weird small white worms swimming in tank at night

[450reef]

went to feed my corals tonight and when i shined my light in i noticed a few tiny white worms swimming any idea what they are? they have hairs on the side like a bristol worm but have long curled antenni on it head and red eyes its pretty creepy about 1/8th inch

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[toddmh]

second from the bottom maybe??

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/worms.html

 

[HanoverFist]

Just looks like a baby bristleworm to me.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

awesome pix!

I've seen white swimmers at night too, but I've never managed to snag any of them so i don't know if they are the same thing.

Definitely NOT a "bristleworm". There are a lot of motile polychaetes.
We must invite worm expert Leslie here. Stay tuned!

 

[450reef]

thanks gary id def say they aint bristols either - the pics were hard to get cause they are wicked fast thats in a little pool of water about the size of a quarter-half dollar and it was wizzing around in there mach 90

 

[ryan_]

Looks like the bug that was put into Neo's stomach in the first Matrix movie.

You better get rid of it, thats how they track you.

 

[450reef]

yea when i was feeding my tank i was so scared it was gonna burrow into my arm lol

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

My favorites mysteriy white things were the ones that swam in a helical motion; I haven't seen one of those in my tank in a loong time.

 

[Capt_Cully]

I just puked in my mouth......eesh.....WORMS!!!!!

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

sheesh!

sheesh!

what's wrong with worms?

A pic of this one should go in my
worm thread

Here's a cut and paste reply/ID from Leslie Harris worm expert:

It's an epitoke, a modified worm or section of a worm that's reproductively mature & ready to spawn. In this case it's the rear end of a syllid polychaete. The posterior-most segments have been filled with eggs (syllid eggs are usually colored while sperm is white), most of the normal setae have been dropped & replaced by specialized swimming setae, and a set of eyes developed right at the line where the epitoke will break away from the "parent".

As for the usual question of reef-safe or not.....
- if there were both male & female epitokes there could eventually be juveniles but the odds are that they will wind up as fish food
- syllids are usually harmless to corals but there's at least one known to eat leathers



additional info from Charles DeVito and I quote:

I've observed syllids consuming individual polyps of a number of species of xenia. Some appear to have snuck their way in to liveaquaria's xenia aquaculture tanks, as the last three aquacultured xenias I purchased through them have included at least one syllid each. One of the xeniids being eaten was a very dark pigmented heteroxenia; it was dark enough in color that if you shined a flashlight through the worm after consuming it you could clearly see it in it's gut.

They'll bail almost instantly if exposed to a freshwater dip, fwiw.

 

[450reef]

well i dont have xenia or leathers so i guess theres really nothing to worry about thanks gary

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

thank YOU!

It's not often that I get stumped but I love learning something new.