holy carp Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 I haven't added anything to my aquarium for a couple months except for a few new snails last weekend. They were 2 Margarita, 3 Astrea, and 1 Trochus. This afternoon I noticed about a dozen of these tiny things on the glass. They are between 1 and 2mm long, and seem to have 2 antennae. I did a water change yesterday, so I had stirred up the sand bed a bit, so not sure if I scared them out of the sand (like the flatworms that all came out) or if they hatched from somewhere else. Could these be baby snails? They don't appear to have any shells, but I don't know if those develop later... Here's a zoomed closeup of the top left one. Link to comment
holy carp Posted October 19, 2015 Author Share Posted October 19, 2015 These things are coming out in droves... Did I stump the nano-reefers? If not snails, could they be baby bristle worms? Should I be afraid? Link to comment
jamescstein Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Not snails Not bristle worms Looking at http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/hitchworms.html it looks like a spionid worm outside its tube. Epitoke maybe. Link to comment
amphipod Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 Not snails Not bristle worms Looking at http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/hitchworms.html it looks like a spionid worm outside its tube. Epitoke maybe. pretty sure you are correct. The swarm is harmless, and chances are there is more worms of the same species, the tube dwelling adults, living hidden and undetected by you in your tank as we speak. Link to comment
holy carp Posted October 20, 2015 Author Share Posted October 20, 2015 I think I figured out what happened. On Saturday I did a water change, and since I had a little cyano on the sand and between the sand and the front glass, I used a pipette to blast into the sand and loosen the bacteria before siphoning out a few gallons of water. I didn't notice it then, since my sand is fine and the water ends up cloudy for 15 minutes after disturbing the sand bed, but these little guys are living in the sand and weren't too thrilled about having their abodes blasted. Last night when I got home, these worms weren't on the glass anymore. I noticed a clump of cyano I had missed before, so just blasted a small section of sand. This didn't make the water cloudy, since it was just about 6" along the glass. But then I saw these worms parading out of the sand and onto the glass. Then they float away in the current on their long antennae. They're so thin it wasn't possible to get a photo of them in the water, but it made me think of baby spiders floating into the breeze on their silk. I think I have to get a real camera or at least a macro lens for my phone. There's just too much to see in there... Link to comment
amphipod Posted October 20, 2015 Share Posted October 20, 2015 In that case you didn't see an epitoke, you just seen adult spionids. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.