?? Zoanthid eating worm?

[wantsalotta]

I recently purchased afew wild colonies of somewhat high end zoas and palys. I went through my normal dipping procedure with lugols, but I think i may have made my mixture a little on the weak side, as I have noticed for the last few days that one of the colonies has an area that is always irritated. I finally noticed the culprit tonight. It is a worm, all white, no bristles, that has a hole in the rock. It it very motile and flexible, it will stick its head out of its hole and nibble on any of the polyps within an inch or two. The shape/ size reminds me of a garden eel scaled down to 10% size. It sticks its head out of its hole and bites on the zoas. You can see, when it bites and pulls back that it is actually moving the zoa.(that is how I noticed exactly where he was tonight.
Anyone ever heard of this type of thing before?

 

[djscribz]

spaghetti worm

 

[wantsalotta]

Definitely not a spaghetti worm. Bigger around and longer than any spaghetti worm I've ever seen.

 

[musty baby]

Sounds like something my girlfriend would want to clear the zoanthids out of her tank

Will you ship?!

 

[wantsalotta]

LOL.

Ryan, if you want to buy the 5lb rock full of RPE /GPE he is on, sure

 

[musty baby]

"RPE/GPE" must be zoanthid tech-talk for "miraculous zoanthid-eradicating worm food"?

 

[wantsalotta]

I wish.








I wish I knew what it was. Kinda cool to watch, hate to kill it, but I don't know how else to remove it.

 

[Miss Toy]

Don't know what he is either. Maybe you should try taking a picture (or even better, a movie).

If it were in my tank, I'd glue his hole shut.

 

[wantsalotta]

hmm, it is too small for my craptacular camera to focus on. It appears that it comes out late-ish...an hour or two before lights out,a nd feeds until 2 or 3 int he nmorn (4-5 hours after light out). Interesting little fella

 

[zolovinglover]

You can get the worm out by dipping the rock in high salinity water (1.040+) for a few minutes.