Hey Steveweast...here's his worm!!!!!!!!

[sammystingray]

I can't believe Steveweast didn't share this one with us..... JK, and I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it here fopr him, but nobody should miss this worm found in his tank. It was living in his piping. Hopefully he will see this and explain it himself, but I just wanted you guys to be as amazed as me. He said it must be about two years old, and it hitched a ride on some rock when it was much much smaller..

 

[sammystingray]

 

[sammystingray]

 

[sammystingray]

 

[sammystingray]

BTW, I believe he said he accidently broke off 18 inches of the tail when removing it, so it was actually over 7 feet long.

 

[barracuda]

Oh my god

 

[newreefers]

Could it be the famous anacondious wormious????? That thing is huge!!

 

[sarahmorton2003]

Hey sammystingray how did your friend find the worm??? Was this routine maintenance or was he experiencing problems from a worm that size?

 

[sammystingray]

He is a member here, so hopefully he'll see this post and explain it all himself. I grabbed the pics from another board he visits, so the folks here would get to see this monster.

 

[steveweast]

Sorry for the posting over site..it won't happen again. Yes, the total length of this Pacific Eunicid worm was 7 1/2 feet. He was living in the pvc structure that elevated my live rock off the bottom. I had to remove all the corals and all the rock to remove the pvc structure to make sure that I could get all of him. So naturally, the aquascaping changed a bit. It was his living in the pipe that enabled him to escape detection. He would come out at night and eat my soft corals...ricordia, zoos, xenia,etc. and then, back into the pipe. I finally decided to employ some night time viewing to find out why I was loosing so many soft corals....and I discovered ....HIM. After changing my pants, I decided that his removal was a must, even if it meant a total tank disassembly. I figure he came in on the initial loading of live rock two years ago...he found the pipe...and grew. To reach 7 1/2 feet, that meant he grew at about 3 inches a month. This is a Pacific variety, and we all have Pacific rock....so, keep vigilant.

 

[sammystingray]

Hey Steveweast, I hope you don't mind I used the pics.........Nobody into the hobby should miss seeing this beast. I might have set up a tank just to keep him.......simply amazing to think something can be growing that big without your knowledge! How long did it take to remove everything from that big 500 gallon? I wish I could have seen your face as you were realizing how long it was.............hehehe, trying to find the end, and it just keeps going and going and going...........

 

[steveweast]

As stated, I had to remove everything to get the worm out, There was no way to replicate the reef after such drastic actions...but, I did the best that I could. Here is a pic of the tank before worm removal ...followed by one after worm removal.

 

[steveweast]

And, here's what it looks like after four days of reconstruction:

 

[chinnyr]

I bet you fish sleep better at night knowing that thing is gone.It looks like a snake for cleaning sink traps out!When I was a kid growing up in California,we would venture out at low tide and see what we could find under the rocks.I found one that was 4 feet,and thought that was big!

 

[ophiura]

What did you do with that worm!? That would be a cool specimen for geeks, such as myself (a moment of reflection).
Coolio!!!

 

[barracuda]

steveweast,
you have very beautiful and colorful tank.

 

[jonthefb]

the worm you have looks very similar to the palola worm (Palola siciliensis)...a hobbiest in Germany found a worm with much the same color as the one you just found, and when he pulled it out i think it was like 9 feet long and as big around as a nickel...there are pictures of it in The modern coral reef aquarium vol. 1 on pg 181...he also mentioned how his soft corals were severely damaged, and upon further inestigation, he found that this worm was feedign ontheir tissue!
anyhow, just wanted to maybe give you a reference!
good luck
jon

 

[steveweast]

Skilos: The down side of this adventure was that I couldn't put the tank back the way it was. Taking everything out resulted in much coral damage. I had to trim back several corals and eliminate others that were just too big for the space. The greenish staghorn was one of those eliminated. In its place I have a smaller baby blue staghorn that has developed into a much nicer colony than the green one was. So, many frags and some colonies went to the LFS for credit. The tank is a little sparce now; but, it will grow back eventually. The worm was euthenized after three days in a bucket and went out with the trash.

 

[steveweast]

All the rocks are elevated off the bottom. There are 8 water jets dedicated to blowing water under the rocks to keep any detritus from building up. The only difference is that this time there are no large openings in the PVC structure for unwelcome creatures to develop into monsters unobserved.

 

[thomas712]

THE WORM IS GONE...NOOOOOOOOOOOO I could have fished all day with that sucker.