Quiet Tempest
New member
I was looking in my 46g reef tank tonight with a flashlight just to see what was out and about and noticed a black and white banded worm nestled in/under a mat of star polyps. It was stretched out over the mat and looked very much like a serpent star arm though I have no serpent stars in my tank. I don't have any pics of this thing but it was skinny, has a smooth body, no bristles, and when it retracted from the light it looked like a sock being pulled inside-out. After looking at several pictures and reading a few articles online, I'm pretty confident that what I've got is a ribbon worm. Many of the articles seem to suggest that these are predatory but not a major concern in most tanks. I did lose some crabs (some hermits and a mithrax) several months ago for no apparent reason and now I'm wondering if this guy could have been the culprit.
Do any of you have any experience with ribbon worms? How would I go about removing it? The rock it decided to duck into holds a large mat of star polyps and I'm not worried about losing any of that (if that were even possible) in order to rid the tank of an unwanted predatory guest.
Do any of you have any experience with ribbon worms? How would I go about removing it? The rock it decided to duck into holds a large mat of star polyps and I'm not worried about losing any of that (if that were even possible) in order to rid the tank of an unwanted predatory guest.
