Weird Swimming Worm????

[cable guy 805]

I ran across tis aquarium in central coast California and ever night when the sun goes down he gets these little worms that come out. They are only .25 of an inch long they are fillamented and swim by wiggling rapidly. They are pinkish in color and every night he sees about 50 or so. Has anybody ever seen these guys? and what are they? and where do they come from?

 

[J Nguyen]

Peanut Worms?

Try this website it gives good information on common hitchhikers

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

 

[Mike O'Brien]

Likely just Polychaete epitokes from worms in the tank.

 

[TellyFish]

Likely just Polychaete epitokes from worms in the tank.

Yes.

Without pics, but im pretty sure that's all it was.

Baby Bristle Worms.

 

[Octoshark]

I didn't have 50 coming out every night, but one night I had 2 and they appeared to be baby bristle worms (or just a small species of bristle).

 

[LeslieH]

At that size they can also be crustaceans. Impossible to say without a good picture.

 

[kingfisher62]

I Think I had those in my tank when I first put my LR in . They would spiral in the water like a bat out of hell.
I had 2 different color varieties. did it look like these?

 

[Mike O'Brien]

I believe the color difference is male and female.

 

[LeslieH]

Kingfisher's photos show polychaete epitokes from the family Syllidae. While males & females of a single species often do show color difference in this case they probably belong to 2 species.

 

[cable guy 805]

Leslie, thank you for the link I am going to have to get some pics of these little guys as I didnt see anything that resembled them. they are very small no more than a 1/4" long and very small in dia. maybe .25 of a mil. from what I can tell they only swim but they have to be coming from somewhere.

 

[cable guy 805]

Whoops. that link was actually from J Nguyen Thank you great site I've already book marked it