bobbit worm larvae?!?

[gio14]

I saw something moving on the front glass, I just had the time to take a couple of pictures then it disappeared ( water flow brought it somewhere else)

is it an eunice?

 

[Tired]

Weird-looking little bugger, not sure what that is. Incredibly unlikely to be a bobbit, though. Eunicid worms are reasonably common in the hobby, but most are harmless scavengers or coral-eaters. Bobbit worms are a specific species of eunicid, and live rock from their native habitat is no longer collected, so they're increasingly rare. 

[filefishfinatic]

+1 bobbits live in sand also. 

[M. Tournesol]

51 minutes ago, Tired said:

 live rock from their native habitat is no longer collected, so they're increasingly rare. 

I didn't know. It's great news 😮

[gio14]

well, I dind't expect to get something alive from live sand... in the end, from what I understood live sand is collected and stored for several months either in the shop or in a wharehouse, I used Caribsea live sand, maybe it is more alive than what I thought!

 

Anyway, I think that only time will tell what that guy is,( too tiny and not best quality picture to get a good identification) since it has 2 antennas and many tiny legs I thought it was an eunice.

[Tired]

It could be a eunicid larva, but if it is, that doesn't automatically mean it's trouble. Some are scavengers. The ones that aren't tend to do slow damage to things unless they're very large, so if that is a baby eunicid of a coral-eating variety, you'll have plenty of time to find out and remove it. 

 

It's probably not identifiable at this stage, unless an expert in marine worms comes along. 

[filefishfinatic]

honestly you should just removeit. my friend has kept lots of eunice hitchhikers and the odds are that its gonna be a detritivore but like 1/5 chance it is a corallivore especially if it was introduced through a coral or rock from a artifical/real reef which is ought to have some coral on it. 

[PeterU]

23 minutes ago, filefishfinatic said:

honestly you should just removeit. my friend has kept lots of eunice hitchhikers and the odds are that its gonna be a detritivore but like 1/5 chance it is a corallivore especially if it was introduced through a coral or rock from a artifical/real reef which is ought to have some coral on it. 

Can't remove something you can't find. Read the first post.

[Tired]

Also, it might not be a eunicid in the first place. I just don't know if that's what a baby eunicid looks like, so I can't say that it isn't one.

 

You got a source for the odds on it being a corallivore? 

[jservedio]

It's definitely not in the genus Eunice, so 100% not a bobbit. If it were in the genus Eunice, it'd have 5 antennae on it's head from the time it started looking like a worm as would their epitokes. Plus, euinice larvae look nothing like worms and are planktonic trochophores. It's definitely got some nice jaws though. I wouldn't worry about it being a terror.

[gio14]

Thanks guys!

Even if it was a dangerous worm I cannot remove it since I only saw it once... I will update this thread as soon as I have more pictures/ info.

For the time being, let's hope that's a good boy...