Pix & ID: Critters that come in your rocks: the good and the bad.

[LeslieH]

RATS.... Why does it looks like a immature fireworm? I mean I have seen lots of bristles. I have one that is prob close to 8+ inches long, and it was not even stretched out.

Looks like 3 different species of fireworms to me, all harmless. Only 1 species, Hermodice carunculata, is known to be a specialized coral predator.

All polychaetes are bristleworms, including eunicids & even feather dusters. Fireworms all belong to one polychaete family, the Amphinomidae. To put it another way, all fireworms are bristleworms but not all bristleworms are fireworms.

 

[SushiGirl]

I was hoping you'd chime in with clarification, Leslie! Thanks!

 

[worm5406]

Wow... thank you... add another file to the brain.

--Note to self.. never make the girls here mad.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

GoVols1983, you've got:

A couple of palythoa (button polyps)
Second picture, not sure...can you get a better pic?
Xenia - can be very invasive, keep it isolated from the main rockwork.
Lastly, an asterina starfish - generally harmless.

 

[SushiGirl]

Not sure how I missed GoVols post. The 2nd pic looks like a leather of some sort. Possibly a Devil's Hand, as I had one that was a tiny ball like that when I got it. It's bigger than my hand now. That one looks exactly like mine did. It could be a toadstool, too, I have no experience with those.

 

[GoVols1983]

Awesome, thanks!

 

[GroktheCube]

This is a weird one.

U shaped burrow showed up in my sand against the glass a couple days ago in a 120 that's been cycling (with virtually zero ammonia) for two weeks. The creature is ~3-5mm long at most, and barely noticable with the naked eye. This is a blown up macro shot.

At first I thought it was a worm, but it clearly has a head and two identical eyes. Could this be a larval fish of some sort, perhaps a goby? Larval crustacean? Some sort of worm I've never heard of with a head and eyes?

 

[LeslieH]

Lots of polychaete species have 2 big eyes or 4 small eyes close together that look like 2 big ones. I'd need to see a better, more detailed picture to know for sure what it is.

 

[GroktheCube]

Heh, that's about 100x actual size, so I'm not sure I'll be able to do better without getting some new hardware.

 

[LeslieH]

What, no microscope?

If it is a worm then it's a tiny nereid polychaete and a scavenger or detritivore. Not to worry.

 

[Anemone]

That looks like it could be a tanaid (my guess if it has legs), but it's hard to tell from that picture.

Kevin

 

[LeslieH]

That's a possibility although the eyes seem a little too dorsal and I don't think they build U-shaped tubes. But hey, I'm prejudiced in favor of worms. Show me a whale & I'll tell you it looks like a polychaete. :lol2:

 

[GroktheCube]

Guess I have to go buy a camera attachment for my microscope, or buy that new macro lens I've been eyeing

 

[ZiggyBuster]

Found three "critters" all popped up in the last few weeks, maybe aptaisia??

 

[worm5406]

Yep aptasia.

 

[OrQidz]

Something wicked is in my tank! I don't have a pic because I haven't seen it. I'm not sure what it might be.

Here's what's happening: something is building tube like burrows from the rock up into corals, then apparently eating a chunk of them. I noticed the tubes first. They aren't hard like some of the other hitchhikers, but it's like they're made of solidified slime or something that little grains of sand stick to. At first I thought it was a harmless worm or something, until I realized the coral it was built up to was looking bad. I moved the frag and found an area that looked nibbled on. First this happened to a GSP frag, and now my kenya tree frag which has a large chunk taken out where the tube was, as well as some white spots on the ends of its branches where other bites may have occured.

In addition, one of my mushrooms which is situated near the sandbed has a big ragged pieced eaten out of the base, but there is no tube structure built up to it.

The tube things are about the size of a bristleworm and appear out of the rocks like they might do. Could this be a fireworm?

UGH....thanks for any ideas!

 

[SushiGirl]

OrQidz, sounds like a bad worm, maybe a Oenone fuldiga? Sometimes I confuse my worms, but there is a bad one that builds mucus tubes & eats corals and other critters.

 

[OrQidz]

Thank you sushi girl! I will research that one. I spent an hour last night sitting in the dark with a flashlight staring into the tank looking for the bad guy. I guess I have joined the ranks of the obsessed lol. I saw only "normal" bristleworms, and a few aiptasia I didn't know about so it was a worthwhile endeavor!

 

[LeslieH]

Oenone eats molluscs. There are no verified reports of it eating corals. Hermodice carunculata is the fireworm that eats corals. It prefers gorgonians & starts eating at the branch tips rather than at the base. Hermodice doesn't build tubes. You'll have a much better chance of getting an id if you can get a decent photo of the animal in the tube.

 

[GroktheCube]

I'm pretty sure that I've read reports on these forums of Eunice worms exhibiting that behavior.