Worm ID, sorry no pics!

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May 16, 2006
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Spokane, Washington, United States
Hiya Leslie,

This one maybe difficult, as I don't have any photos. Awhile back, I came across a really unusual worm that really freaked me out. This guy was well over 12" long, literally neon blue, with tiny segments (1/8" or less), along it's entire length. As for diameter, I'd describe it as about the same diameter as a pencil lead, in those fancy refillable pencils...lol.

Behavior:

This guy didn't crawl, it literally swam, FAST. It actually reminded me of a sea snake, that you see in a documentary, as it undulated itself throughout the aquarium.

As I scrambled for the net, in order to capture this guy, it got sucked into a modded maxi jet, which sliced and diced it into several tiny pieces. Each piece was quickly gobbled up by all of my fish...lol. The fish didn't seem the last bit interested in it, until it turned into several bite size pieces. Then they devoured it! I was able to recover about a 2" piece of it, which seemed to behave the same as the entire worm did. It swam just the same. As it was sliced and diced, I looked closely, to see if any fluids seemed to come out of it, but didn't notice anything. Observing the 2" piece, I couldn't see any legs, or other noticeable protrusions. It appeared very smooth, soft and segmented. The segments seemed to be move visible than anything. In other words, when I touched the worm, I couldn't feel the segmented areas, or they didn't feel any different. Very smooth and tubular.

Timing:

This particular day, (Last summer) I added several new corals to my aquarium, much earlier in the day. A couple of the corals were larger Acan pieces, on rock/skeleton, about the size of my hand. I believe this worm was hidden in one of these corals. These corals were added to the tank, mid-morning. However, this worm didn't make an appearance, until late evening. In fact, it appeared, about 2 minutes after turning my white lights out, leaving only Actinics lit. I have no idea if the timing, or change in lighting, has anything to do with anything, but thought it might be worth mentioning.

Again, this guy was well over 12" long, probably close to 14"-18" long, very thin, (pencil lead refills), NEON BLUE and "swam" very quickly.


I regret that I was unable to get a photo of it, as this thing was very cool!! I did attempt to take a couple pictures of the 2" piece, but couldn't get anything to come out. I bagged the piece, planning to take better pictures the next day. The next day, the worm was still alive, still moving, but I didn't end up taking any more photos.

Any ideas?
 
Sid, I give you 120% for effort without having a picture for your ID LOL! :p Sounds pretty cool! Hopefully Leslie will have an ID so I can see what this thing really looks like.:)
 
I'm guessing it was an epitoke - the sexually mature portion - of an eunicid polychaete that was hidden in the rockwork. The change in parameters & the blast of actinics prompted the parent to spawn which in this case meant casting off the posterior section filled with eggs. Polychaete sperm's almost always white while eggs are usually brightly colored pink, orange, red, yellow, green, and for eunicids, often bright turquoise blue. Here's a couple of sites with info & pics
Samoa Guide, 9. Palolo swarming
Palolo Worm Facts and Pictures | Palola viridis | SeaPics.com

Tell me if you agree after checking out the sites.
:)
 
Damn you're good!!! Looking at those pictures was all I needed to know that's exactly what it is.

So, If I'm understand you correctly, what I saw was actually the spawn of some type of worm? If so, then it's possible that it could happen again, since that worm probably still resides in my tank? Is this something I need to be concerned about?
 
If it was an eunicid then the parent anterior is still in the rocks & can spawn again. Eunicids need both males & females to successfully reproduce and you only saw one so there doesn't seem to be much chance that your tank will become a nursery this time.. If there are others, if you eventually have a mass spawning event, there could be juveniles. Without having the adult under a microscope I can't tell you if its a small species or one that will get large enough to go after corals. Hopefully not!
 
It was all curly cued, like a huge spring, swimming around the tank. At one point, it was along the side of the tank, curved along the back glass and curved along the front glass. The tank is 3' front to back, so, stretched out, who knows low long this thing really was. Luckily, it was only about the diameter of a pencil lead...lol. From the research I've done, they aren't harmful, in any way, HOPEFULLY! It's strange that this happened, 11 months ago, and hasn't happened since...lol.
 

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