Help! Fanworm crawled out of its tube!

[mmoyer]

Is this normal? Should I try to put it back? It's still moving around a little. Is it dying? Help!

 

[ClamIAm]

That's not a good sign. I've heard in rare cases it will grow a new one but normally it dies when this happens.

 

[WALKINGTHUNDER]

I think mine died when it crawled it. It was there then it was gone.

 

[mmoyer]

Update

Update

The worm died and a snail started to eat it within minutes. Any idea why? I got paranoid and ran labs immediately:

pH - 8.08
sp gr - 1.028 (down from 1.029 4 days ago)
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 20
Phosphates - <2.0

These readings are essentially unchanged for weeks, except phosphates were higher before I installed a new Remora HOT skimmer installed 2 weeks ago.

Worm was in tank about 2 months. 4 gal water change using boxed seawater 3 days ago.

 

[Acronana06]

why so high of a level on salt??????? should be around 1.025 thats really really to high and the phosphates are HIGH also

 

[idua]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7918475#post7918475 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Acronana06
why so high of a level on salt??????? should be around 1.025 thats really really to high and the phosphates are HIGH also

Agreed. Although this may not the culprit your Phosphates are way too high. I would try to get the Nitrates lower as well.

 

[Genin]

I had one that I inadvertantly pulled out of it's tube. I was aquascaping and not paying attention and pulled the rock that the tube was on and the work had also anchored on another rock close by. needless to say the tube pulled right off and i had a wriggling black worm there. I moved a whole bunch of sand right next to the worm and it kind of pushed the sand all around it, within 2 weeks it was back to normal. infact i still have the guy, he's over 8 months old!