Worm eating mysis shrimp

[wenright]

I was feeding my ricordia mysis shrimp tonight and I watched a worm come out from underneath a zoo rock and eat a mysis shrimp. It was either a bristleworm or fireworm?? I have never witnessed a bristleworm eat anything. Of course a photo is unavailable..Any idea which type of worm this is? Fireworm or bristleworm?

 

[kmk2307]

What color was it? How big was it? Did it seem to have a head / eyes? Fireworm is the common name for species of the genus Hermodice so try looking that up. Otherwise, and probably more likely, it was one of the common, harmless bristle worms for which I do not know anything about the taxonomy of. These worms do eat mysis and any food they can catch in my tank.

HTH,
Kevin

 

[wenright]

It was whitish/silver in appearance. I could not distinguish head/eyes other than the frontal portion was quite tapered coming to a point. The rows of "bristles" seemed quite unique. Unfortunately I could only see about 1/2" of the worm. I have had lots of what I would call bristle worms in my tanks, but I have never seen them eat. Judging by the small portion that I saw a would guess that the worm would be about 4" long.

 

[LeslieH]

Since it had bristles it was a polychaete and there are a lot more types of polychaetes that just bristleworms or fireworms! Bristleworm & fireworm as used by reefers both refer to members of the family Amphinomidae; fireworms belong to several different genera, not just Hermodice. Since the head tapered to a point I doubt it was an amphinomid. Lots of polychaetes will eat mysids & other live critters.