Some Liverock Hitchhikers

Andrew225

Andrew225

A little bit of everything
Jun 26, 2007
166
0
0
Colorado
SO, i tossed in a bit of freshly-cured liverock (Courtesy of a local aquaria store) To get the reef tank look i'm going for in my new 12 gallon nano.

I was looking today, and imagine my surprise when i saw not one, but three little hitchhikers!

I'm afraid my digital camera is missing, but i'll go ahead and describe them anyways, just to see if anyone can help me in identifying them.

the first i saw was a thin, white 'worm', no more than an inch long, alogn the sideo f my glass (I also noticed some web like tendrils on some of the rocks...connections?

I then saw a long guy, about two inches in length, that looked liek an earth worm. However, i noticed it had legs, like a centipede, and was moving around my rocks fairly quickly.

Third, i noticed a black and white banded...Well, i'm not exactly sure what it is. It's got a central 'head' area, with two arms that it reaches out from time to time. It's got several stubs that i think might be growing more arms..I saw three of these stubs total.


So, any advice or ideas would be killer guys.

Thanks for the help,
Andrew
 
The earth worm looking thing may just be a bristleworm. Did it have a redish color? If so thats what it is nothing to worry about. As for the other two if you could get a pic that would help alot.
 
Okay, so after doing some quick research, yes, it is a bristleworm...
I also grabbed a friends camera and looked for five minutes, and couldn't find either the thin white worm (which is practically transparent) or the mysterious black and white guys (Although, right after the original post i found a -second- black-white guy, this one was longer and had an appendage that looked strikingly similar to a spiders. However, he had four legs (That i could see))

Hmm...
 
No, it's not a feather duster, cause it was 'crawling' all over the sides of the tank...

Although, on a side note, i was moving a piece of my live rock to try to get a picture of one of the black and white guys, and:
1: this white, web-like stuff just floated out (Closest reference i have is in Jackass, when they touch the sea cucumber and it expels that white, gooey stuff...Yeah, pretty close to that. I saw it and quickly siphoned it out of the tank)
2: It opened up! It was actually a clam, which i now have sitting in a quarantine tank...Crazy.
 
Thanks for the link

I'll see what i can find there
 
The white "worm" was probably an epitoke (a reproductive "swarmer"). At least that is what the WWM pic is. The clear web could have been several things: a) if they were fairly thick, they are likely terebellid or cirratulid worm feeding tentacles. If they are very thin (thinner than a hair, for example), it could be the mucus web of a vermetid snail, which is sessile and build a tube-like shell. The other may actually be a small brittle star, unless you provide more characteristics. If not, it could be any number of worms.

Edit: so the whitish web was the byssal threads of the clam?
 
That's what i'm thinking. The web went from nowhere to everywhere in two days.
Since iv'e taken it out, the webbing has cleared up

And as for the other. Yes, it's a brittle star. After looking up a few things, the five legs-small body-yada yada. Yeah, there's actually three of them. pretty cool though, they don't seem to harm the tank at all from what i've read.
 
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