Huge worm living in my live rock!

rharr21

Premium Member
I have a worm of some sort living in my live rock. It is round, almost the diameter of a pencil and irradecent gray/pink. It has 1/4 inch long wiskers on the only end I have seen and two palp like structures. It moves so fast, you almost cant see it. It darts out of holes and eats fish poop and flake food. Any ideas?
 
Trap that badboy befor it startes eating your clams and corals.What i did was take a water bottle cut the top off and turn it backward.Add a big old hunk of shrip and wait with lights out and a small dim flash light whae it is totaly in the bottle slowly pull the bottle out BE CAREFUL cuz that bad boy might sting you!

Good luck!
 
hmm did it look like this bast did it?
enchinoworm002.jpg

enchinoworm001.jpg

i had to break the rock apart to get ever inch of it out. this one was over 2 feet long and was eating my palys.
 
fraggin-
The first pic and the piece of worm in the bottom left of the second pic look like the end of the worm that comes out of my LR. I haven't noticed any of my zoa or palys missing yet. I guess I should try to get it out of my tank. Darn, I hope I don't have to break LR apart to do it. He is in my best and largest rock I have.
 
well to be honest, break that rock apart and get every inch out.
i didn't want to break my rock either. i used a chisel and hammer. then big set of tweezers to work on extracting it. those worms just give me the willies every time.
you are right, those pix are of the head. the pic on the bottom is of the head and about another 12" of it, the rest was pieces i got a hold of first.
 
From your description, it sounds like it may be a eunicid worm. I had one in my 46 gallon tank that was about a foot long. He was an iradescent gray color with three tenticles around the head and centipede-like legs. And he was extremely fast. He loved the taste of zoas. I tried the water bottle with shrimp trick several times, but had no luck. The only thing that worked was to do a freshwater dip of each piece of live rock that I could get out. There were some rocks with coral attached that I didn't dip and just took a chance that he wasn't in one of them. It's been about three months and I haven't seen him since. Good luck!
 
johnd4g,
Thanks for the name. I googled it and looked at some pictures. I definately have a Eunicid worm. The things I called palps (thinking of an insect's mouth parts) are called caruncles. I'm going to try and catch him before I rip my tank apart or smash any LR. Most of my LR has frags on it anyway. The thing is so big I was wondering if I could use a small fish hook with shimp on it and hook the ba$t@rd like a >-))))'> !
 
something to try, i had the rock out and went upstairs to boil some water to squirt in the hole. came down and he was 1/2 way out of the rock. i'd maybe try sitting the rock out for some time maybe above a bowl of water, might crawl out on its own if you gave it something else to hide in the bowl.
 
They can be a little destructive, but they euncids can make fasinating and unique pets. virtually no one has a species only tank dedicated to them, which I think someone should. I would love to do it if I had a animal to work with. Its pretty diffcult to find a good sized one like you have, so perhaps appreciating it for what the animal is, and keep it has a awesome pet that no one else have might be another option?
 
venwu225,
I've been thinking about keeping it. I have no evidence that it has harmed anything in my tank. All my zoas, palys, shrooms, rics, etc. have been fine. I have not put any new rock in my tank for the past two years. All rock is pre-Hurricane Katrina. No purchase of anything large enough for the worm to hid in, so I think he has been with me for some time. The large rock he is living in was until recently a base rock and is now in the top center of my tank, so maybe that is why I am just seeing it. If I decide to get rid of it, I'm going to try and catch it alive and find a home, maybe in my sump. Who knows.

ckekelle, I ran across the link you posted. It is hard to believe something like that can live in one of our tanks. Reminds me of the movie Tremors.
 
rharr21,
I just noticed your in Slidell, LA. Me too. Cross Gates subdivision. My wife grew up here and dragged me kicking and screaming here from Metairie after we got married 20 years ago. Wouldn't move back to the southshore for anything. PM me sometime.

My rock is pre-Katrina too. The worm was the only survivor in the tank which was without power for 3 weeks. I drained the water, scrubbed my rock to remove the slime and restarted the tank. He was quiet and unnoticed until mid 2006. I actually saw him taking bites out of the zoas and quickly bolting back into the rock. I've been told they are also known for biting your hand if you get too close to their rock hole. Be careful and good luck with catching that guy. I dipped my rock in fresh ro/di water (no salt) for about 15 minutes each. I never did see him come out, so I suspect he may have just died in the rock. Haven't seen him since and my zoas are doing much better. (fingers crossed).
 
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