Medusa Worm

[snorvich]

How difficult is it to keep these in a largish reef aquarium?

 

[charlesr1958]

As long as the tank generates a lot of detritus it could be possible, but be aware that many species contain/produce toxins that are very dangerous to fish should something happen to either stress it or kill it.

Chuck

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

I know someone who bought one and it totally nuked their 150g.

 

[philter4]

Steve, I've actually collected them with the intent of keeping one, and it did well, until it got eaten by one of my bank butterflies.
As Chuck said, you need to have something for it to eat, and mine ate cyclopeze and small pieces of flake and frozen, and they are easy to watch, the feeding strands are large and sticky and you can see them bring the food to the main body of the worm. I don't know what triggered the final attack, but at some point one of my pr decided to taste it and after that it was all over, they pulled it from its tube and ate it. That was my only experience with them, but I would try them again in the future, they are very common here and several of them are very attractive with bright blue or green feeding strands.

 

[charlesr1958]

Now I'm a bit confused as I know "medussa worms" to be synaptids (not a worm but related to sea cucumbers).

Chuck

 

[Airwolf75]

A friend of mine in our reef club, also killed an entire 120 gallon tank when the medusa worm was was injured and died.

 

[philter4]

Chuck, the worms I'm talking about are in the family Terrebellida and are either in the genus Liomia or Eupolymnia, the medusa worm or spagetti worm. The use bits of sand and small pebbles to build a tube sort of like a feather duster, and almost always hide the body under a rock or in the reef structure. I've only had experience with the one, but it sounds like more then one person has has them kill off other animals in their tanks.

 

[charlesr1958]

I'm very familiar with the Terebellidae and they are not toxic by any means, I've never heard them called medusa worms before but with common names thrown around so much, its no wonder, but they are harmless detrivores, at least the indo-pacific species that I know of.
Now the Synaptids are another story, some species are very toxic. Not something I would ever try to keep in an aquarium setting unless the tank was dedicated just for them.

Chuck