Possible Medussa Worm? ID Please?

cdness · Feb 21, 2012

I was redoing some plumbing last night and I looked in the overflow and found these wierd looking worm things. They have many tentacles toard one end and are red in color. Pics below:

There are more in the other overflow and I have not seen these anywhere in my main tank in the rocks or anything.
I have added a couple new corals, but nothing major and all have been dipped in an iodine based dip as well as revive.
I just need to figure out if I need to remove these things or if they will be OK.
Thanks!

Otter_rs · Feb 21, 2012

These are a variety of polychaete worm that feeds on detritus. Some people generalize these as medusa worms, but there are a lot of different species. You may have them living in your sandbed if you don't have anything eating them like Wrasses. These can explode in population if you feed heavily, but they are very beneficial in sandbed aeration and nutrient recycling.

NU2REEFIN · Feb 21, 2012

I also have these, I thought they were a harmless Spaghetti worm. I hope someone chimes in to whether these are bad or not.

cdness · Feb 21, 2012

Well I don't think they are bad but I'd like to get a good ID on the things as they are ugly... If an ID isn't possible, some general consensus on good or bad will be good enough for me.

I know my wife was doing some internet searching and somehow came up with these are a form of cucumber which can kill all the fish in an hour or so if it dies. I know it isn't a cucumber but she got really worried. It kinda goes back to the saying "You can't always believe what you read on the internet" as anyone can be an author and sometimes the most crazy claims make it to the top of search results...lol.

This is why I told her to go to R2R and join so she can learn more on the hobby as well. I trust the voices here more than other places for sure.

dnov99 · Feb 21, 2012

Its a harmless spaghetti worm. They are beneficial scavengers.

cdness · Feb 21, 2012

I thought spaghetti worms were lighter in color, almost white...

Ninjapotamus · Feb 21, 2012

100% spaghetti worm. fairly harmless in general, but they can harm smaller zoanthids

Otter_rs · Feb 21, 2012

Like I said above, there are many species of polychaete that resemble one another. Not all are the same color. Most, if not all that we come across in aquariums that have similar body shape eat detritus and are beneficial. Some even change color depending on what they have in their gut.