A new worm in the tank..

[X_Digger]

I keep an occasional eye on a USB microscope camera I have pointed at my reef tank. Every so often I catch something new to me, or especially cool. This one is cool- I've seen one before, but never in the tank doing its thing. They have a set of jaws that are amazing. The evert their mouthparts, flipping them inside out. They pivot like a pair of scissors.

Here's a pic I took of another dorvellid a couple years ago.

[Curmudgeoness]

1. That is so cool.

Do you have any idea how this guy (or gal) got in there in the first place?

[X_Digger]

2. Every so often, I drop in a cup of sand or rock from another well-established tank.

One thing that reef keepers have noticed is that over time, our closed systems tend to slide toward a loss of diversity. We don't have the ocean to wash in new species on a regular basis.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. I have no doubt that you lose diversity over time.

That is why I was surprised that you found something new. And if all the tanks are closed systems, I wouldn't expect to find anything new. You are lucky to have found this one.

Are the other well-established tanks that you get new sand or rock from yours? Or do you have other people who you share with? I wouldn't expect that there would be a large number of people doing this in an area that is close enough to trade off easily.

As you can see, I am fascinated.

[X_Digger]

4. Well, there are folks whose husbandry skills I trust, and then there are others...

Every new fish, invertebrate, and coral goes through a quarantine and treatment process that lasts about six weeks before it goes in the main tank- there are a number of pest species that we work really hard to avoid. Some of that is active preventative medication, but much of it is simple observation.

Luckily most of the coral pests we encounter are visible to the naked eye, and fish parasites starve fairly quickly without a host to feed upon. (The coral and fish quarantine systems are separate- I even use different tools to clean the respective tanks to cut down on cross-contamination.)

So it's a calculated risk, importing new organisms into the tank with a scoop of sand or a chunk of rock. Every time I do it, I wonder if I'm introducing planaria flatworms, cryptocaryon irritans, or acropora eating flatworms. That's where the trust comes from- I only get sand or rock from those who practice similarly strict protocols.