WORM ID - Please

[frankandmaura]

ID Please - WORM
Hey Gang...my friend has this wormy living in his tank (or should I say on his tank).

This thing is SLIMY - lives in a slime tube. It actually comes up to the top of his tank and searches for food out of the water. He fed it some brine shrimp, just to see and it ate it all over one night. We can't tell how long it is, it is living in his overflow and it is a corner tank so we can't really get back there to see...

It looks like it has some feelers around the mouth and even some bristles like a bristle worm (but I am pretty sure it is not a bristle worm).

Here are the pics (not for the weak stomach ):

Thanks for your help!

 

[LeslieH]

A better shot of the head would be nice but that appears to be an eunicid polychaete. Many of them build tubes by secreting mucus which glues together sand & gravel while others constantly secrete mucus which remains semi-fluid and allows them to move easily through the sand.

there are thousands of polychaetes species divided into more than 80 families and they all have bristles. Polychaete is Latin for "many bristles". Some families like the Amphinomidae which includes fireworms & the reef worms most tank owners refer to as bristle worms have large conspicuous clumps of bristles. that's because they use them for defense. Eunicids have smaller bristles while capitellids which are similar to earthworms (oliogchaetes) have very small bristles that can only be seen with a magnifier.

 

[frankandmaura]

Thank you!