Worms at night - free swimming..Freaky!

[travis32]

Well, I was doing a review scan of my aquarium a couple nights ago. It's a 125g mixed reef, with around 7 or so fish. I clean the glass and clean some algae out of the tank every few days. So, I'm regularly taking inventory and stuff of how the corals and fish are doing..

Well, I found something pretty strange and freaky. I'm hoping it's nothing, but, well, you don't see free swimming worms in the water column very often...

This one was free swimming on one side of the tank. It was pure white, kinda looked to have soft of a fanned out tail / head (not sure which). It's body was completely round, and it somehow swam in the water, would move up and down the tank. As far as length, I would say between half and 3/4 Inch in length. After I saw the one there was others just like it only much smaller. some actually moving against the glas, many others coiled on the glass, there seemed to be a fair number of them on one side of the tank. Including the babies, at least a dozen or two.

I'm scared these could be fish parasites. . . flukes or other anchor worms of some type. Or even ich, I doubt Crypt parasites get that big though.

Not much I can do since it's the display, but, I guess I'd like to know if what the chances are that they are detrimental to fish?

[CoralReeferGal]

can you post a pic? Not sure if I can help, but I'm kinda curious either way lol

[travis32]

I tried getting pictures of them, but, I don't have enough light in the room to get pics with the lights off.. Flash just takes a picture of my reflection, and with the lights on, the worms are not present. LOL.

[CoralReeferGal]

ugh, go figure! planaria maybe? do they swim in a spiral like motion?

[CoralReeferGal]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1956449

found this while looking for an answer for you; maybe it might help??

[Sensei ClamMan]

I've seen the same a few years ago, never turned into any sort of problem. Weird wiggly swimming things, wouldn't worry about it.

[MarkGP]

Probably amphipods. It's amazing all the cool things swimming around at night!

[Steve175]

Yep. I see the same every once in a while. Freaky but benign in my SPS tank.

[travis32]

There's such thing as white bristle worms??? LOL. I have a sump full of red bristleworms (very large ones at that..) They haven't made it into my display yet.

But, this swims in a squiggly motion. Heh. Yeah, it sounds like planaria or copepods. Something pretty harmly. The only reason I was concerned is I had a hippo tang that lived about 1 month and had a bunch of little white worms coming out of it's body for the entire month. It would have leisions where the worms came out.

It was maybe half dozen to a dozen white areas on each side and every now and then I'd see a white wiggly thing hanging off of the tang. I haven't seen it on any other fish recently. Did have one fish that had it -- a powder brown tang after it went through 8 weeks of hypo treatment) the white worms appeared coming out of the Powder brown's body.

So, I was curious if these could be the same words infesting tangs or not... I have a chevron tang that seems completely immune to them. It's never had any white spots, no white worms, nothing. It's the happiest and healthiest tang I've ever had. Not that there's really anything I can do about the worms in the display if they are parasitic copepods or parasitic ankor worms..

I'even torn my tank down, acid washed my rock, replaced the sand bed, and redid the tank between the last time I saw worms on the fish.

I didn't know if parasites would free swim just for the fun of it or not...

[SushiGirl]

Bristleworm epitokes.

[messesb52]

yuck i saw something like that in my freshwater tank a few weeks ago.

[cloak]

Originally Posted by sushigirl

bristleworm epitokes.

+1.