Hey everyone turns out I have a bobbit worm living in my sand bed hes small-ish and in my last thread I got some great advice on removal but just want to see if anyone has any tips or tricks on Removing one. All advice is appreciated
How to catch a bobbit worm
- Thread starter Slayyyter
- Start date
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you aren't going to coax him into a trap, only a portion will go in but not the whole worm. I had to take my tank apart to remove mine, and its not hard to do its the same steps we do when someone is moving homes, there isn't any cycle risk at all its just work we have to do to effect change we want.
Lost in the Sauce
BANGERANG!!!!
Do these worms live in the sandbed or dens within the rock? In order to remove it, do you need to first know where it lives?
they will inhabit all areas. watch for him during disassembly, we may be splitting open some rocks too. There isnt any way to get him into a trap at all, only half goes in they wont actually fully leave the hole they'll just reach out ten inches to grab trap food lol.
Once you disturb a mixed bed this level it becomes a nutrient pump. We need to actually clean the sand afterwards, before put back, or you risk massive outbreaks not long after. Cleaning isn’t destabilizing, it’s stabilizing.
Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread
If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...
www.reef2reef.com
you can also tap rinse and reuse that sand. We did it fifty pages there choose any example
there is a 90% chance we can't get him, he'll hole up too far, and must reassemble and try again later. it wont cloud like this though, the rinse prep coming up will hold for weeks before it gets this messy requiring another rinse if deep dives are required. it'll be worth it. the cleaning adds much lifespan anyway
Lots of work there!
So here's the thing, most of these 'Bobbit Worms' people freak out about in reef tanks are not the nasty jaw snapping 10 ft long demons we see on documentaries (aka: Eunice aphroditois). The vast majority of these types of worms are from various genera with hundreds of species of different sizes (some small as 1/2"), with Eunice being probably the most well known. They can be carnivorous, omnivorous, detritovorous and even herbivorous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunicidae
I have at least two species that have lived in a small 12g nano for many years (little guys the thickness of spagheti in the sand bed and a bit bigger/thicker one in the rockwork, all very secretive). There have been no issues that I could attribute to them.
IMO/IME, unless strange and unexplained fish/coral losses have started occuring in a system, there is really no need to exterminate these weird and facinating life forms.
PS - Snails die all the time, so unless you see a worm attacking it's likely something else (such as hermit crabs looking for a new shell, overdosing of magnesium, large salinity swings, etc.).
