Mystery denizen...

[FutureInterest]

Tonight I came home around 10 pm... Fed some nori to the jade/blue hermits that are exiled in the refugium when I noticed something moving FAST in the display. It's about an inch long thin and pure lightning in a bottle. It's hard to tell what it is without light in the display, so I'm shouting at my pregnant wife to bring my flashlight from my office... upstairs. ~ 4 minutes later she waddles in with the light just as it dissappears. ARGH. I prolly shoulda ran up and gotten it, but I didn't want to lose sight of it.

I know I have absolutely no idea what it is... since I didn't get a good look at it. Any ideas?

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Was it white and did it swim in a wiggle manner or some describe it as a corkscrew swimming? If so it is a worm that only comes out at night and can be kind of reclusive. Not a bad thing but if you start to see mass populations of them it means you have too much left over food in your tank.

 

[FutureInterest]

LOL. Yah I've had the former, but that was when I lived in south Chicago... Dying in your sleep was always a possibility .

It was too big to be an amphipod and it was thin and long like a worm... Never seen a worm swim though and it was FAST.

 

[FutureInterest]

Xyzpdq0121;49496 wrote: Was it white and did it swim in a wiggle manner or some describe it as a corkscrew swimming? If so it is a worm that only comes out at night and can be kind of reclusive. Not a bad thing but if you start to see mass populations of them it means you have too much left over food in your tank.

If said worm is a fast swimmer, then this might be it. It is true I've been overfeeding the past 3 weeks since I got some new fishies. Although, its my first time seeing it. Do you have a name for this worm?

 

[xyzpdq0121]

Ummm there are 1,700 different types of worms found in the aquarium trade that are common... to tell you the truth, I just looked these up for another member the other day and I never found on offical name for them but I will shoot a e-mail to Bob Fenner since he is the worm guru and see if he knows the name of them. I can tell you they are harmless but will spread like wild fire unless you get the food situation under control to stop the breeding process. I can also maybe point you to some WWM posts that explain briefly what they are and that they are harmless. Unfortunitly, I have been unable to find a picture of them on the net: a) maybe because they really only come out in the dark of night and b) because they swim pretty fast. and c) because taking a picture of something that small moving that fast in the dark is next to impossable!!! Watch you tank for a fre moments with a low wattage red, blue, or yellow LED and I am sure you will see a few of them (and some other really cool stuff that you did not know you had in there)

 

[FutureInterest]

Yah I'm sitting with my laptop in front of my tank with my red flashlight... Plenty of wildlife, but no speedy worms in sight. I just read that some worms will reproduce by sending a fast moving portion of their body into the water filled with gametes. Dunno what this thing was, but I'm dead tired and it doesn't seem to be anything serious.

Thanks for the quick response. I'd give you more rep, but the system won't allow me to give anymore rep today!

 

[xyzpdq0121]

FutureInterest;49510 wrote:

Thanks for the quick response. I'd give you more rep, but the system won't allow me to give anymore rep today!

LOL surprise, surprise!!!!

Ya I would not worry about it... there are only about 5 worms that are REALLY bad for your tank so if it was a worm odds are you are safe!

 

[cameron]

You could always try and trap him if you really want to know.

 

[FutureInterest]

I just ran across this thread on a reefcentral search. Finally a positive ID on the freaky speedy swimming worm. If you have a question... its been asked and the answer is somewhere on reefcentral. Finding the answer just takes some time. Sometimes up to 6 months .

 

[cameron]

I don't think anything like that would ever make it in my tank... too many wrasses. Shame.

 

[FutureInterest]

I dunno, I've got 8 wrasses so you might have them too. These "swarmers" only appear once in a blue moon as they are triggered by lunar cycles. As such they are only active at night when the wrasse army is sleeping.

 

[cameron]

Do you have the "pretty" flasher style wrasses or the workhorse coris variety? My coris are mowing down the pods, worms and pretty much anything else in the tank that moves including a couple of Mexican Turbos. I haven't seen a nudi in my tank since they went in.

 

[linda lee]

Whoa!!! Hello??? Speaking of *fast swimmers*, did I miss something???

<span style="font-size: 14px;">Congrats!!!!</span>

Coordinating another litter of puppies with this one?

FutureInterest;49480 wrote: so I'm shouting at my pregnant wife to bring my flashlight from my office...

 

[FutureInterest]

LOL. Thanks Linda . Although we're hoping to have a new frag sometime soonish, it hasn't happened quite yet. This post was originally from 7 months ago when I first saw these crazy worms and a month before Sofia was born!

 

[linda lee]

FutureInterest;123480 wrote: This post was originally from 7 months ago when I first saw these crazy worms and a month before Sofia was born!

Well, DUH... now I notice the date.

Sheeesh.

:blush:

 

[FutureInterest]

Cam-

Yah I'm more of a flasher/fairy collector. I will say that some of the fairies make decent workhorse wrasse and will also eat nudis. I've seen these pretty lil fish eat nudis and bristleworms with relish as no self respecting wrasse could turn down a free meal . Overall though they are planktivores first and rock scavengers second. I have had some "workhorse" wrasse and still have a two-spot hogfish that is just as proficient at hunting as any another I've seen. I would of gotten a yellow coris, except that the hogfish has the same dazzling yellow already and is considerably smaller as an adult.

I really do like the yellow coris wrasse though... which oddly enough is actually not a coris wrasse at all. All coris wrasse are !reefsafe as they get big, some to two feet. The yellow coris wrasse, better called a canary wrasse, is actually a member of the halichoeres genus not the coris genus. That former genus includes one of my favorite wrasse of all time, the radiant wrasse. All members of that genus have the same rock scavenger mentality. Every tank should have one imo as they are both beautiful and functional.

 

[cameron]

I didn't know the fairy wrasses were known for eating nudis at least zoa eating nudis. I have a sixline that won't touch them and the yellows didn't work, but the green seems to be doing a great job with them. Either that or my weeks of salifert exit treatments worked.

I love the yellow coris or canary wrasse as well. I prefer them to the sixline actually.

 

[FutureInterest]

I shoulda been more specific. Many if not all will all eat montipora eating nudis. Zoa nudis are another story. I'm glad it worked for yah.

 

[FutureInterest]

As it turns out these worms live in the sand the entire time, eating crap and digging tunnels. They only shoot these swimmers around at night when all the fishies are sleeping. So wrasses wouldn't really be actively hunting these anyways.