Wormzilla

[Krustylove]

Wow guys, look what I found in my seahorse tank, wormzilla!!! Not only is it big-but in my quick move to prevent it from slipping back into the live rock I grabbed it with my bare hands and it left a purple ink stain on my fingers where I touched it and stained my kitchen counter top!?! Luckily I did not get stung by this behemoth, but that leads me to believe it is not a fire worm or a Bristol worm, the coloration on this guy also is more like an orangish yellow. Has anyone else seen this type of worm in their systems? In the meantime I am treating the tank with all inhabitants removed with some hydrox from Carol at ultimate seahorse as where there is one there is probably many more. Thanks guys, boy do I feel sorry for the seahorses, RIP 1st Reidi herd, poor little guys never had a chance…

 

[pledosophy]

That worm is rather small. Try Oregonreef.com and you will stay up nights. I believe you are looking for the worm incident.

Removing all of the worms from your system will leave you in need of more clean up crew. I know they are ugly and gross but they are a valuable part of the cleanup crew as long as they don't get to big they can harm the horses. On occasion a horse does snick one but it is kinda rare.

IMO I would not use hydrox on the display. Take out the rock and put it in a large tuberware with a slainity of 1.040 and the worms will retreat from the rock. Make sure there is a good amount of current in there. This way you won't kill the good stuff you want to keep, but can get rid of the worms. JMO

I am not familiar with hydrox personally but on a whole it is usually a very bad idea to medicate any display tank.

 

[Krustylove]

I am medicating the QT tank as when I broke down my display tank (see post on “quiet filter”) to replace it with something else I put everybody into QT, but thanks for the idea of rising the salinity as I do not have enough of the hydrox to do a full treatment!!!

 

[whatnot45]

It looks like an earth worm

 

[Fredfish]

Could be something other than a bristle worm, but you would need much better pics and someone whose expertise it is to properly identify it.

99.99999% of the worms we find in our tanks are beneficial in that they feed on algae, detritus, or work as scavengers to clean up what the fish don't eat.

I have found a new use for bristle worms: nutrient export. I pull out a half dozen worms that size and larger every three weeks or so. If I don't they eat more than my horses do. :eek1:

Fred