Odd little worms, what are they?

[eartaker]

On a few of my rocks I have these long little worms that come out and seem to slowly build a tube out of pieces of sand from the tank. Any ideas on what they might be? All I have ever seen them do is build little tube caves.

Larger pic here http://thehorticulture.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/DSCN1854.JPG

 

[josh88]

That's a good ? I have one to but can't seem to get a good pic of it. I'll be watching to see the answer

HTC EVO

 

[SaltwaterNoobs]

chaetopterid worm

http://www.tampabaysaltwater.com/thepackage/id_images/worm_tube-buus.jpg

As far as I know (from experience and what I've read) they're pretty harmless. The build tubes for themselves using pieces of substrate. Here's some info on them: The Worms Crawl In (scroll down to a figure 9 and read the following information.

 

[jrgilles]

Yup, I call em spaghetti worms if they are the same thing I have in my tank. I have a bunch. They have little tubes that are often under the substrate, but sometimes out. Very thin feeder things come put at night and some during the day now. Multiple feeders per tube it looks like.

I have had tons of them for awhile. Appear to be beneficial water cleaners, and have definately not caused issues.

 

[eartaker]

Nice, I never noticed any problems with them just though it was kind of neat they were building little tubes.

 

[1guydude]

its hard for me to see the pics... but the white tenticles with the harder tubes that form on rocks and such i call tube worms... kinda like feather dusters with out the feather and the spagetti worms are yellowish orange with lots of tentacles. The spagettis stay in the sand for the most part...the ones u got eartaker i think are calledf spolinoid worms or something like that.

 

[1guydude]

this is my cheat sheet :*)LionfishLair.com - Hitchhiker Guide to your Aquarium

 

[54seaweed]

if there tubs could also be feather dusters I'd post a pict but it won't let me

 

[Saltwater Stu]

this is my cheat sheet :*)LionfishLair.com - Hitchhiker Guide to your Aquarium

what a great website, definitely going in the bookmarks!