The Spaghetti Worm Incident

[305Reefer]

I need some advice.

About 2 months ago inside the Zoa/LPS dominant nano reef I keep in my office, there was an accident. After feeding my corals, I forgot to turn the tank back on and walked away. The reality is I used to always feed my corals and then go smoke a cigarette so they had a chance to swallow. I quit smoking.

I came back the next day to find my pygmy geometric hawkfish upside down dead, every single snail & stomatella in the tank at the water surface, corals closed, and what will become the theme of this thread, every spaghetti work in the tank had vacated their subterreanean homes in the sand and found their way to my rocks and corals.

I plugged the tank back in, removed the dead, and did a massive 90% water change, and then another 75% change maybe 2 days later. Three weeks after the tank had bounced back perfectly and you could barely tell anything had happened at all. Except for one rather annoying and particularly frustrating thing.

The spaghetti works all stayed on the rocks. Normally not a big deal. But in a zoa/paly tank they have been all over their polyps now for 2 months. They (the zoas) are constantly in a state of irritation due to the spaghetti worms and Im not sure how to proceed. Some of my bigger paly colonies that I've had for a while have stayed so irritated for so long they are beginning to shrink slowly and, I'm sure, are not far from a full on meltdown.

Has anyone ever dealt with something like this? I manually removed as many as I could but most have their bodies in the rocks and only their tentacles touching the corals. Is there a spaghetti worm predator? lol Any helps would be super appreciated. Pic for attention.

 

[WV Reefer]

I need some advice.

About 2 months ago inside the Zoa/LPS dominant nano reef I keep in my office, there was an accident. After feeding my corals, I forgot to turn the tank back on and walked away. The reality is I used to always feed my corals and then go smoke a cigarette so they had a chance to swallow. I quit smoking.

I came back the next day to find my pygmy geometric hawkfish upside down dead, every single snail & stomatella in the tank at the water surface, corals closed, and what will become the theme of this thread, every spaghetti work in the tank had vacated their subterreanean homes in the sand and found their way to my rocks and corals.

I plugged the tank back in, removed the dead, and did a massive 90% water change, and then another 75% change maybe 2 days later. Three weeks after the tank had bounced back perfectly and you could barely tell anything had happened at all. Except for one rather annoying and particularly frustrating thing.

The spaghetti works all stayed on the rocks. Normally not a big deal. But in a zoa/paly tank they have been all over their polyps now for 2 months. They (the zoas) are constantly in a state of irritation due to the spaghetti worms and Im not sure how to proceed. Some of my bigger paly colonies that I've had for a while have stayed so irritated for so long they are beginning to shrink slowly and, I'm sure, are not far from a full on meltdown.

Has anyone ever dealt with something like this? I manually removed as many as I could but most have their bodies in the rocks and only their tentacles touching the corals. Is there a spaghetti worm predator? lol Any helps would be super appreciated. Pic for attention.

Hi! Have you tried “blowing” them out Turkey baster style?

 

[Dystinction]

While I don't have any good advise to pass along regarding your topic, here, I must say that you have one of the nicest nano tanks I have seen!
Good luck with the worms.

 

[305Reefer]

Hi! Have you tried “blowing” them out Turkey baster style?

I have. They kinda get blown around and perhaps retract temporarily but it doesn't force them to relocate. They just re extend after a half day passes...

 

[WV Reefer]

I have. They kinda get blown around and perhaps retract temporarily but it doesn't force them to relocate. They just re extend after a half day passes...

Maybe a Wrasse of some sort? I’ve heard Coris Wrasse will eat them. I know Six Lines will eat them. Not sure what else.

 

[305Reefer]

While I don't have any good advise to pass along regarding your topic, here, I must say that you have one of the nicest nano tanks I have seen!
Good luck with the worms.

Thanks! I just turned 6 months and has progressed extremely quickly.

 

[305Reefer]

Maybe a Wrasse of some sort? I’ve heard Coris Wrasse will eat them. I know Six Lines will eat them. Not sure what else.

