Help! Chupacabra-Tremor Dragging High End Coral Deep Into the Sand?(VIDEO)

[Dolphin2409]

Happy New Year Everyone!

So this monster is still lurking somewhere in the tank. A few days after taking those rocks out he started messing with the round trap I made previously. After taking most of the corals off the sand bed it hasn't been able to attack anything yet. *Knocks on wood*

Since finding that its still in there somewhere I have resorted to making a new trap specifically for bobbit worms. I based it on this guys trap as it seems to work well in reality and the design made since to me. Also when reading the comments it sounded like some reefers had success with it in their tanks back in the day. Unfortunately, he has taken his website/store down so I resorted to making my own.



I will make a video to explain the trap at a later date if it works, but the basic run down is the worm has access from the bottom at one end of the trap. This end is facing down to the sand. It then travels the length of the trap to the bait on a trigger. When it grabs the bait a door with spikes comes down to grab the head/body of the worm. The more the worm tries to move back the deeper the door digs in. After which I plan to slowly pull the worm out similar to the guys video. Hoping this plan works in practice. I have been dreaming about this stupid monster all week been giving me nightmares.

Last night was the first night with the new trap in the tank and I caught this video. Seems like he is getting more bold which, is hopefully a good thing for me as he will hopefully go for the bait. I am thinking about switching the bait to something else maybe squid or sardines?

Thanks for the update and happy new year

Have you considered taking out some, or all, of the sand and temporarily moving it to a holding tank / bucket? You might gradually force it into the open.

 

[reeftwincities]

Thank you for sharing your story. No advice but sending you well wishes with this battle! I'm rooting for you!

 

[Weasel1960]

That thing in the scuba divers trap gives me the creeps. Can’t believe he was handling it no gloves. I agree with continuing to move rock and coral to anQT of sorts until you can get it to show itself. Any new thoughts on how it got into your tank? I noticed in an early thread you added some brittle stars. Any chance one of them went rogue?

 

[Speedys_Reef]

This may be crazy but I keep picturing tieing some fishing line to some sort of bait or frag and maybe it gets swallowed or grabbed and allows you to pull it out.

One problem I would run into is all my snails. They would gobble up anything left out. I found out with the first trap that nassarius snails have a 1-1.75” long mouth which is insane. I had a similar idea with laying out a bunch of snares in the sand. Maybe I would get lucky and it would get caught just moving around.

Thanks for the update and happy new year

Have you considered taking out some, or all, of the sand and temporarily moving it to a holding tank / bucket? You might gradually force it into the open.

I took out some sand the day after taking out the rock as well as vacuumed around. There was a lot of nasty under the removed rock, which I guess is to be expected. I have been thinking about taking out a lot more. I wanted to give the new trap a couple of nights then this would likely be my next step. I would think as long as I kept it wet and rinsed it in salt water before putting it back this would be doable.

That thing in the scuba divers trap gives me the creeps. Can’t believe he was handling it no gloves. I agree with continuing to move rock and coral to anQT of sorts until you can get it to show itself. Any new thoughts on how it got into your tank? I noticed in an early thread you added some brittle stars. Any chance one of them went rogue?

There is honestly only a handful of ways. It had to of started out really small either way. Early on I added a frogspawn colony, some purple sponge that look like a capping monti, and an elegance coral. I didn’t dip the sponge for obvious reasons and the frogspawn I’m pretty sure is where my vermitid snails came from. The elegance coral I didn’t notice had a opening on the side just below the tissue,which I later found out was home to a gall crab. Other then that most of my corals were very small or very clean. For instance the Scolys I usually plaster the skeleton with glue to fill in any holes.

As far as the brittle stars I thought about this too, but they are all pretty small most live in the rock never under the sand bed. So I have a hard time seeing it be them.

 

[rmorris_14]

Any new activity?

 

[Radman73]

Yes, update please!

 

[Speedys_Reef]

Hi All,

My apologies, for my delayed update. Things have been quiet hectic lately.

