Strange reef worm.....HELP!!!

[fishfarmer]

The other night when I had my lunar lights on, I noticed that there was something darting around in my tank. After several attempts I finally caught the little sucker! It is VERY fast, aggressive and moves erratically. It zoomed by my bubble anemone and my clown lunged at it. It immediately turned and chased the clown back into the bubble. This little critter is about 1/2inch long and is white until agitated and it turns red like in the pic. I have looked everywhere to identify this thing plz help!!

[aquawolf]

Welcome to TRT!!!

It is a little hard to tell what the worm really looks like with that picture. Perhaps you can compare it to the ones on this site and see if you can find a match for it:

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

Let us know if you do find a match.

[fishfarmer]

Aquawolf.......I have looked everywhere in this site and still can not find anything that even resembles it. The website you linked me to had 1 that was close but not the same. Thx for the worm link though!

[fishfarmer]

found this post today and it led to some good info..... thx dark horge
check wiki for epitokes (since i cant post links)

"dark horge"
Some bristleworms turn into nothing more than swimming sacks devoted to reproduction (digestive systems disappear, and so on). These 'epitokes' then swarm to the surface at night, and disintegrate to accomplish their reproductive mission.

What you have seen is not quite an epitoke: a portion of functional worm remains, while the portion devoted to the storage of gametes has disintegrated (releasing its cargo). Some species of worm just do things this way.

Blunt skippy: your bristleworms have attempted to reproduce.


You did the right thing: when confronted by the unknown, play safe (so long as it does not disrupt the tank overmuch. But knowing it merely to be bristleworm repro, you should leave it alone next time