Oregon man finds 7 foot worm in his reef tank at Cephalopodcast

Oregon man finds 7 foot worm in his reef tank

Published

on April 26, 2007

. Tags: invertebrates.

Steve Weast has a custom, ~900 gallon (~4000 L) Fiji reef tank. He was dismayed to find a 7 foot polychaete eating his +$25 coral polyps.

I staked out the tank one evening with a red lens flashlight in an attempt to catch the suspected villainous shrimp or crab. What I saw caused many sleepless nights. Through an opening in the live rock, I spied what looked like a worm with a diameter of about ¾”. This worm was passing through this live rock opening…and passing…and passing…and then passing some more…just how long was this thing? Suddenly, the worm stopped…and way over on the other side of the tank…

More details and pictures of the extraction at OregonReef.com.

1 Response to “Oregon man finds 7 foot worm in his reef tank”

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1 Jason
April 29, 2007 at 11:29 pm

Well, if I thought this Eunicid worm was long, that was before I found out that the boot lace nemertean worms (Lineus longissimus) can grow in excess of 30 meters (that’s ~98 feet)! Pictures don’t do it justice.