Zebra striped worm with teeth!

[nikkipigtails]

I noticed this worm a long time ago but this is the first picture I've been able to get. It's very unusual...it is black and white, has a round mouth with what look like teeth. The mouth is on the end of the body, not on the side like Ancylostoma or Ascaris. It's always been in the same place in the same rock. When we changed everything from one tank to another, I tried to get it out but it disappeared and I just saw it again today. It has very strange "fishing" behavior. When this rock was more out in the open, it would extend the front half of its body in the water to catch food. It's never attacked any of my fish - I'm not sure about CUC though. I'll keep my eye open to see if I can catch it "fishing".

I'm also attaching a picture of a Nematode mouth. I tried to figure out what this thing is and this is the only mouth I've found that's representative of what my worm's mouth looks like...I'm not very good at describing things.

 

[taklein65]

Looks like the peanut worms i have in my tank. I am told they are harmless

 

[charlesr1958]

With such a distant shot of the worm I could only take wild guesses as to what it is. Might the relevent section of my hitch hiker pages be of use?

A Hitch Hikers Guide to the Reefs

Chuck

 

[nikkipigtails]

Thanks taklein65. I think it might be a peanut worm because of the feeding tentacles. It doesn't really look like any pictures I could find, but I'm confident that's waht it is. Any other takers?

 

[Dentoid]

Nikki did you look at Chuck's site above? You may just find your worm there!

 

[returnofsid]

Peanut Worm, they're actually pretty cool to watch. Most of the body is buried inside live rock. It stretches out to eat. It basically eats rock...lol. They're totally harmless and don't usually survive long in our tanks...although I've got a few that I didn't notice until my tank was about 2 years old.