So let me start off by saying I still haven't caught anything. Now with that said I need to change some previous information in my last post. I have been using my new trap all week with mostly shrimp, but I also tried some squid as well. One of the early nights in the week one of my nassarius snails popped up from under the trap causing a very similar event to the previous one I posted. Since this trap isn't clear this was something that could easily be missed. Since realizing this I decided run my fingers through the sand before setting the trap down. The next 5 days there was absolutely zero movement of the trap. The snails were all still interested of course but, physical unexplained movement there was zero.

So I decided to review all the footage from the last 10 days or so at 20x speed. Took a long time, but this is what I learned. Before pulling the rock out there is clearly something messing with my corals and under the trap. At the super fast play back speed you can see it moving through the sand at some points. It gives the impression of being pretty big. Also when its at the trap the snails are not. After pulling out the rock though all behavior under the sand stops and the movement with the trap occurs when the snails are at the trap. I have concluded that this was likely caused by them. Sorry for the long winded explanation, but I wanted to explain why I believe there needs to be a correction to my previous post/statement about this thing for sure still being in my tank. In actuality since taking the rock out its seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.

I still have the rock in a bucket with stagnant salt water. I check it every night. Nothing has crawled out or shown itself. Again I would find it hard to believe it would be in these two small rocks. Which makes me wonder where is it? Did I maybe break it in two when I pulled the rock out? There was some initial resistance pulling it out that is making me worried. Or maybe its smart and went in to hiding for now? I'm not sure.

What I do know is the algae on my glass is getting worse probably from the increased nutrients caused by the bait on the trap. So I was thinking about doing the trap every other night. I am confident if it ever went for the bait I would 100% get it with this trap. I should also mention I have two cameras recording the trap or other parts of the tank now. I am looking to add a third.

That's the update wish I had a better news. I promise I will give this thread a conclusion once it happens. I will do my best to keep you all updated if something happens. I appreciate you all coming along for the ride. I promise I am even more anxious then you all. I have already lived many lives as Burt Gummer these past few weeks when I sleep.

 

[reeftwincities]

thanks for the update! Worried it might have gotten you there!

 

[Rtaylor]

Hi All,

My apologies, for my delayed update. Things have been quiet hectic lately.

So let me start off by saying I still haven't caught anything. Now with that said I need to change some previous information in my last post. I have been using my new trap all week with mostly shrimp, but I also tried some squid as well. One of the early nights in the week one of my nassarius snails popped up from under the trap causing a very similar event to the previous one I posted. Since this trap isn't clear this was something that could easily be missed. Since realizing this I decided run my fingers through the sand before setting the trap down. The next 5 days there was absolutely zero movement of the trap. The snails were all still interested of course but, physical unexplained movement there was zero.

So I decided to review all the footage from the last 10 days or so at 20x speed. Took a long time, but this is what I learned. Before pulling the rock out there is clearly something messing with my corals and under the trap. At the super fast play back speed you can see it moving through the sand at some points. It gives the impression of being pretty big. Also when its at the trap the snails are not. After pulling out the rock though all behavior under the sand stops and the movement with the trap occurs when the snails are at the trap. I have concluded that this was likely caused by them. Sorry for the long winded explanation, but I wanted to explain why I believe there needs to be a correction to my previous post/statement about this thing for sure still being in my tank. In actuality since taking the rock out its seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.

I still have the rock in a bucket with stagnant salt water. I check it every night. Nothing has crawled out or shown itself. Again I would find it hard to believe it would be in these two small rocks. Which makes me wonder where is it? Did I maybe break it in two when I pulled the rock out? There was some initial resistance pulling it out that is making me worried. Or maybe its smart and went in to hiding for now? I'm not sure.

What I do know is the algae on my glass is getting worse probably from the increased nutrients caused by the bait on the trap. So I was thinking about doing the trap every other night. I am confident if it ever went for the bait I would 100% get it with this trap. I should also mention I have two cameras recording the trap or other parts of the tank now. I am looking to add a third.

