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Coral Dips to get rid of Eunicid Worm?


Snow_Phoenix

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Hi, I just discovered that I have a black and white striped eunicid worm living in one of the LR pieces that house a mixed colony of zoas, two RFAs and one ball nem. Since the rock is valuable due to the amount of life covering it, I don't want to toss it out.

 

I was wondering if a coral dip in Revive or Rx will ferret the worm out? I'm asking because I want to know if it's worth buying a bottle of dip just for one pest. The worm so far hasn't munched on any corals, but based on the size of his head peeking out of the rock, he's fairly large and creepy-looking.

 

Any advice is appreciated.

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Might be a bad idea, might not. It may be worth trying dipping the whole rock in 50/50 peroxide and SW, I don't imagine the worm would like it and it might leave the rock, just a thought.

 

If you do, make sure to rinse in SW before returning to the tank.

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Might be a bad idea, might not. It may be worth trying dipping the whole rock in 50/50 peroxide and SW, I don't imagine the worm would like it and it might leave the rock, just a thought.

 

If you do, make sure to rinse in SW before returning to the tank.

 

Okay, will do. Some online sources from other sites say you can try club soda, but once again that's a 50/50. As long as the thing doesn't come bursting out of its hole when I inject its burrow with either peroxide or some solution, then I think it -should- be fine.

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If you know which hole he's living in, you could try plugging it with epoxy. There is the chance that there are multiple exits but that would be the most non-invasive way.

 

If you're going to pull the rock, club soda and a syringe seems to be the best method.

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If you know which hole he's living in, you could try plugging it with epoxy. There is the chance that there are multiple exits but that would be the most non-invasive way.

 

If you're going to pull the rock, club soda and a syringe seems to be the best method.

 

Okay, I'll try the epoxy method first. Or can I use super strong glue (like how I smother my aiptasia) instead and hope for the best?

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  • 4 weeks later...

I would not like to use epoxy, since rock is rather porous, and a worm can stretch itself out and, quite likely, find an escape. You want to get this thing before it wreaks havoc on your tank and its inhabitants! There are quite a few things that you might be able to do. I'd try a few things, and probably in this order:

 

Fresh water dip

Coral RX dip

peroxide dip

 

Whatever you end up doing, I'd want to confirm that the worm is out of the rock. If you don't have a confirmed capture/kill, you might be quite sorry later. I had a eunicid that was maybe a centimeter long and hair-thin, and then I forgot about it. It ate pretty much everything in the tank, other than the fish, and it was creating so much waste that I had lots of algae problems. I had hundreds of micro stars, both brittle and asterina, and they all disappeared. I had nice zoa colonies that also all disappeared. I think that this is something that you don't want to leave to chance.

 

Edit: when I finally captured it, it was eighteen inches long! It was living and growing, for most of its life, in an 18 gallon via aqua tank. Nuts!

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Snow_Phoenix

I would not like to use epoxy, since rock is rather porous, and a worm can stretch itself out and, quite likely, find an escape. You want to get this thing before it wreaks havoc on your tank and its inhabitants! There are quite a few things that you might be able to do. I'd try a few things, and probably in this order:

 

Fresh water dip

Coral RX dip

peroxide dip

 

Whatever you end up doing, I'd want to confirm that the worm is out of the rock. If you don't have a confirmed capture/kill, you might be quite sorry later. I had a eunicid that was maybe a centimeter long and hair-thin, and then I forgot about it. It ate pretty much everything in the tank, other than the fish, and it was creating so much waste that I had lots of algae problems. I had hundreds of micro stars, both brittle and asterina, and they all disappeared. I had nice zoa colonies that also all disappeared. I think that this is something that you don't want to leave to chance.

 

Edit: when I finally captured it, it was eighteen inches long! It was living and growing, for most of its life, in an 18 gallon via aqua tank. Nuts!

 

This post is quite delayed but just a quick update: I ended up getting rid of the whole rock.

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Snow_Phoenix

Are you sure that the worm was in the rock that you removed?

 

Yep. Saw his feelers when I got rid of it. Decided it wasn't worth taking the risk of having such a deadly worm in my tank.

 

But now I have a giant six inch bristleworm living in one of my other rocks - so that's a more pressing concern now.

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I wouldn't worry about it if the worm is a bristle worm. They are great scavengers, and when I set up a tank that uses dry (reef saver) rock and bagged sand, I always introduce them. I tend to avoid things with claws, and I find that bristle worms are some of the better custodians, along with micro and mini brittle stars, and even asterinas, as a complement to snails.

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Tossed the rock eh? Seems excessive considering there were so many other options.

 

Anyways, hope that nothing else bad shows up. I think it would be cool if I had one of those worms to stick it in the sump for a year or 2 so I could have one of those cool stories about pulling a huge worm from the tank. Hahaha. Of course that would suck if I forgot and stuck something else in the sump though...

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