Black and white thin worm inside my live rock

[adamcollins]

Hi
i have seen a thin black and white worm come out of a bit of live rock which i have, i have taken out the rock form the tank in order to try and kill the worm, but i lost him as he went back inside the rock, does any one know what will die first the worm or the rock if i leave it out of water, the rock has been out of water now for 2 days, does any one know if the worm would of died yet?

 

[cranberry]

Sounds like a peanut worm...he's a friend.

 

[jag2232]

You don't really want to take live rock out of your tank like that either or you're going to kill all of the bacteria on it.

 

[stanlalee]

you are messing up your good rock! That is nothing but a peanut worm that eats and cleans up the detritus and uneaten food that falls in and on the rocks. Almost everything "live" that comes out of the rock will be beneficial (either eating detritus or micro algae usually at night) and you are pretty much turning your live rock into base rock which you could have bought for half the price. As long as you have liverock worms, pods, stars and gastropods will appear and disappear over time. If you plan on having a reef I have yet to buy a coral that didn't have some form of hitch hiker come out of it. you cant take your rocks out enough to prevent this. If you've seen one peanut worm your tank probably has 20 of them you havent seen and in other rocks. I bought a peice of montipora that has a brittle star with 3" legs sticking out the rock (pretty much all the time). you'll have worms, amphipods, limpets/snails, stars ect pop up from time to time. for the most part unless you know something to be distructive or is actually being distructive they should be left alone.