That's the update wish I had a better news. I promise I will give this thread a conclusion once it happens. I will do my best to keep you all updated if something happens. I appreciate you all coming along for the ride. I promise I am even more anxious then you all. I have already lived many lives as Burt Gummer these past few weeks when I sleep.

I would put the rock you removed in freshwater, if there’s a worm in there, that should get it to come out. It might take a while, so I’d just leave it until either you see something has exited or at least a couple days.

 

[Critteraholic]

Have you tried putting something yummy in the bucket to see if it disappears?

 

[Speedys_Reef]

Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him!

Been a busy last few days as I attempted to mend the tank back together.

So here's the story. Thursday morning my clove polyps on the opposite side of the tank were attacked. I didn't see anything even with 3 cameras on the tank. This thing is stealthy. That afternoon I decided to take out as much sand as I could, which basically started the process of destroying the tank. I removed roughly 90% of the sand and some of my rocks were very unstable. One of them actually fell over. The one that fell over I struggled with getting to sit back right. While fidgeting with this rock I notice some goop under it. I lifted it up to see a body of a worm hanging down. I immediately pulled the rock out got a bucket and some 2x4s. I let it hang over the bucket till the worm fell out. It honestly didn't seem to take very long, 5mins maybe. Once it came out I put the worm in a bowl for inspection. I got the tail, but I noticed I didn't get the head. This section was about a 1.5ft long.



So I took out all the sand under and around the rock that was removed. When I built the tank used egg crate under my rock to help with stability. I pulled this egg crate out and found the rest of the body and head wrapped around it. I removed him from the egg crate and placed him in the bowl. I think I got all of him out now. I lifted all the other rocks in the tank to verify I had no bodies hanging down. The only thing that has me concerned is the head portion seems like a pretty clean break with no wound, while the side with the tail has seen better days. Is this how these things break? As of this post it is currently still alive in the bowl, but not in the greatest shape.



Couple interesting things I noticed. My worm is mostly albino iridescence(most I have seen are dark) you can see what it has been eating and it appears that it been mostly feeding on sand as its gut was filled with it. Also I watched as it took this sand and spun a mucus web all around its body to create a sand sleeping bag. The rock had one sand like tunnel at the base, but it was not very obvious so no crazy tunnels for me like in others experience.

In total I would estimate this worm to be about .5" in diameter and roughly 2ft long. Smaller then I had imagined still very weird worm.

I hope this nightmare is over. I will definitely have PTSD for the next few months or longer. What you all think? Think there could be two?

Thanks again for coming on this journey with me. As many others have stated before me I wouldn't wish this thing on anyone. Back to cleaning up my tank and fixing my house as the mess/damage is still insane. I have lots of frags for trade now as well haha.

 

[takitaj]

Dayumm! Glad you found it! Nightmares..... ;Jawdrop

 

[rmorris_14]

 

[Idech]

That’s totally incredible and disgusting !

Where do you think it came from since you were so careful with your corals ?

 

[VermontReefs]

Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him!

Been a busy last few days as I attempted to mend the tank back together.

So here's the story. Thursday morning my clove polyps on the opposite side of the tank were attacked. I didn't see anything even with 3 cameras on the tank. This thing is stealthy. That afternoon I decided to take out as much sand as I could, which basically started the process of destroying the tank. I removed roughly 90% of the sand and some of my rocks were very unstable. One of them actually fell over. The one that fell over I struggled with getting to sit back right. While fidgeting with this rock I notice some goop under it. I lifted it up to see a body of a worm hanging down. I immediately pulled the rock out got a bucket and some 2x4s. I let it hang over the bucket till the worm fell out. It honestly didn't seem to take very long, 5mins maybe. Once it came out I put the worm in a bowl for inspection. I got the tail, but I noticed I didn't get the head. This section was about a 1.5ft long.



