Kryos Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 I found what looked like an entrance to a burrow this morning, but when I took it out, I found that it was a bunch of sand stuck together in a "ribbon" like structure. It's pretty sturdy, but I'm able to rip it apart with a small pull. It was just lying on the sand, no hole/tunnel underneath it. It definitely wasn't there the previous night. Anybody seen this before? Quote Link to comment
Friendly Posted January 31, 2019 Share Posted January 31, 2019 I think your title is misleading. you should change it to 'found den in sand held together by silk'. 😉 Quote Link to comment
Joevember Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 What fish/inverts do you have in the tank? Quote Link to comment
Justind823 Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Hard to tell from the picture but how big is it? Odd you didn't find anything beneath the burrow. My guess - depending on the size - would be a spaghetti worm. They use their gland secretions to form sand around their burrow similar to that but usually there is more of a pronounced stalk. Just a guess though! Sure is weird Quote Link to comment
Kryos Posted February 1, 2019 Author Share Posted February 1, 2019 38 minutes ago, Joevember said: What fish/inverts do you have in the tank? I have a yellow Cori's wrass and 2 clowns for fish, inverts include 1 trochus snail, 4 cerith snails, and 2 Tonga nassarius snails. I started dry and only bought frags where I dipped everything. Quote Link to comment
Kryos Posted February 1, 2019 Author Share Posted February 1, 2019 13 minutes ago, Justind823 said: Hard to tell from the picture but how big is it? Odd you didn't find anything beneath the burrow. My guess - depending on the size - would be a spaghetti worm. They use their gland secretions to form sand around their burrow similar to that but usually there is more of a pronounced stalk. Just a guess though! Sure is weird It's quite large, the mound is about 1.5inches in diameter. My sandbed is pretty shallow, about 1 inch or less. I just find it weird because of the ribbon like structure. I've never seen that in the 8 years I've been keeping reefs Quote Link to comment
Joevember Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Yellow corris wrasses burrow in the sand when they sleep or if they are scared, so it's probably the wrasse. Quote Link to comment
Kryos Posted February 1, 2019 Author Share Posted February 1, 2019 7 minutes ago, Joevember said: Yellow corris wrasses burrow in the sand when they sleep or if they are scared, so it's probably the wrasse. I know that they burrow, but they don't have any way to stick sand together into a helix strip like in the picture. I've kept a yellow coris wrasse for years and never seen this until today. I'm pretty sure it's not something I added on purpose, just trying to figure out if the hitchhiker is reefsafe or not. Quote Link to comment
Firefish15 Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Some snails made sand-nests to lay their eggs in. One local (to me) example is the moon snail. You can find these at low tide sometimes. For scale, that snail in the photo is around 3 inches in diameter. Anyway, it looks quite similar to what you have. Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted February 1, 2019 Share Posted February 1, 2019 Wow that's cool....can't say I have seen that either. Quote Link to comment
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