Oenone worm

mscarpena

mscarpena

New member
I need to catch an oenone worm. I have had this thing eat 3 small clams and many snails. I just recently found out what it was. I have tried some traps with no success. I have one larger Maxima clam left that I really dont want to get eaten. It eats the scallops that I put in the trap, but it stays ancored into the rock and just pulls back out(I am only assuming, never seen this). The scary thing is the trap and the vinyl tubing is over 2 feet. I saw the rear of the worm and it was 1/2" wide and 1/4" thick. It is a yellow or orange color and leaves behind a mucus trail. I elongated the tube 6 inches and will try that. I also am going to try to trap it using pvc pipe about 4 feet long with a check valve so he can not get back out. The other issues is I hear almost 100% of the time they will not leave where it is ancored from. Also it seems to travel and I see the returning slime trail go in different rocks. I also do not know what rock it's in or I would just remove the rock and nuke it. Any help would be great.
 
I extended my tubing into my trap to be a total lenght of about 28" and it still ate the food and was in and out of the trap. I now made the tubing about 5 feet and it is black. I am hoping he will go through the tubing to get the food and then just decide to hang out because it is black and comfortable. If this does not work I will place the food in a 300 micron mesh bag and hope his probiscus get stuck in the mesh and he will not be able to get out. I am worried that he is so large that he will damage corals or knock over rocks if I get him stuck in the trap and he is still anchored into the rock. This thing is starting to scare me.
 
Well folks tonight was a huge success. I caught the F-ing bastard. It cost me about $200.00 in livestock, but I finally got him. I was so extremely tired because my son is sick and my wife and I were going to bed at 9:00PM and I decided to take one look at my tank. Wow he was outstreched in the top right. Now I knew he was in one of two rocks. I pulled out the top rock and inspected. I saw him. So I broke away some of the rock so I could get at him. Of course this rock has a huge chalice on it about 7" arcossed. I damaged the chalice a little bit, but I sure it will be OK. I grabbed a hold of him with my tweezers(while crapping my pants scared) I kept pulling and so did he. I was really careful to not break it. I kept pulling one foot, then two foot and one full end was out, finally about 3 feet and the full worm was out. I beleive they secrete some sort of ink or something to scare, kill, or give a bad taste to predators. I released this dark purple gunk. I know it sounds a little dramatic, but I really was scared this thing is huge. Now I just hope to god that it is the only one in my tank. I set a trap tonight nothing fancy just to see if all that is left is a pile of mucus. If the food is left I will be extremely happy in the morning. There has never been any food left at all. This thing can eat. I will post some pics tomorrow I am getting sleepy. I think I might have worm nightmares.
 
Congratulations!!!! I'm looking forward to pics. Your post gives me hope I can get mine out.
Hope your little boy feels better :)
 
My son is doing better, thanks for asking. He had an ear infection and that means not much sleep for mom and dad. I woke up this morning and the food I put int the trap was still there and not mucus. So I am really hoping it is the only one in my tank. My chalice looks pretty good a small part has receeded due to me hitting it on the floor. I am comfortable it will be ok. I am uploading pics to my photobucket account right now. Heres a link-check it out.
 
Well bad news. I have at least one more that is this size. Wish me luck and hopefully I can repeat my perfect catch of the other one. I just hope it was not dumb luck. It kind of seems like it was because I had been trying different things for about 3-4 weeks now. We'll see. I am going to keep this one and attemp to study it to learn more about it. I am hoping if I learn about it's habits I can catch the other ones easier.
 
Man that bites :( Despite knowing better, I added 10 cerith to my tank. Resulted in 1 live 1 and the rest a long mucous trail.
 
They are amazing hunters. How long did it take for it to eat 10 cerith snails. I put soem scallop in the container where the worm is now and it has not touched it for 3 days now. I think I might have damaged it. I am going to put it in a 12 gallon eclipse tonight and study it. I am hoping to learn how it feeds more specifically. I know they have probiscis and I tried putting food in a 300 micron mesh bag and hoping it's probiscis would get stuck in the bag, but it did not work. I am going to try to feed it food soaked in prazipro(pig dewormer) and see if that kills it. Who knows. They are really smart and leave their rear end anchored at all times so they can just retract back to safety when treatened or done with there meal. Also they have no hard bristle like a bristle worm so they do not get stcuk in pantyhose or anything like that. Has your worm eaten anything other than snails like corals or fish?? Thanks and I will keep updating this to help out others. I am open to any and I mean any ideas.
 
