Worm?

Darsh · Jan 24, 2020

I have this tunnel/cocoon thing in my tank.
There was another one but it disintegrated.
There doesn't appear to be anything inside.
What is it?

Crabs McJones · Jan 24, 2020

Almost looks like a Spionid worm tube. They use substrate to build tubes to live in.

Darsh · Jan 24, 2020

Crabs McJones said:
Almost looks like a Spionid worm tube. They use substrate to build tubes to live in.

I have some Spionid worms but they're much much smaller.
This one is about 4 inches long, maybe longer because I can't see where the bottom end goes.

Fishy212 · Jan 24, 2020

I think it’s just a safer way for them to travel. I have these in my display and sump. I don’t think anything lives inside of it, it is easily blown away with a turkey baster.

Darsh · Jan 24, 2020

Fishy212 said:
I think it’s just a safer way for them to travel. I have these in my display and sump. I don’t think anything lives inside of it, it is easily blown away with a turkey baster.

The ones I have at the other end of the tank have tubes about 3-4mm thick and max 1/2 inch long but this big one is almost 10mm wide.

Fishy212 · Jan 24, 2020

I was going to say. Mine consists of tiny sand particles. Yours looks like reef rubble. My guess is observe when the lights go down and when they go out. You might be able to spot something. Don’t be discouraged, it could take a few days to weeks to see what it is.

Darsh · Jan 24, 2020

Fishy212 said:
I was going to say. Mine consists of tiny sand particles. Yours looks like reef rubble. My guess is observe when the lights go down and when they go out. You might be able to spot something. Don’t be discouraged, it could take a few days to weeks to see what it is.

Yea those particles you can see are quite big. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it during lights out!
I kinda hope it's something crazy like a bobbit worm, I'll set up a small tank just for it and maybe add some aiptasia haha. Pest tank

Darsh · Jan 25, 2020

I just did a water change and removed the rock to have a look.
I found this. ..

I'm 99% sure it's a bristle worm.
Any chance he made the tube?

The tube was about 3/4 inch longer this morning.

Ravsta · Jan 25, 2020

Bristle worms aren’t known to make tubes of any kind. They’ll likely bury themselves in your rock work. I found a large bristle worm in my tank this morning and it’s now gone as I prefer to not have to worry about getting stung by it when I put my hand in the tank.

Darsh · Jan 25, 2020

Ravsta said:
Bristle worms aren’t known to make tubes of any kind. They’ll likely bury themselves in your rock work. I found a large bristle worm in my tank this morning and it’s now gone as I prefer to not have to worry about getting stung by it when I put my hand in the tank.

Thanks, yea I took him out but only had a chance to look at him properly after I finished all my maintenance. I had a few aiptasia to destroy as well lol.
I'll put him in the sump and keep watching for something else.

Darsh · Feb 12, 2020

So this morning I saw it!!
When I got up I was looking at my tank with a flashlight and checking out the new tunnels formed and I saw what looked like a slightly transparent earthworm with a head slide through 1 tunnel and disappear.
Then I noticed it in another tunnel and took a few pics.
It's hard to see but you can see his body in the tunnel but neither one of his ends.
I'm going to attempt to remove it this weekend.

Darsh · Feb 21, 2020

After 2 attempts of taking the the 3 rocks in that area and scrubbing them down from aiptasia and theses tubes, still no luck

But another tube formed and when I went to check it out this morning I got a really good look at it for about 5-6 seconds before it slid back into the rock away from my light.

It looked like a bobbit worm, it had a head and kind of whiskers and a green/blue tint to it's skin, really cool. But I still can't find any pics online of a bobbit worm or any others building these tunnels to slide through!