My Latest Tank

[Donya]

If it has a substantial skimmer on the system and good flow between the tanks it will probably be fine or have very little fallout even if the worst happens. Sea cucs and their relatives are unlikely to nuke a very big tank or a collection of smaller inter-connected smaller tanks that are hooked up to a big skimmer with good water turnover in the system. Public aquariums keep toxic stuff all the time with mega filtration like that. Similarly, I've seen a couple big LFS setups that had no trouble with stressed/injured toxic critters since they were so diluted in the large water volume and then removed quickly. However, the average home-sized community tank is usually smaller and less able to quickly remove that type of pollutant. A 50gal or particularly nano with a hang-on skimmer are the sorts of systems at higher risk since any toxins are more concentrated and not removed as quickly. Large, high-end reef setups are more comparable to the big LFS and public setups and are better able to handle the situation if toxins are released. The fact that the same animal can nuke a minimally-filtered nano but not necessarily a super-filtered 100gal is part of what leads to so much contradictory info in the hobby about what species are actually toxic to fish and other animals.

 

[sputnick]

ah I see that goes back to the beginners advice of having the largest tank possible. I don't think that the LFS has a skimmer on their tanks though. But I will still mention to them about the possible danger. Though she keeps sea cucs all the time because she loves how much algea that they eat and if they can nuke smaller tanks too I assume that the medusa worms will be just fine.

 

[Donya]

Well, this is interesting. It is possible that I totally pointed the finger at the wrong culprit for eating snails in the tank where this worm came from. I am still suspicious, as I have actually watched big fireworms of other species take out snails before, so I know it is a plausible scenario and they are capable of killing pretty decent-sized snails...but darn it, I cannot get this one to eat meat. If the pattern continues, a complete refusal to eat meaty foods will be pretty strong evidence for innocence and I'll have to look elsewhere to see why those snails went from apparently healthy to being squeaky clean empty shells overnight. Refused so far: all carnivore pellets, krill meat, and scallop meat. I have never seen a fireworm of any species refuse scallop meat before - usually that stuff gets savaged immediately since it's a nice stinky food that they can smell quickly. Instead, meaty food just sits there and risks fouling the water 12h later. But, what did it eat with great enthusiasm last night? An algae wafer. Go figure.  

 

[Reeferbro]

I once had a problem with a large worm too. But i had a medusa worm which doesn't have poisonous spines but has large teeth that killed my snails and hermits, attacked my mandarin dragonet and bit my finger.

 
That sounds like a Eunicid, like Barry the giant worm (news article on him here). They come in all sizes. So far I've been lucky and only had little ones, although they are feisty - even the little tiddlers will threaten and try to nip if a hand gets too close. Medusa worms are not actually worms but are related to sea cucumbers; they are detritivores with soft mouths and can only harm things if they die or get injured such that any toxins are released.

Ok thanks for the info!

 

[MBOU]

Holy... oh heck!! I can't repeat what I said when I first saw that!! Though the urgent need to scream, shove computer away and run from the room might give a clue!!
 
That is a beast!!! And its all squwooshed up!!! Must be a couple of foot nearly stretched out!! *shudders*. I have a horrible urge to keep one as a pet now even though they disgust me... kind of why I went through a phase of wanting a tarantula lol.
 
They look as though they have the same method of 'whatever weapon the decide on *shudder*' as the bristleworms? The vile sharp spines that are like that horrible fibreglass stuff..
 
I have full on grabbed a huge bristleworm by accident, looked at a rock, saw nothing, looked up as I grabbed the live rock and felt such a pain, had what looked like 'fur' in a thick trail from the base of my thumb right up my little finger!! That one was a whopper to shoot across the rock just as I grabbed it and still reach that far.
 
I'm surprised at it being referred to as venom though... is that what it is or just referred to? Just curious as a snake keeper and the logic etc... poison is ingested, venom is injected.... but what counts for the nasty spines the whilst contain nothing (I assume?) cause a reaction purely by being there?
 
