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Worms - good or bad?
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Ann_A View Drop Down
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Joined: August 18 2011
Location: Kaysville, UT
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    Posted: October 14 2013 at 9:27am
Last night I was watching my tank and noticed a couple worms swimming around in my tank. They were about 1" long each, and spinning/swimming very quickly. They looked a lot like epitokes of eunicid worms. After searching my tank with a flashlight for a few minutes I found a few worms sticking out of the rocks that looked extremely similar to eunicids. They were pretty small (~1/8" diameter) and retracted quickly, though not as quick as a feather duster. I haven't really noticed any problems with corals so I'm not too worried. Does anyone have experience with Eunicid or Sipunculida worms? Should I be concerned?

I'll work on pictures tonight if they come out again.

Edited by Ann_A - October 14 2013 at 6:37pm
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Mark Peterson View Drop Down
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Points: 21436 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 14 2013 at 3:21pm
Aloha,



If I remember correctly, these are those kind of worms. They caused no problems in this soft coral tank. They did this regularly in the late evening every 6 months or so. Once I netted a couple, but they simply disintegrated in the net. My guess is that it is some kind of spawning activity, similar to how a male Salmon dies and quickly decomposes after spawning.
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Ann_A View Drop Down
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Points: 2767 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ann_A Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 14 2013 at 6:36pm
Those certainly do look like the ones I saw, except that mine were only an inch long. Assuming they're epitokes from eunicid worms, then this is part of their spawning behavior. I'm not particularly concerned about the free-swimming worms... It's the ones in the rock that I don't like.
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