Slime predator?

[mr_X]

so i'm looking at my clam. not a crochea, or whatever, but an ordinary clam that has grown into the side of a piece of live rock i bought. he lives. i know this because he opens and closes.
now the strange thing. last night i was observing some strange slime drooping off of the rock, near where he "lives". below is a pic of another group of this slime in my other tank (same batch of rock in both tanks).
today i look, and this slime is kinda gone, but a dark greyish slime has accumilated on the clam's shell, right in about the same place this other slime was yesterday. i think it could be the same slime at 2 different stages in it's life cycle maybe.
i guess it's a greenish/greyish color.
shavo has some of the same rock, and in his tank i have seen this green/grey slime.
does anyone know what it is?

 

[mr_X]

a guess even?

 

[LeslieH1]

Is your clam still alive? If not, it may have been eaten by the mollusc-eating polychaete Oenone fulgida. the worm usually lives in burrows or crevices in rock. At night it will stretch out of it's burrow, cover a clam with slime, then eats it. It's not known if the slime is poisonous, if it suffocates the clam, or if it's just so nasty it keeps other predators/scavengers from interfering with the worm's meal.

 

[LeslieH1]

Is your clam still alive? If not, it may have been eaten by the mollusc-eating polychaete Oenone fulgida. the worm usually lives in burrows or crevices in rock. At night it will stretch out of it's burrow, cover a clam with slime, then eat it. It's not known if the slime is poisonous, if it suffocates the clam, or if it's just so nasty it keeps other predators/scavengers from interfering with the worm's meal.

 

[LeslieH1]

Is your clam still alive? If not, it may have been eaten by the mollusc-eating polychaete Oenone fulgida. the worm usually lives in burrows or crevices in rock. At night it will stretch out of it's burrow, cover a clam with slime, then eat it. It's not known if the slime is poisonous, if it suffocates the clam, or if it's just so nasty it keeps other predators/scavengers from interfering with the worm's meal.

 

[mr_X]

it's still alive. and i haven't seen the slime stuff since.

 

[SnowManSnow]

to my limited knowlege a crocea clam is the only one that bores into rock... or maybe its just the only tri. clam...

I donno.
As far as the dripping slime goes... hmmm

Is it somthing laying eggs???????

other than that you may have some sort of monster in there.

b

 

[mr_X]

leslie. you were right! i saw him this morning. he covered a snail with that stuff. ugh. how do i get rid of this thing? 8O
what is a predator to the worm?..i will get some tough lobster or something to eat him... :evil:

 

[LeslieH1]

Don't get a lobster unless you want to get rid of more of your tank's inhabitants! That's asking the fox to watch the chickens.... :lol:

These are especially hard to catch. Did yours come completely out of the rock? Most of them keep their hind ends in the burrow so a baited trap isn't that useful. A big pair of forceps & a lot of luck might work, as might removing the rock & pouring any carbonated drink into the hole.

 

[mr_X]

yeah..he only had part of his body out of the hole as far as i could tell. he was fast. unfortunately i didn't see which rock he went into either..i was half asleep and just caught a glimpse of him, but what i did see was about 5 inches of worm! the part that bothers me most is i just ordered a maxima clam! i hope i can get him soon. 8O

 

[LeslieH1]

They will attack tridachnas so it's worth the effort to take apart your rocks to get him. Good luck!

 

[mr_X]

i was able to capture a pic of the worm in question.
he has eyes, and the good news is, when i rearranged my tanks and the rock, he is now in the FOWLR. yay! he is now quite bold, or maybe he's just starving.
he has bristles, like a bristleworm, but they independently move, like little legs to help him glide across the sand bottom. lightening fast, and a lighter brown color, not the reddish brown of the common bristles i see in my fuge. also very prominent segments, like the earthworm.
here he is....best i could capture so far:

(notice all the empty snail shells 8O )

 

[LeslieH1]

Congratulations! May your snails live long and prosper.

He IS a bristleworm but a different type. Polychaete is latin for "many bristles" so everything in this class of organisms are bristleworms. Reefers tend to use the name just for members of the family Amphinomidae, the fireworm family.
Your guy is indeed Oenone fulgida in the family Oenonidae. What you're calling bristles are his legs. The bristles in this family are small & transparent. Unless they reflect light you really don't notice them. O. fulgida is normally either orangish or greenish.
I'm sure it's searching for molluscs. Please let me know if you see it feeding on something else - I'm curious to know if they will eat other animals or detritus or if they'll starve to death without molluscs.

 

[mr_X]

i was gonna toss in some meaty cube-foods to try and feed him..see how big i can grow him :wink:
if i have to feed him snails to allow him to live, he's gonna starve.
i have a silver dollar sized emerald crab and a real evil gumball-sized hermit that have been banished from the reef, who reside in there with him. do you think he would have a go at one of those? possibly the hermit due to the familiar shell?

 

[LeslieH1]

I don't know but I'd be very interested in hearing if he does!

 

[mr_X]

leslie. i put some frozen cube food called "angel formula" in the tank. it's supposed to be made up of fish, marine sponges, and algae. i broke it into 4 or 5 nice sized chunks. this morning i saw the worm eating them. he covered them with slime first. apparently, these things will eat just about anything that will sit still long enough. 8O

 

[LeslieH1]

Thanks, that confirms that these guys can survive in tanks without molluscs - which could be bad news for reefers.