Worms living inside hammer coral? Or something else?

[SandNRocks]

Hi all,
So ive googled and googled and havent seen anything like these. Anyone have an idea?

I have 3 hammer corals all from very different sources that all seemed to have these worms when i got them.( each new one was dipped in bayer and 2 have been dipped in iodine and isolated to be watched) so im pretty confident they didnt spread between them. And nothing ever came out or off during the dips aside from pods. Ive been religious about looking into the tank at night and have never seen them outside of the coral.

I first noticed them ~2.5 months ago and have been monitoring them since. They’re not always visible but sometimes you can see quite a few of them. They dont seem to be bothering the coral at all though. I dont see any bite marks or holes or anything. The worms just seem to be slowly moving throughout the coral. The hammers have been growing like crazy though so ive just left them and observed.

heres a few photos and a video(that hopefully works) which shows them pretty well.

Gold and purple-tip hammer mid april. You can kinda see them here, and a bit better in the vid

A month later

Blue hammer with a whole bunch of them

And a photo of them now seemingly without issues

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all,
So ive googled and googled and havent seen anything like these. Anyone have an idea?

I have 3 hammer corals all from very different sources that all seemed to have these worms when i got them.( each new one was dipped in bayer and 2 have been dipped in iodine and isolated to be watched) so im pretty confident they didnt spread between them. And nothing ever came out or off during the dips aside from pods. Ive been religious about looking into the tank at night and have never seen them outside of the coral.

I first noticed them ~2.5 months ago and have been monitoring them since. They’re not always visible but sometimes you can see quite a few of them. They dont seem to be bothering the coral at all though. I dont see any bite marks or holes or anything. The worms just seem to be slowly moving throughout the coral. The hammers have been growing like crazy though so ive just left them and observed.

heres a few photos and a video(that hopefully works) which shows them pretty well.

Gold and purple-tip hammer mid april. You can kinda see them here, and a bit better in the vid

A month later

Blue hammer with a whole bunch of them

And a photo of them now seemingly without issues

Dont quote me but may be palolo worms which use their jaw to burrow into coral and spend their life with the head of corals once they make it in also called atokes.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

???
ATOKE: the anterior sexless part of certain polychaete worms from which grows the sexual portion
(compared to EPITOKE - the sexual portion)

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Also, palolo worms are about a foot long and similar to bristleworms in appearance

 

[SandNRocks]

Yeah im sure youre right about them spending their lives in there(hopefully symbiotically) but idk about palolo. All of the palolos i saw look like bristleworms. Also im almost positive these worms are smooth. Ive seen them pretty clearly and dont see any antennae, bristles, markings, bands etc.