Trying to identify weird hitch hiker

[jagermeister]

O.K. I'll do my best to describe this thing. First of all it looks like some kind of worm. It is very thin and about an inch in length. It has all these.....tentacles? coming from all over its body. Extremely thin tentacles, about the diameter of a strand of hair. It moves very slowly, including the tentacles. They just wave slowly around. I usually see it in the sand but it has crawled up the glass a couple of times.
Does anyone know what this could be?

 

[griff]

Is it a pink/red body & are the bristles/hairs white? If so it's a bristle worm. A scourge. Siphon it out & kill it if its handy, otherwise dont sweat it too much. Like cockroaches, for every one you do see...
regards

 

[thomas712]

Nah..I don't think bristleworms are a bad thing like they used to be thought of, adds diversity to the tank. They sure are ugly though. Here's a link to see if you can find it.
http://petsforum.com/personal/trevor.../worms60g.html
Thomas

 

[jagermeister]

It's not a bristleworm. I've seen a couple of those running around. It's a lot thinner than a bristle worm and moves a lot slower. It's not symmetric around its torso. There's no rhyme or reason to its jutting tentacles. It just seems like a flowing mess. I originally thought it was a tangled piece of rotting algae until it started crawling up the glass. I'm guessing it's just some kind of sea worm. I was just curious if anyone had heard anything like it before.

 

[bang guy]

My guess would be a Teribellid Polycheate. These are excellent detrivores.

 

[ophiura]

I agree with Bang Guy, sounds like a spaghetti worm to me also. Sometimes they will come out and crawl around, though usually the body is buried in something.
Also agree that bristleworms are not really a bad thing, as they were though to be. Unless they get super huge.

 

[bang guy]

Sorry, after re-reading your description I've changed my guess to a Cirratulid Polychaete. These are even more beneficial IMO

 

[jagermeister]

Thanks Bang Guy!!
You don't happen to know of a site with pictures of these things so I can compare, do you?
Thanks again!

 

[bang guy]

j21kickster had a great photo of a Cirratulid a few days ago. Try a search on Cirratulid or Spaghetti and see if you can find it.
Guy