Hmmm, a sixline is interesting. Its only a 25g tank, would a sixline be ok in such a small tank with a blue banded pipefish and yasha goby? Might be worth it regardless as this was originally going to be a zoa dominant tank and I have a bunch of frags that have been cooking in my frag tank to place in here.. I dont want to throw the more expensive zoas in here or to have them not thrive.

 

[WV Reefer]

Hmmm, a sixline is interesting. Its only a 25g tank, would a sixline be ok in such a small tank with a blue banded pipefish and yasha goby? Might be worth it regardless as this was originally going to be a zoa dominant tank and I have a bunch of frags that have been cooking in my frag tank to place in here.. I dont want to throw the more expensive zoas in here or to have them not thrive.

A six line would probably murder everyone. lol. They are good pest eaters but usually end up bullying everyone.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Yeah a sixline will be fine in that size tank and it should eat the worms.

 

[305Reefer]

Its funny how fast a thread can get buried when no one has a solution to your problem. lol TTT!!

 

[Livinlocal]

I would try an arrow crab. They love worms

 

[WannaBSpaghetti]

I've never kept one so I dont know if they'll tend to climb up on your rocks to take care of your problem - but a young sandsifting sea star should/might skitter around plucking up any of these worms that aren't hiding themselves where they should be - deep under the sand.

My only concern is the possibility of it pushing your rock/coral around. Again, I've never kept one, so I would defer to someone with seastar experience.

 

[User1]

Personally speaking I prefer the worms. They help a lot with cleaning up left over food among other things. However, they can get to plague proportions. I tend to get into that state a couple times a year with my previous 40 breeder and now 210 gallon that I merged the 40 into. It is pretty amazing how quickly they can spread out across 150 lbs of rock :) In any case to your point. Six line would make short work of them but they are a bit on the aggressive side of fish. Little fellas pack a mean attitude. Pretty, fast, always stalking. Maybe not what you want. I've not tried a arrow crab but that may be a better solution outside of adding a wrasse type hunting fish.

Possum wrasse may - that could be a interesting possibility. Maybe read up a bit on what they eat. Calm, pretty, and I believe active hunters.

 

[Mark Gray]

Maybe a Banded Coral shrimp he will eat them as long as he does not have a lot of other food

 

[fishplace817]

Just remove that section out problem and add new rocks in.

 

[Tft12]

I also think a Six Line would do the job. If you get a smaller/younger one I think you’d have a pretty good chance of it not bothering your clowns (they looked pretty big). If it does cause trouble, one of those little guys would be easy to find a new home for. Over the years, the three that I’ve had didn’t turn out to be the terrors people label them as...that said, the usual “every fish is different” statement always applies, and your tank is on the smaller side so that always increases the chances for aggression issues. Personally, I would give it a try and just keep my eye on him. Royal Grammas are also pretty big worm eaters and not very quarrelsome. Every pseudochromis I’ve had ate worms but I’ve never had one of those that isn’t a complete terror.

 

[Tft12]

By the way, regarding how you initially ran into this trouble, I did the same thing on a qt tank a few years ago but I luckily caught it before anything died. Since then I have the life support system of my qt run through a Smart Plug that’s scheduled to give an “On” command every hour so that I can’t really hurt anything by forgetting to turn the pumps back on after feeding. They’re pretty cheap and I’ve found them to be helpful and convenient.

 

[305Reefer]

By the way, regarding how you initially ran into this trouble, I did the same thing on a qt tank a few years ago but I luckily caught it before anything died. Since then I have the life support system of my qt run through a Smart Plug that’s scheduled to give an “On” command every hour so that I can’t really hurt anything by forgetting to turn the pumps back on after feeding. They’re pretty cheap and I’ve found them to be helpful and convenient.

That's perfect. I have smart plugs, just never realized I could send them an "on" command every hour. I'm certainly going to do that.

 

[305Reefer]

Baby sixline wrasse going in tomorrow. Ive also noticed Asterina star population building up a little so I massacred all of those as well just in case.

 

[305Reefer]

TTT!