Worm ID (1 Viewer)

[breiter3]

Can someone help me ID this worm? It's setup shop inside one my largest rocks at the bottom of my scape so removing the rock would be quite difficult. I found him with a red flash light at night snacking on what was very little left of a silverside that my Bubble Coral had expelled. I haven't seen it go after anything and haven't had any recent fish losses, but I like to err on the side of caution and I don't believe this is a bristle worm...

It extended out of the rock approximately 16 inches :eap: but was stretched out and the end inside the rock seemed like it was anchored in there. I grabbed some tongs to see if I could get ahold of him and he QUICKLY shrunk and retreated back inside the rock. Stretched out I can see some little appendages along the worm (don't appear bristly though), but when it retreated it almost looked smooth like a peanut worm.

:keeping my hands out of my tank for a while:

 

[jqsquared]

Looks to me like a bristle worm, the bristles can be hard to see. I have a couple in my tank, they come out at night eating leftovers and are supposed to clean detritus. Some remove, I just keep them in there.

 

[breiter3]

Yeah I have bristle worms so I'm pretty use to them as good detritus eaters in my tank, but I've never seen one retreat like a peanut worm where it essentially sucks in on itself tube shaped losing the shape of its appendages...

The bristle worms I've encountered all coil up... Plus this guy was SUPER FAST. Like blink of an eye and it was gone back in the rock

 

[Traclly Le Tran]

Kind of looks like a bristle worm

*Sent from my little corner of the reef.*

 

[tektite]

Looks like a regular bristle worm to me. What does its head look like?

 

[breiter3]

Couldn't really tell on the head. I could only see the body stretched out all the way to the left overs then it was obscured by a rock.