I would think that Prazipro, if anything, would do the trick. That is one disgusting worm. I'm glad you were able to get one out. Let's hope they didn't have babies.
 
Thats what I am hoping. I will observe the worm for about a week then try the prazipro. I will keep on updating.
 
Another success story. I caught another worm last night. It's probably slightly over 2 FT. Despite what I have read where people say they never leave their rocks I beleive they move around a good bit. Also this guy was too small to fit in my 3ft trap I made so he was wrapped around the door of the trap where he could not get in, but was trying. I picked up the trap and the entire worm was there. I cut a small section off the back to see if it will regrow. I have heard yes it absolutely will, but also heard that if it the very back half no it won't. I cut off the last 3/4" inch so we will see. I hope thats the last one, but I am not getting my hopes up.
 
The cut section is doing just fine it seems. I believe it will regrow. Also the top part of the segments turned a darker color, almost black.
 
Another one caught. This one is about 10 inches. I saw it and removed the rock again. I could not get it out so I ran it under straight hot tap. It seemed to stun it enough so that I could get it out with the force of the tap water. It was still alive and I placed it in my worm tank and it was starting to find it's hiding spot. I wne down about 30 minutes later and my largest worm was eating it. Also That areas is where they were hanging out because when I moved the rock it was like a sanil shell avalanche. About 10-15 fell. Hope this is the last one. My food was still in the trap this AM. We'll see, but I am getting pretty good.
 
caught one or two more tonight. The one I am not sure because it is small. I do not think it was, but can't be 100% sure. The other one was another about 10 incher. He was in a rock with a coral so I tought I'll dip it in iodine and that will make him come out. It did not even seem to irritate it in the least. He hung out in there for the full 15 minute dip. I ended up getting him with a paper clip. I just can't stand this anymore. I really need to get rid of all of these, but It does not seem there is any end in sight. Well I guess I am getting good and will only get better at catching these. This F----ing sucks. I love clams, but I am so nervous to ever get another one???
 
The cut section si still alive and well. I think at this point any part of the worm can regenerate. It seems to have grown a little bit as well. I have been watching the past few night and possibly saw one very small one. Not sure because it was so small. I added a bunch of snails today so we will see how long they last. The food in the trap has lasted 3 days without being eaten. I have only gone one day without the food being eaten in the past. So this is a good sign. I am not getting too excited yet. I hope I have this taken care of because RandyO has some awesome clams in his shop. It took everything I had not to buy one.
 
Ugh.. and I thought my 2 or 3" bristleworm I saw tonight was big..

I'd be interested to know how they do in the worm tank. Might be interesting to keep a few around, just to see if they'd get even larger.
 
I am going to keep them for a while to see if they grow, breed, and observe their feeding behavior. It appears that they have jaws. I have not seen anymore. I am very happy. Also the snails I bought seem to be doing just fine. Seems manual removal is best. The 2FT+ one is very active and aggressive. Also the littel piece is still alive. They are freaky.
 
I found another one in my reef tank. It had been about 2 weeks and was hopefully that I caught them all. About a week and a half I thought I had another one because I saw the mucus sign. This one was about 16". I have also learned a few things. I learned that they will eat each other if ther is no other food available. Also they have jaws because they can make a peice of scallops into a peice of swiss cheese. Also I do not believe the mucus is a poison or a narcotic agent. The one I recently removed was sliming a turned over asteria snail. After removing the worm I righted the snail and removed the mucus and he has been fine for about 4-5 days. I beleive it only suffocates the prey.
 
Hey mscarpena,

THis is a super old thread, but is there any chance that you could post pics of your oenone worm trap, or describe it really well? I too have a oenone worm in my 90G tank. he's about 1/3" in diameter, and I can't catch him. Starving him out has failed, as it's been over a year since I last added any hermits or snails, and i just saw the worm 2 nights ago burrowing through the sand against the front glass. I would LOVE to finally get rid of this nightmare creature!

Oh, and yes they do have jaws. If you've never seen it, it is literally out of a horror movie. The top of their head hinges open, and a pair of massive, clawed scissoring jaws extend out of the worm's head. they then swing open to grab whatever food the worm wants.

Thanks for any help you have offer! Nice work on your own worm hunting!
 
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