Eunicid Worm remove or....

24storm · #1 02-19-2011, 04:44 PM

So last night i was looking arond in my tank with a red flashlight and seen what i am sure is a Eunicid worm pretty creepy looking lol. It was pretty large i could see a foot of it.

I have a PVC structure for my rock work and that is where its burrow is i could trace back to where its tail was so i have no idea how large it really is.

So my question is do i tear down the tank to remove it. Or do i cap off the 2 entrances to the PVC so it becomes trapped and dies (will this be an issue) I have approx 350 gallons of water volume.Or do i just leave it alone?

I do not really want to tear the tank down it would be a huge pain in the you know what. If i trap it so it dies would this cause a tank crash? I am thinking it would just starve and slowly wither away. And if i leave it will this become a bigger issue down the road.

My tank has been set up for more then 3 years and i dont think this thing has been an issue sure i have lost some fish but i am sure that has happened to most with tanks this large. I read lots of people have lost zoas and rics and i can say almost all my zoas are gone so it could be this thing.

Any input would be great trying to make up my mind on what to do. Now that i know its in there i am not sure what to think lol.

hillegom · #2 02-19-2011, 04:55 PM

If you are losing zoas I would cap it. After a time (a day? a week?) the oxygen should have been depleted by the worm. Could you then fish it out of the pipe somehow?

24storm · #3 02-19-2011, 05:05 PM

The PVC has small holes everywhere for zipties so it not runn out of oxygen. And the structure is quite large with lots of bends so fishing it out would be pretty tough.

Funky_Fish14 · #4 02-19-2011, 05:08 PM

If you are losing zoos, well, it could just be your water, but could be the worm too.

I kind of agree with Capping it... but man... I dont know how you'd know after how long? And what if you were to just leave the caps on? Waterflow /nutrient release from it would be darn slow... you might get some ammonia... but you also have a very large water volume you said...

Some eunicids are just detrivores too... I've 'kept' 2, one was a detrivore... 23" long unstretched, lived in a 75 for awhile and when I took the tank apart a year later i never found it and I never had any nutrient spikes? so im guessing it died and did not cause a problem.

Maybe try popping a zoo colony in an obvious place and see what happens to it? (watch it overnight a few times)

Cheers,

Chris

hillegom · #5 02-19-2011, 05:08 PM

I do not have any experience with these worms, never having had one. Maybe you can trap him somehow.

untamed · #6 02-19-2011, 05:58 PM

I've also kept a few different species of Eunicid and quite enjoyed their antics. I've never kept zoas, though... I would still attempt to catch him in the act before deciding to rid the tank of him.

I suspected that one of mine was eating xenia...but that was a good thing at the time.