Two Critters

[doktorstick]

I have a red LED flashlight.  It's fantastic to pull out a few hours after the lights have gone out and the lights in the living room have been out for a while, too.  All sorts of interesting things go on and it doesn't scare things away (mostly... my YWG flees from it).

I noticed two new things tonight that I'll try to describe.  The first is worm-like.  It extended out of a hole in a rock and was banded, somewhat like a coral snake but without the repeating patterns.  It had some sort of mouth it would shove into the substrate and when it retracted, it was like the mouth folding into a sheath.  It was thick, too, probably thicker than a coffee straw but thinner than a pencil.

The second was similar to spaghetti worms except they weren't light colored like spaghetti worms and they didn't come out of tubes.  Instead, what appeared to be a dozen or two of these long, thin "arms"/"worms" emanating from a sponge-like base.  Think daddy-long-legs but with 18+ non-jointed legs coming from a slightly larger base.  I say "sponge-like" base because I saw the peppermint shrimp back over it and it looked like it jiggled and squished.  It is stationary.  It's been there since I had the tank, but I always thought there were a few spaghetti worms there... until tonight.

Any idea what these two things are?  ("Thing" is appropriate for the second critter.  It was making my skin crawl watching it.)

Oh, and I have three small (pin-sized) bubble algae on one of my rocks.  Grr.  I'm planning on leaving it alone and see what happens.  I have a mithrax crab, but Steve (as he's called) never goes over to that side of the tank.

[Wippit]

Sounds creepy.

Newbie question: I guess any kind of hitchhiker can show up with LR/LS. Do you think this may have been the case?

[+mcallahan]

I noticed two new things tonight that I'll try to describe. The first is worm-like. It extended out of a hole in a rock and was banded, somewhat like a coral snake but without the repeating patterns. It had some sort of mouth it would shove into the substrate and when it retracted, it was like the mouth folding into a sheath. It was thick, too, probably thicker than a coffee straw but thinner than a pencil.

Sounds like the kraken worm! Yikes!