If like bristleworms, the actual spines don't hurt, its only when they are brushed against the wrong way that they hurt......
 
Argh.. sorry... brain is refusing to be logical tonight... answer if you get me, ask questions if not, easier to answer that way!

 

[Donya]

As far as I know, many of the bristle/fireworm species in Amphinomidae have some degree of chemical irritant either on or in the bristles; I'm not sure where it is exactly. It ends up in you though when the spine goes in. There is the pain from the fiberglass-like effect, but then there is a burning that sets in later in addition to that. The intense burning and occasional allergic reactions from Hermodice vs. mainly mild discomfort from Eurythoe is supposed to be a difference in chemical potency to some degree. However, as I've seen from my many accidents with bristleworms, a species that is "mild" as a little worm can be quite a punch when several times bigger, so I'm not sure how much of the reaction difference is down to Hermodice tending to grow bigger than your average other hitchhiker bristleworm. I had rashes in a sting area for weeks after a non-Hermodice sting once simply because it was an exceptionally large individual that got me.
 

I have a horrible urge to keep one as a pet now even though they disgust me... kind of why I went through a phase of wanting a tarantula lol.

 
They make a good low-maintenance thing that doesn't care about the sort of instability that goes with a pico. At least one species has some interesting recessive colors that show up; I had one bowl of them several years back where I got blue-tinted and also bright yellow varieties showing up after a while several generations down the line from the original pinkish-gray ones I started with. That species made a kind of grotesque but entertaining thing to feed, sticking some scallop meat in on a stick and watching them swarm to it. However, this one is a lot more boring LOL. It's still just nibbling on algae wafers and ignoring everything else - and only eating at night too. 

 

[MBOU]

Think I would rather have a collection of 'pest' mantis shrimps to be fair!!
 
But interesting on the bristleworms and fireworms, its apparently something marine that I *don't* react to badly too lol, always a first!!

 

[Donya]

O frabjous day...I just found a bigger one living in a hollowed-out rock from the same source tank. I am in the process of breaking that tank down to put a larger one in its place. You know what I'm not seeing? Any other bristleworms. None. No worms in the sand either, which was certainly not the case a few months back. Somebody has either been hogging all the food or been a very indiscriminate feeder. Although, in breaking the tank down I have seen exactly one other worm so far besides the new monster fireworm...and it appears to be in the same family as the infamous Oenone fulgida (although probably not O. fulgida specifically). What a big grab bag of fun that tank had in it. 

 

[Donya]

Make that two Oenone worms and one Polyclad flatworm the size of a pancake. WHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. Why did all the bad things end up in one tank? Good grief. If the second mother of all fireworms wants to come out I'll give it a home with its friend that I pulled out before, but the others...don't think so.

 

[sputnick]

lol all of these monsters are just in time for holloween! 

 

[Donya]

Well...so much for this pico.

 No more worm. I just couldn't get it to eat readily, so I presume it starved. It would eat part of an algae wafer occasionally, but after eating that first algae wafer ravenously it became progressively less interested in them. It stopped eating them altogether for the last week despite having taken to sniffing all over the tank 24/7 - it was obviously hungry, but not for anything I could offer it. So, since it wouldn't eat ANY of the many meats or prepared foods I offered it and also wouldn't eat algae samples from the tank (that was my other hypothesis for what it was eating), I have to assume it was primarily a predator on something that was plentiful in the old tank it came from. It might have been eating something like Anthelia polyps; those were growing so fast for a while that I wouldn't have noticed some going missing each week. Or, maybe it really was eating snails in addition to the Oenone worms...I have no idea. Much as I had so many horrible critters to deal with from that tank, I thought the giant fireworms were pretty cool so I'm a bit bummed that I can't seem to feed them anything reasonable. I guess the second one that I still have isolated in a bucket with its rock probably won't stick around either unless there's something growing on the rock that it's still eating.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

That’s so sad! It looked so scary, and at the same time so pretty! I’m sorry for your loss.....