So I took out all the sand under and around the rock that was removed. When I built the tank used egg crate under my rock to help with stability. I pulled this egg crate out and found the rest of the body and head wrapped around it. I removed him from the egg crate and placed him in the bowl. I think I got all of him out now. I lifted all the other rocks in the tank to verify I had no bodies hanging down. The only thing that has me concerned is the head portion seems like a pretty clean break with no wound, while the side with the tail has seen better days. Is this how these things break? As of this post it is currently still alive in the bowl, but not in the greatest shape.



Couple interesting things I noticed. My worm is mostly albino iridescence(most I have seen are dark) you can see what it has been eating and it appears that it been mostly feeding on sand as its gut was filled with it. Also I watched as it took this sand and spun a mucus web all around its body to create a sand sleeping bag. The rock had one sand like tunnel at the base, but it was not very obvious so no crazy tunnels for me like in others experience.

In total I would estimate this worm to be about .5" in diameter and roughly 2ft long. Smaller then I had imagined still very weird worm.

I hope this nightmare is over. I will definitely have PTSD for the next few months or longer. What you all think? Think there could be two?

Thanks again for coming on this journey with me. As many others have stated before me I wouldn't wish this thing on anyone. Back to cleaning up my tank and fixing my house as the mess/damage is still insane. I have lots of frags for trade now as well haha.

Do we know if this is a Bobbit or something else? Anyone?

 

[damsels are not mean]

I think I'd have to burn my tank down and start over

 

[shakacuz]

so was that actually a bobbit?

 

[Oregon Grown Reef]

This is disgusting. I can deal with small bristleworms, but not this. This...is just creepy.

 

[Speedys_Reef]

That’s totally incredible and disgusting !

Where do you think it came from since you were so careful with your corals ?

Been thinking about this a lot. I keep a coral diary and based on that I have mostly added very small acan frags and acro frags for the past year. The acros were coral only(mean I snipped them off the plug) and the acans I filled most of the exposed skeleton with super glue. My best guess would of been when I started the tank I add more of the larger lps and softie corals. At that time I bought a questionable multicolor frogspawn at one point. Beautiful coral but, I shouldnt of bought it. Cleaning that thing up was very difficult. That said the misses really wanted it. I am positive some of my pest came from that coral.

Do we know if this is a Bobbit or something else? Anyone?

so was that actually a bobbit?

Yes I think so. It has the 5 antenna at the front. At night it becomes more active and the first night I went down to check on it. It was trying to climb out of the bowl and it would breach the surface of the water and begin to open its mouth. It has two black hook looking jaws inside of its mouth. Not sure how big the jaws are as it never full extended them.

My best guess for genus would be the Marphysa maybe Marphysa sanguinea? Any one else able to identify?

 

[kathya0321]

Quick update:

I have been using raw shrimp as bait for most of the nights the night before last I tried Nori, which didnt attract anything.

This brings me to last night. I had my first activity at the trap. This thing must be insanely smart or I am giving it too much credit you be the judge. The lights went out at 10:30p. From this point on I am checking the tank with a red light every 30min to 1hr. I did see one very small worm about 1mm in diameter. I couldn't ID as it was so small and a few seconds after the red light touch it retreated, which I am a little disappointed in as I had hoped the red light would let me view without scaring the creaters of the night. Did I get the wrong light? Before I get to the rest of last night do bobbits reproduce in the home aquarium? Those who have defeated them did others smaller individuals pop up?

Now on to what happened. At 1:30a the trap started to move(sinking into the sand and rotating). I was still up so I went to see the tank and shined the light as fast as I could in the area where the trap was just incase it retreated. I examined the whole area but, unfortunately nothing was there. I waited, but nothing happened. At about 2:30a the trap started to rotate slowly and rock back and forth. After reviewing all the footage nothing showed itself the entire night. I am wondering if this thing can see the IR light from the baby monitor?

Something I found interesting was usually the trap has all my nassarius and bumble bee snails interested in it all night long, but when this thing is there it seems like most of them stayed far away. Once it left they all came back. Below is a video that had the most movement in a single go.



I think tonight I will try the same location, but will set the trap with the opening facing down in the sand. Any other ideas are welcomed.

Any Updates?