One of the joys of getting a new piece of live rock, aside from the knowledge that you have saved it from a long and healthy life in its natural environment, are the little creatures that always accompany the rock.

I have been fortunate to get the most diverse collection of miniature crabs, hermit crabs, starfish and anemones that any fish enthusiasts could ever want. Many of these little creatures have out lasted the rock that they came on.

But this last shipment gave me a bonus. I first noticed it swimming on the surface of the aquarium early one morning. It was only around six inches long and was somewhat white with stripes of red and brown. When it saw me it disappeared into the crevices of the rocks.

I forgot all about it as you sometimes can do with creatures you see once and it wasn’t until two months later that he reappeared. This time he was almost ten inches and was this time creeping over and between rocks on the bottom, scavenging for food.

I got a better look at him this time. He was flattened with a dark brown stripe down his back. He had cilia along the outer edge that were white with a gorgeous shade of pink on the tips.

This time he didn’t seem bothered by me at all and just kept on scavenging until I lost sight of him in the rocks. I went to the local fish store where I had obtained the live rocks and inquired as to what this creature was. The best we could do was to determine that it was a worm of some kind.

The store owners looked in a few books but to no avail. It seems that books on worms haven’t been written by the powers to be in the Aquarium Publication business, so I had to just keep on wondering.

The next time I saw my little worm he had grown to over a foot in length. I decided that this time I would remove him and place him in my photo tank so that I could get some pictures to show around and see if anyone could identify him.

I set up my photo tank the way I always do. A power filter was placed on the back and the small all glass tank was filled up with the water from the aquarium that the photo subject was coming from. Then when I had the camera loaded and the flash charged I went to fish out my subject. There hadn’t been any nets in that aquarium for over three months and I got the little fellow by surprise.

Boy did he put up a fight. He tried to worm (excuse the expression) his way out of that net, but I folded it over on him and he went for a quick ride to the photo tank. In the photo tank he was not even cooperative and was searching for ways out, rocks to hide under, generally he wanted to be anywhere but there.

I promised him that if he just stood still long enough for me to get a few good shots that he could go right back in his home. That didn’t seem to calm him down any. Finally I decided that I would hold him next to the glass and get some pictures. I would force him to cooperate.

The next few moments were the start of a living hell of two weeks. When I went to gently whisk him forward I found out that his cilia were like little needles and they embedded into my hand and broke off. It was like someone had put little tiny matches under my skin.

I was in too much pain to shoot any pictures and it was all I could do not to kill that worm, instead of putting him back in the home tank. He did make it home as I was leaving out the door for the emergency room.

I told the doctors what had got to my hand and all they could do was give me a local anesthetic and send me home with a general solution which they hoped would help the pain. Without the knowledge of what this worm was they couldn’t help me much.

I spent the next few days in agony while I did as much research that I could to find out my worms true identity. I finally found it in a guide to poisonous creatures of the sea. It was Chloeia viridis, the Red-tipped Fireworm. The book said that it had "Long white setae along margin of body can penetrate your skin, so do not touch." Great, now they tell me.

After about two weeks, I forgot all about the hurt in my hands. I still haven’t seen the worm since. I guess he’s as afraid of me as I am of him. So take this as a warning, watch what you get with your live rocks.

This article originally appeared in the Newsletter of the Tampa Bay Aquarium Society.

I think.

Updated o1/6/99 MFJ