never though more of it. But as i observed it grabbing pieces of sand 1 at a time, after i pulled out the rock and noticed those structures over holes i put everything together. it was making a burrow for itself in the rock.

steph
 

pgrtgunner

Member
Last week I was moving some rocks around. When I lifted one big rock up there was a colony of the worms. I put one in a jar and took it to my local store, they said it's a Bristle worm. This thing was about 4inches long.
I agree with you folks, it's the Eunicid worm, it doesn't look like a bristle brush, it's not fuzzy.
I pulled the rock out and let it dry out. I probably should throw it over my fence into the desert. I counted 21 worms in the rock, and that's the ones I could pull out. I'm
creeped out just looking at the pics I have. Been trying to download pics on Tapatalk and just can't figure it out. I'll save the pics, so I can post them.
 

Stephane Cote

Active Member
well after isolating the rock for a couple weeks i still did not locate the worm. so it's probably dead. i put the rock in the QT I'm setting up

and well, guess what i found last night? looked like a bobbit worm! (Same as a Eunicid but light brown in color) it had it's head out of the rock. so i quickly grabbed the rock and put it in a bucket. put vinegar all over the rock and heard crackling and popping. the rock is now sitting in a bucket of water with some vinegar.


siiiigh
 

DianaKay

Princess Diana
RS STAFF
OMGosh! Your luck with bad worms is SCARY :eek:
Never know what's really in our tanks....tiny worms might grow a few years inside LR before we have any idea that they are there :invisible:eek::invisible
 
Top