Strange thin worm

Hey guys,

So I opened up my rubbermaid container (which is currently holding all my live rock) and to my suprise there were dozens of bristle worms dying off on the bottom of the container. But one of them did stick out as it was super thin and long with a darkish color. No idea what it could be so I've taken a few micro pics of it. It has currently attached itself to a bristleworm in a hostile-like manner as it looks to be attacking it??

 

Thats pretty cool looks like it could be a bristle because its eating the oither dead bristles, i could be wrong though cool no the less!

 

Looks like another species of bristle worm

 

I agree. It looks like it has the bristles. Should be okay long as it doesn't end up being a fireworm.

 

Pheww, good thing I have peers like u guys to help me out!
Quick question, is it normal for these guys to crawl out
and die during rock isolation?

 

well, the main questions that I have in response to your question are...

Where the rocks isolated in a seperate tank?

What were the parameters?

If they were off from the other area, or perhaps the salinity is even the only thing off it can cause them to die off. Also, lack of acclimation could be the culprit as well but not too likely as these worms are usually pretty hearty.

Also, if you are just isolating them in your fuge which would make both the previous questions pointless, I would siphon the bodies out because some worms can/will give off toxins that can harm other things in your tank when they die if there are quite a few of them.
I personally would rather be safe than sorry so just a heads up if you didn't know.

 

Yeah, I've got the rocks sealed off in a rubbermaid container as part of a new setup process. I picked up a previous setup from CL and decided to take it apart. I was told to
seal them off for a good 3weeks with water changes every week.

 

Got a heater or powerheads in there?

Oh, and here's a great link, maybe you can find the particular worm in there. http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchworms.html

Site seems to be running really slow right now, so you might wanna check it later on.

 

Yeah, I threw in a powerhead, but left out the heater as it is around 74 room temp. Maybe I need a bigger container? I think the current one is 20G and I have 50lbs of live rock in it.
Thanks for that link btw, will help out a lot