Resolved Nasty looking worm UPDATE 1/16/11

I had an outbreak of these; and they were a pain; there two about 8 inches long. They got behind my foam rock wall; I had to break the tank down to catch it. I ended up doing this because I did see a lot of smaller ones. I saw them eating the acans so I broke the tank down because I knew I would never get rid of the babies. Also just do what you do; Bleach it; boil it and rinse again and again and then just let it air dry; the chlorine will just evaporate.

 

Thanks for the advice, mikev15101. It's been soaking in water/bleach for 2 days now. I think it's time to boil it and get it over with. I suppose, since it's very cold outside and any water inside would freeze, I can leave it in the house. Temp stays at around 78/79 through the day.

Thanks again for the response, and I'm sorry it came to breaking down the tank in your case. The head of this worm looks just like the one on your pic, only that mine was inside the cerith he was eating at the moment, but when he snatched him, I was able to see it. They're pretty ugly. I'm glad he's dead/dying now.

 

UPDATE!

So, I've confirmed the worm is dead. I took the rock a couple of days ago from the 5 gallon bucket with water and bleach and boiled it for about 2 hours since I really wanted to make sure he was dead. When I turn the stove off, there he came floating and had shrinked to about half an inch.

I'm now drying the rock in-house since it's freezing temperature outside.

How do I go about placing this rock back in the tank? Do I need to cure it or can I consider it dead base rock? I never learned much about LR or base rock curing etc. So your help understanding my next steps will be greatly appreciated.

- Mag.

 

well im glad you were able to finally rid the tank of the worm. Depending how large the rock is will determine how long this process takes. But you will want to flush the rock with hot hot water again, shake and try to maybe get a stream of water make sure everything is cleaned out of the rock no lose debris. Let it air dry for a day, rinse again and air dry again. This will make sure no spike from die off and all of the chlorine has evaporated.

 

Thank you very much for your help. Will boiling it a few more times accomplish killing what's left inside? I don't think I have a way to flush things out from the inside unless I use a hose, but would have to connect it to tap water... i think that's a no-no, correct?

 

Your welcome. It won't hurt; but you will prolly be fine doing without it. Just swish it around in the bucket or something, it will get most of it out. It will be fine in no time.

 

I've been out of the web for some time now, fortunately because a new job came along. I'm working as a graveyard shift interpreter for the children's hospital and it has kept me very busy with the flu season and all these stomach bugs.

But to keep things updated:

I bleached the rock for several days, leaving it completely submerged in water/bleach mix. Things died off very quickly and the rock turned very white. After that, I boiled it and let dry, in that order, 2 consecutive times. After the first time, I was able to find the worm floating in the live rock soup, shrunken up to about half an inch (did not take pics unfortunately) which automatically stamped a grin on my face.

I let the rock dry for aout 7 days in a pretty worm environment and finally placed it back in the tank. The rock is still pretty white, but not as white as it used to be after bleaching/boiling.

So, to sum it up, if you have a nasty worm and chasing him with club soda did not work for you and you really, REALLY want it out of there, this is what worked for me. Hope it helps someone else.

- Mag.