Nothing like some 4 AM aquascaping....

it is now coming on to 6 am here in NY. I was up at 4 to get some water, and like always, i look into the tank with a flashlight....

Needless to say i figured out why my pile of empty snail shells had been growing steadily....i saw a worm that resembled the pics in the thread as linked below. I cannot say that it matched exactly, BUT it was stretched out to at least 6 inches long. I could tell that it had a pattern of hair-like "spikes" along its segments, it was a thin worm but LONG and not all of it was exposed either. It had a bit of an iridescent quality to it in the light from my flashlight.

Hopped on here, did a little poking around on the ID threads, found this particular thread:

http://www.3reef.com/forums/id/help-id-thing-me-thank-you-80173.html

As far as I was concerned, it was 4 AM, and it looked close enough....

I just now cleaned up after tearing the rocks down and removing the suspect rock that i think this thing lives in.

This was insult to injury though because i spent all of Thursday night cleaning my tank and redoing all the rockwork with the exception of the one or two where my Goby and pistol shrimp were hiding. It was the largest base rock in the tank and is fairly porous. It also was where the worm retreated to when i startled it with the flashlight.

That rock now sits in a plastic tub with the snail carcass that the worm was munching. I am hoping bigtime that it indeed lives in that rock.
What unnerves the you-know-what out of me is that the rock has been in that tank since I started it in October.

The most irksome thing about this is now the fact that my pistol and goby split up in all the ruckus and their favorite burrow spot is different now. I did what I could to recreate it with other rocks. I just dont want them separated now

So now i will worry until i see the pistol and goby together again.

In the meantime, I spose I may as well start some coffee, then do some venting on that rock with a hammer!

 

good luck onefish two fish.....channel your anger.......see your target...strike clean, concise and crush the crap outta that creepy crawly critter!

 

I agree! would also like to see a pic of it if you manage to get it out. I'm always interested in the good and bad creepy crawlers of a tank.

 

Quick update : the hammer was way too loud for that hour so i am going to be doing that after i try to see if i can flush this beast out of the rock...it is going to unnerve me until i know that i truly got it.

As much as this beast wigged me out - then p&$$ed me off as i loaded rocks back and forth (while my bewildered fish and critters looked on) - i would like to get a decent pic of this thing so i can post it for those who are curious. Plus, it will convince me that this was not a bad dream or hallucination.

Meanwhile, the goby (Mrgl) has located the shrimp (Tonka) - but i can tell he is unhappy because the burrow is not in the normal place and he cannot fit down into where Tonka is digging yet. He keeps hovering then cruising back over to where the main headquarters of the burrow system was to defend it and maintain squatter's rights. I suspect that Mrgl wants Tonka to hurry his excavating back over to start working on that again. The rest of the normally peaceable bunch are all swimming around a bit puzzled over some of the changes and trying to reclaim their spots.

So......about flushing this beast out of the rock? I realize that flaming torches and pitchforks are not going to work in this scenario. I need some effective suggestions.

Does anyone have suggestions? what about boiling water? I saw something mentioned elsewhere that carbonated water works.

thanks in advance!

 

Alot of times just taking the rock out of water for a while works. Once it starts to run low on oxygen it will come out on its own.