Worm ID request and Advice on what to do with them

[Tieg]

My wife recently bought a colony of Zoanthids on some live rock about 3 days ago. This morning while feeding the fish she noticed a gray bristle worm come out about 2 inches....then went back into the live rock with zoanthids. I had a buddy of mine over and we saw it again in the live rock so we got some tweezers and attempted to pull it out...in the comic way things go it was pulled out of the rock but slipped out of the tweezers. I was able to recapture it but in the process found another type of worm. Here is the pic of the bristle worm (I'm pretty sure thats what it is):



For size reference...here is the same worm with a penny:


Now here is the worm we found in the process of catching the above worm:



My question is what kind of worm is it? Is it good or bad? If good I'll put it back in the tank...if not...well my last question...do I feed it to the big bristle worm and then use him for fish bait? Thanks for any and all response.

Also, if my buddy posts a stupid reply about how comic it was ... its all lies and I disavow all knowledge of it

[Tieg]

bump Caught a smaller version of the bristle worm above this morning. Looks just like it but smaller is all...about an inch. Still curious about that 2nd worm though...I still have it alive and hoping to get input on whether or not it needs to go back into the tank or not.

[hng]

Looks like a bristle worm to me. In general, people consider them to be harmless and their size and population will fluctuate in response to feeding and nutrient availability.

[Tieg]

Originally Posted by hng

Looks like a bristle worm to me. In general, people consider them to be harmless and their size and population will fluctuate in response to feeding and nutrient availability.

Got this response from The Reef Frontier board response. I would reconsider the harmless on some of those bristle worms Especially if you have soft and/or hard corals:

you have two bad bristle worms. the first is hermodice http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=292 and the second is an eunice http://www.mesa.edu.au/friends/seash...hroditois.html

the only thing you can do is catch them

For the full thread:
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/...d=1#post312664

[Loverotties]

You can use exit from Salifert if they get to be to many.

[tdwyatt]

Quote:

you have two bad bristle worms. the first is hermodice http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=292 and the second is an eunice http://www.mesa.edu.au/friends/seash...hroditois.html

the only thing you can do is catch them

I would respectfully have to disagree, see the below link for an example of one of the corallivore polycheates referred to, note the mouth parts, segment tapers, peristalsis of movement and cheates and their differentiation from the specimen "A" pictured below:


photos courtesy Bill Ruddman @ the Sea Slug Forum

http://www.seaslugforum.net/factshee...ase=polychaete

Just as an aside, I have pulled very large specimens of the type bristleworm photoed in the top picture when taking down tanks with lots of rock and sand, interestingly enohgh, similar bristleworms will capture snails by "smothering" them with mucus in order to capture and devour the snails. If you had snails diseappearing from the tank and a pile of shells piling up in one or two locations, now you know why...

If you think differentiation between corals can bedifficult, keep in mind that there are more than 10,000 different known species of Polychaetes alone...

I think this is a good time to wake up Leslie...

[BoomerMn]

Well Tom I did not happen to see that thread on RF but would have to respectfully agree with you buddy

[no_sushi_for_you]

What about the 2nd worm in the Bottom Picture???

I have seen this in my tank as well and I wanted anyone to second that is a Eunicid worm species.

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by no_sushi_for_you

What about the 2nd worm in the Bottom Picture???


I have seen this in my tank as well and I wanted anyone to second that is a Eunicid worm species.

really difficult to ID from the photo with any accuracy, see
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/index.php

see one of 200 different species (there is much variation in their general morphology):
http://www.dbc.uci.edu/~pjbryant/bio...ds/Eunicid.htm

references and links to some keys:
http://www.nhm.org/guana/bvi-invt/bvi-surv/ref-poly.htm


give a man a fish and he eats today...