Any ideas what this is?

[kiwis]

Found in my filter sock today. About 2-3cm long colour slightly pinker than shown in pic and loads of legs like a centipede

 

[Grimreefer89]

balled up bristle worm.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Bristleworm and typical hitchhiker.
Many welcome them in their sandbed to keep tank clean. NOT welcome in any of my tanks. Do not handle with bare hands- they release those stinging bristles

 

[kiwis]

Bristleworm and typical hitchhiker.
Many welcome them in their sandbed to keep tank clean. NOT welcome in any of my tanks. Do not handle with bare hands- they release those stinging bristles

Okay so there's pros and cons nothing to panic about?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Okay so there's pros and cons nothing to panic about?

No panic

 

[Tired]

Yep, no panic. Just don't touch them with your bare hands. Or your rock in general.

Helpful detritivores, useful to your tank. They get blamed for coral death because they'll eat dying coral and people think they killed it. If you overfeed a ton, they'll multiply appropriately and you'll get loads more, but even then it's just an aesthetics thing.

 

[Cell]

Con is they are disgusting water centipedes.

 

[Tired]

Helpful disgusting water centipedes. Then again, worms don't tend to bother me, so I don't really get why some people flip out so badly. Heck, I like centipedes.

Does it make it better or worse that those are spines, not legs?

 

[Cell]

Worms don't bother me. Centipedes are not worms. Bristleworms look more like centipedes than worms. Call them what you want they still creep me out!

 

[Cell]

 

[Cell]

I rest my case your honor.

 

[Tired]

That's not a bristleworm, that's a eunicid worm. Not harmless- many varieties eat fish. Though I've heard of even those big ones going undetected for years and actually not doing much damage, depending on species. There are actually plenty of tiny, harmless eunicids, too, not just the big scary ones.

Frankly, though? That thing's really cool. I would actually like to keep one of those in a tank, if I'd ever see it. Look at its whiskers! And it moves in a really fascinating way. If I had the opportunity to set up a spare tank, and someone offered me a big eunicid worm, I would absolutely take that opportunity. 10gal or so, teach it to come out and take food from your tongs so you can see it, pop in some nice fast-growing corals so it doesn't do any real damage if it chows on something. Pest tank with the ultimate terrifying pest! It's not like it'll come out of the tank and hurt you or anything.

 

[Cell]

Spare tank in a dark corner of my basement behind stacks of large boxes perhaps.

Imagine moving some frags around and that thing comes crawling from the depths up your arm.

 

[Tired]

I don't put my bare hands near my rockwork, I have gloves and tongs. Eunice worms shmeunice worms, I'm more worried about bacteria.

 

[Milkman420]

I always wanted to try and get a bob it worm tank but my wife shot it down lol

 

[Milkman420]

Bobbit worm