ID please ( I have found the loch ness monster)

[krazekajin]

I am staring at my tank and I have found the weirdest thing.
Out of my rock was white and brown striped strings of hair. They were stretched about 5inches long. I began to look closely and it appeared that these hair looking things were worms of some sort, but they looked like baby stars. However I have never seen 5in long arms on baby stars that are the thickness of hair.
The weird thing is that the tenticles or whatever look just like serpent star tenticles.
The arms have the abilty to retract from 5in all the way to the rock.
What is it.

 

[krazekajin]

bump

 

[8x8nhl]

post a picture please did u check the hitch hickers threaD?

 

[coachklm]

it's a snail or can you see that it's a star???

 

[krazekajin]

I don't have my camera. I checked the hitchiker thread, nothing even comes close.
Imagine 10 or 20 zebra striped hairs (that tiny diameter) extended out of the rock for a good five inches moving and pulsating and pulling just like a worm or the ends of a serpent star. imagine other worm looking hairs that are sometimes crawling on those 10 or twenty strings. It looks like striped hair but it moves like a worm, but there are 10-20 of them all out of a small hole in my live rock.

 

[thomas712]

Either of these it?

 

[krazekajin]

That would be the second one except mine is gray and black instead of reddish and black. What is it and where did you find pics?

 

[thomas712]

Thats a Cirratulid worm, I'm sure you can look them up using Google.
The first one is a terribellied worm.

 

[krazekajin]

Good or bad or ugly?

 

[thomas712]

These are known as sphagetti worms
Terebellidae
Numerous elongate mouth tentacles, up to three pairs of anterior gills, often branched. Neurosetal uncini only posteriorly. Terebella, Polycirrus, Amphitrite, Lanice. They feed on and build its tube out of particles it gathers from the surrounding area. When feeding, the worm extends its tentacles out over the bottom for a distance several times the length of its body. Each tentacle forms a long groove. Sediment with food particles is transferred to the groove. It is then carried down the groove by thousands of moving hairs (cilia) to lips in the mouth region.Some particles are eaten, others form, and still others are tube building material, or rejected.
Cirratulids
Cirratulids are deposit feeders which gather food from the sea bottom by means of their palps. They are sluggish worms which bury themselves below the surface of sea bottoms leaving only their gills and palps visible. Some are free-living and inhabit tubes, while others are capable of burrowing through corals, shell or rock. Hence, they occur both in shallow water as well as deep sea. They inhabit mud flats or muddy areas between rocks. They are usually orange or bright red and are found among mussels and kelps. They are indirect deposit-feeders. They have no proboscis as their food are collected by their palps and carried to the prostomium.Only suitable sized particles are ingested while others are rejected at the mouth.

 

[krazekajin]

here is what I learned.
Click here: Spaghetti and Hair Worms… What’s in a Name? by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com