Eunice Worms

Hi,
first sorry for not being able to post a pic, these fellas are quick!!!
I am pretty sure i have 2 eunice worms living in my rock. they are bigger and more rounded than bristle worms and have 3 little spikes on their heads. they seem to have quite a large mouth and under my red light i see then grabbing bits of shellfrom the sand bed. one is living in my mushroom rock and the other in a hole in my honeycomb brain coral. As far as i know they are leaving other inhabitants alone but how worried should i be? Do i need to try and remove them and how should i go about it? Cant be sure of the length but i think one is at least 4".

Sounds like one... I know there are different types.
My friend had one that was almost 3 feet long and was destroying her corals... I don't know if this is common or the exception.

3 feet long!!!! Thats as long as my tank!
Lets hope mine are dwarf versions!

Her tank was only a 24g cube... she couldn't believe it! I saw this thing in person!

So there is room for growth!
How did she manage to get it out?
I am picturing a stake out with a tweezer type gadget!!

Tough to say. I have several in my 55gal that I am not worried about. None are growing at a worrying rate or showing signs of aggression to other things in the tank. On the other hand, there are the 3-footer cases - and as small worms I do not know how to distinguish them or if it's even possible without dissecting the animal to ID it. I am a bit of a noob when it comes to Eunicids, since I have seen very few up close, but my impression is that the monsters are actually quite rare and many people have small ones without knowing they're in the tank (much like many other types of worms). My guess would be that if they are living that close to corals and not damaging them, they are probably not a threat. Especially for the one living more-or-less in a coral, you may be hard-pressed to remove them currently without causing damage to other things, so it is probably worth seeing if they behave themselves. If you're seeing them regularly, keep an eye on the size over time. If it looks like they're going to turn into massive monsters, you may want to remove them as a precaution in case the size alone would pose a risk to small animals; the same issue would exist for non-worm scavenging animals too.

Maybe i will just keep a close watch on them. They have both been out collecting shells for the last few nights so i know where they live!!
The one i am most worried about is the smaller one living in the brain. At night it has started showing its skeleton a little and the bits of shell that are being collected are starting to dig into its flesh when it is all puffed up during the day.Will try and get some pics tomorrow to show you what i mean. The other corals all seem healthy though.
Thanks

These are at night pictures. Sorry they are a bit fuzzy, holding red light with one hand camera with the other and trying to focus all at the same time!!!
coral looks much healthier during the day. will post a pic tomorrow.

That looks almost identical to some that I have. It could even be the same, but they are hard to ID beyond genus level and also hard to photograph in a lot of detail. Kudos for getting a pic of yours - I've always failed! I have been told is that the white band on the back places them somewhere in the Eunice genus proper (as opposed to just in the family), but I don't know how many have that stripe. The burrow decorating behavior is something mine do as well. Mine use dead Halimeda as their first choice of decorating material. If you wanted it out you'd probably be looking at injecting some carbonated beverage into the burrows, which has always sounded like a messy thing to me. If it were me, I would worry that being potentially soaked in soda might shock a coral than having a few bits of stuff stuck around, but I have not done much in the way of LPS keeping so someone else would have to chime in on how well they tolerate that sort of thing.

It was not easy getting a picture!!! As long as nothing is being attacked and the coral continues to puff up during the day then maybe i will just keep a close watch. I am sure in nature they do not get dragged out of their burrows for no reason and it is a reef i am trying to re-create after all!
Here is a pic of my brain coral today complete with shell decorations around his burrow.

Well the worst has happened! I am blaming the enuice worm entirely for my loss.

i have been away on a residential for a few days with my class. Left my yank in the hands of my husband. On my return all was well apart from Simon, my lovely cowrie snail, was very close to the big worms burrow. On closer inspection the shell was completely empty He was very big so the little worm must be full to bursting. There is nothing else in the tank that would have attacked and he has been doing a grand job of cleaning up the tank so i know he was eating well.
War has now been declared Any ideas about how i can catch my monster?

Maybe a bear trap?

jar with bait

Gotta say that a worm that small isn't really the first thing that would come to my mind suspects-wise, unless the cowrie was really quite small as well. What is the tank's stocking currently, and what size and species of cowrie?

The picture i posted was of the smaller worm. The other seems quite a lot bigger but does not venture out far enough for me to get a good picture!
Simon was a tiger cowrie about 3" in length. I had planned on adding a fighting conch and my LFS got this fella in instead, telling me he would do a better job and would be less destructive.(should have been wary i know) After a bit of research decided to give it a go and went back to get him. He seemed to be doing really well and was fascinating to watch.
My current stock list is:
1 Percula Clow
1 Ruby head fairy wrasse
1 Citron Goby
3 peppermint shrimp
About 20 mixed snails astrea, cerith, nassurius, mexican turbo
I did also have 6 blue leg hermits but they all disappeared about 2 weeks ago.

My water parameters are all good. was a little worried about nitrates being between 10 and 20 but removed sponges from canister filters and moved carbon media net in their place and nitrates were down to 5 -10 before the cowrie went in.