[Kristopher]

When I set up my tank years ago I had my first brush with bristle worms. Naturally, I freaked and asked all my aquarist friends what these pink things were and they set me straight.

Over the years my tank has been at my old roommate's place and he's been helping take care of it. A couple weeks ago I moved the tank to my place and got everything set up again. There's been a little turbulence in the transition, but all in all there were no livestock losses and things seem to be going well.

Last week, however, my wife pointed out a worm taking bites out of the base of my anemone. Everywhere it bit the anemone would turn blue and started showing the telltale signs of stress. Fireworms? Perhaps!

Sorry about the pic quality - it was the best I could get from my cellphone.

It doesn't seem nearly as decorative as fireworms I've googled. They (seems to be quite a few) tends to leave a mucous-web trail wherever they go. The one in the picture met the business-end of my knife and I haven't seen it since, though others in the tank seem to have picked off three or four of the snails on my cleaning crew. All I see in the morning is their shells covered in the snot web.

I picked up an arrow crab last week and it seems to be checking all the holes in the rock for these critters, so hopefully that takes care of them. In the meantime, can anyone confirm for me from this pic if they are fireworms?

Thanks!

 

[Kwiksilver2136]

It is pretty big looking, you might want to try to manually remove it, and have the crabs handle any babies.

 

[Kristopher]

This guy is small compared to one that's living in another rock in the tank. That one also got a poke and a slice from my knife as it tried retracting to its cave and I haven't seen it since. Manual removal will prove to be difficult as these suckers are FAST, always have one end in a rock, and seem to be very sensitive to turbulence in the water. For a while it seemed like they'd retract the second I'd put my arm in the tank.

Still looking for positive ID, but I'll keep the thread updated.

 

[Kristopher]

So, just as an update, we got four of the many worms last night and this morning! Using a trap such as this:

The worms would be lured by chunks of krill sitting at the bottom of the bottle. Distracted by munchies, they weren't fast enough to escape the grip of death as I snagged them and pulled them out of the rock. It was WEIRD to feel them pulling back and I had to make sure to tug slow as not to break them. Anyway... So far the score card is 7 snails and 1 anemone to 4 worms. They might be ahead by way of numbers, but eradication is on its way!