Remove of Eunice sp. bristleworm

Now it got me. After my tank ran perfectly for years, I noticed lately overnight disappearance of Zoanthus, disc anemones, soft corals and SPS. One night, the light was out, I saw him – a huge Eunice bristleworm with a minimum of 80cm lying across the sandbed. With a Eheim-tong I tried to take him directly – had him – but it was cut through in the middle and so I was only able to remove only 40cm long piece. The rest (with head) fled. I learned that Eunice worms are really fast …

I spend some nights watching… identified two caves, between which he traveled each night. Over the last years I had always noticed that stones, shells and coral branches were dragged into the live rock. He has closed the entrance and exits. Eunice worms are extremely fast, light sensitive and come rarely completely out of the cave. I spend around 2 weeks – always after about 1 hour after turning off the light it went our of the cave.

How can you remove a Eunice sp. worm? After my research, almost all who have discovered that worm in their aquarium, gave up hunting but removed the liverock including the worm. If your don’t get the chance to catch it by chance, there is no way to catch him. As stress response and to preserve life it splits up in pieces very easily, which Likewise traps are not working. Only in one case it worked – here: I built a similar trap, but gave up.

The end of the worm: Ultimately, I decided to remove a liverockpillar. Took it out, smashed the rock, removed the worm and reconstructed the reef.