UNWANTED WORM

jaceykirkpatrick · Aug 26, 2020

Can anybody help me identify this worm? Is it good/bad? I found it crawling on my snails shell and immediately pulled it out.

spiraling · Aug 26, 2020

good job on getting it out until you know. There are several sites with worm IDs that can be helpful. I con't really see it in the video.
Bristleworms (common) are pink / black with lots of white bristle tufts
I cant tell but does that worm have two antenna things? Does it have bristles or feet or smooth?

jaceykirkpatrick · Aug 26, 2020

spiraling said:
good job on getting it out until you know. There are several sites with worm IDs that can be helpful. I con't really see it in the video.
Bristleworms (common) are pink / black with lots of white bristle tufts
I cant tell but does that worm have two antenna things? Does it have bristles or feet or smooth?

Yes it does have two antennas. It’s too tiny to tell if it has bristles but it looks just like this photo I found on google

spiraling · Aug 26, 2020

My understanding is in general worms with antennae are bad. Get them out! They tend to be predatory towards snails and possibly corals. I saw something similar on a coral I received in the mail and went to extra precautions on the whole batch. Anyone - if this info is incorrect please let me know!

Do you dip / QT things you put in the tank? If not you might want to read up on how to do it. (Search for Bayern dip on R2R) Its pretty cheap to do an can prevent a lot of heartache trying to get pests out.

I had an Onone worm outbreak in a tank once, before I knew to dip. They burrowwed into corals and killed a LOT. Finally tore down the tank to get rid of them. Even with dipping everthing I managed to get bristle worms from one tank into the next. So its not fool proof. But its a lot better for getting these nastys before they can breed in you tank!